Why We Can’t Live Without Encouragement (or Community) – guest post for Joan Hall

Community Today is the final day of my ‘week of encouragement’. Encouragement is a big theme which goes through much of my writing, and I’ll be looking at the power of words to shape us, the importance of encouragement and what it means for us, a lot more in the coming months.

This week we’ve talked about how words shape us, about how encouragement is how we discover our identity (on Chris Morris’s blog), and I’ve shared my story on an MP3.

I’ve also talked about my two books on encouragement – ‘5 Steps to Encouragement’ & ‘Reflections on Encouragement’ and the themes and issues I address in those books in more detail in a video interview.You can find links to all the posts at the bottom of this post.

To close the week, today I’m guest posting again, this time for another friend and writer Joan Hall.

I’m talking today about encouragement in the context of community. I’m discussing how community alongside encouragement are fundamental to what it means to be divinely human, in the way we were created to live.

There’s an excerpt below, with a link to the post – really hope it encourages, inspires and speaks to you today.

 

Encouragement is vital to our growth into the people God created us to be. I wouldn’t be the writer I am now without it. Just stop a moment and think of the areas you’re strongest. Your calling, your gifts, your passion. What it is that when you do it you feel alive.

For me it’s writing. For you it might be painting, architecture, leading, working in an office, or cooking. There’s a strong chance at some point in your life someone gave you a word of encouragement, or an opportunity to use or develop this gift.

We don’t grow into the people we were created to be, without encouragement. And by definition, we can’t be encouraged if we aren’t in community.

God said right at the beginning it wasn’t good for us to be alone. We weren’t designed to do life on our own. We were made to be with others, in fact, we were designed to both give, and receive, encouragement. And the best people to encourage us, are those who know us best.

Of course, we can all get words of encouragement from those we don’t know well. But the most important encouragement comes from those we trust the most.

Read The Rest Of This Post at Joan Hall Writes, here

 

Using Our Words With Integrity

Dance Of The Writer updated CoverWords change the world. And it’s important we’re honest, and authentic with how we use ours, and use them to encourage, not bring people down. In our art it’s important to balance the need to be professional with the importance of being true, being honest in all our work and our life.My e-book, ‘Dance Of The Writer: A Beginners Guide To Authentic Writing’ tackles these issues, and you can get it free today by filling in the form below.

 


 

 

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I hope you enjoyed this week of encouragement. I’d love to get your feedback – please either Tweet me at @JamesPrescott77, leave a comment below, or e-mail me at james@jamesprescott.co.uk – I’d love to hear from you.

And finally, here are all the links for this weeks posts – feel free to read and share them all!

 

 

 

 

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