Understanding Encouragement

Many have suffered ‘a crisis of faith’ through witnessing the horrors of the Corona Virus pandemic and experiencing the loss of loved ones. When sudden unexpected disaster happens, it can bring about acute shock. According to The New York Times statistics as of July 1, 2022, global cases of Covid-19 have surpassed 567 million with over 6.38 million deaths. The total cases in the U. S. has exceeded 90 million with over 1.02 million deaths due to this acute respiratory syndrome COVID-19 virus. This news may have us totally devastated and crying out in despair asking, how could this horrible disease take so many lives all over the world? Some have lost hope or are overcome with anxiety, grief, and Corona Virus pandemic fatigue. We may feel totally devastated and unable to recover. In overwhelming grief some have loss hope and cried out in despair asking, how this horrible disease could take so many lives all over the world. Who do we turn to now? Many churches have suspended in person worship and are streaming Sunday Morning and Sabbath Day services through various on-line platforms. Other faith communities are using the combination of both in person and virtual worship for members who are still uncomfortable with assembling together. What has become apparent is the need for encouragement to provide the right words at the right time to restore our confidence, courage, hope, inspiration, joy, perseverance, and resilience. The study of encouragement emerged from the fields of positive psychology and Christian leadership development. As an inducement to persevere amid challenges or to thrive in new conquests, encouragement bolsters self-determination and can inspire hope. Encouragement is understood as both an internal and external manifestation and is defined within this context as an affirmation through language or symbolic representation for individuals to express their support for each other. Encouragement is also a positive concept that safeguards the emotions and enhances the psychological quality of life. The goal of encouragement is to instill the courage to reduce fear, perseverance to combat the urge to give up, confidence to heighten low self-efficacy, inspiration to resolve a lack of motivation, and finally, the hope to diminish pessimism for the future. Since Christian Pastors are called upon to offer spiritual guidance and inspiration, even when they may need encouragement themselves, my dissertation study seemed appropriate to share in today’s climate of uncertainty. In the face of tragedy and natural disaster, pastors are often the first point of contact for members of their congregations. Christian Pastors are community leaders and advocates for social justice. Not only must they be resilient, but they often model resiliency for their members in times of acute suffering. We understand that encouragement is a process that increases an individual’s capacity to perceive, understand, integrate, and manage one’s resources. The attributes of hope and resilience are closely associated with encouragement and are also protective and positive elements of encouragement. It can also foster the individual’s ability to successfully regulate extreme emotional situations. Y. Joel Wong developed the Tripartite Encouragement Model (TEM), to articulate the focus, effectiveness, and atmosphere in which verbal encouragement messages are communicated. To set the parameters for how one understands encouragement within this context, Wong contends that the focus of encouragement must be given to help the recipient in challenging situations or while embracing new opportunities. The effectiveness of encouragement is how the verbal messages successfully influence positive outcomes for recipients. The atmosphere of encouragement as delineated by Wong is the environment of the organization wherein affirming language is used to bolster and inspire others. Wong developed this relatively new model in the positive psychology field to guide the research of encouragement as either interpersonal communication, a character strength, group norm, or a combination of any or all three. Not only is encouragement from others important, but self-encouragement is vital as well to energize the self towards improvement and self-valuing efforts. Choosing to study new Christian Pastors gave us the opportunity to see the effects of challenge focused encouragement as well as potential focused encouragement. One of the frequent tasks of Christian Pastors is encouraging followers who are in crises, trauma or dealing with a wide range of spiritual issues. With the complex roles and multi-dimensional levels of responsibilities that clergy must assume, many newly assigned Christian Pastors are often overwhelmed, discouraged, or experience burnout during their first years of ministry. Christian Pastors deal with large numbers of stressors that include role overload and emotional labor. To accomplish the church’s spiritual mission of compassionately transforming communities, holy living, and committed evangelism, Christian Pastors must rely on God’s grace to lead their congregations. If the sense of calling erodes due to unmanaged stress, disillusionment, fatigue, and discouragement, it could increase the number of those who suffer clergy burnout or leave the pastorate altogether. By exploring the experiences of encouragement for newly appointed Christian Pastors’ we can glean knowledge on how they coped with the challenges and embraced the opportunities they faced. Additionally, we discovered how newly appointed Christian Pastors use self-encouragement to provide an understanding for energizing the self towards improvement and self-faith in their new and complex roles as pastor. Using a phenomenological research design we captured in the participant's own words their perceptions and descriptions of how encouragement was experienced. The phenomenological process utilized an interactive approach that uncovered what was experienced and how it was experienced as it related to the three elements of Wong’s tripartite encouragement model: focus, effectiveness, and atmosphere of encouragement.