Barnabas - the one who encourages

AFter 3 and half years, Becky, has completed her time at Highbury as our Pastoral Assistant.

During our services on 17th July we said 'farewell' to Becky and wished her every blessing for her future, celebrating a wonderful time at Highbury.


Four years ago when we took the decision to appoint someone full time for more than a year it seemed so wonderful to have the prospect of working long-term alongside someone else in ministry. The last three years and a term have exceeded my expectations in all sorts of way … but in one respect they disappoint me. The time has flown far too quickly. I was excited to welcome Becky … but find it very difficult to say fare well!

There’s a very real sense of coming to an end and also seeing things come to fruition and grow.

Becky has helped shape three of our church weekends away and with Felicity has organised the children’s work there. As this last weekend came to an end in our worship on Pentecost Sunday Sheila Grimes came up to me and said how much the weekend had meant to her and how she wanted to become fully part of the family and enter into church membership. - so I have one last job for Becky to do when we receive Sheila and James into church membership – but we’ll come to that later.

It was great when Becky emailed me an updated list of all the children linked with the church and there were 34 names on the list … and there was one new name this week – Poppy Archer – great that Becky has seen a number of youngsters in their first three years … and supported so many others in so many ways.

So much has started, so much has become very much part of our church family. Just think of the last week – and how much we have done in this last week we are so indebted to Becky for … It’s been great to see Transformers get off the ground in partnership with St Luke’s and was wonderful to share in such a vibrant Sunday Special last week and such a lively Messy Church last Tuesday evening. Becky ha played a key part in Hy-Tec too, with last night’s bar-b-q, if not the sleepover!! The lunch on Wednesday and the community café on Thursday both came out of the community action group that Becky helped us put together. Prayer emails are very much part of the church family – but came out of the course on prayer that was one of the very first things Becky shared with us.

Becky has shared with us in the joys of new arrivals to the church family – but also the sadness of those who pass on. Today we think specially of Vic – but as we welcome Sue back we cannot help but remember Cecille who with Sue gave Becky such personal support in settling into the church family here at Highbury.

We owe a great big thank you to Becky for all sorts of things in the last three years and a bit.

So what is there to share?

Our Church Weekend away focused on Pentecost. Pentecost is the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is a festival that cannot simply come and go – it must remain with us. In our Christian faith we look to God creator of this wonderful world, to Jesus Christ who sets out a way of life for us to follow and brings God’s love close to our hearts. But then in the Holy Spirit we have a strength from beyond ourselves that is unseen yet very real and that strength makes all the difference to the living of our lives.

Since then we have been looking at the stories in Acts of people who came to follow Jesus and found the strength of the Holy Spirit so important in the living of their lives.

Today’s story is the story of Joseph, the Levite from Cyprus. It seems to me an appropriate story to share today of all days in all sorts of ways.

We first encounter Joseph, the Levite from Cyprus very early on in the story of the early church – he shared his all with the others and got himself a nickname.

From that point on they called him Barnabas which means literally, the Son of Encouragement.

Sharing of our plenty and giving to each as any has need is at the heart of Christian discipleship. To be an encourager is something all of us can aspire to … it is something that Becky has shared with us all, especially with me. Becky has that special gift of being able to work with people in a way that en-courages and em-powers – and that’s something very special for us to share.

Maybe that’s why Barnabas played such a key part in encouraging the church in Jerusalem to accept Paul, and in empowering Paul at the very outset.

After Saul made his escape from Damascus he went down to Jerusalem only to find that the disciples there were all afraid of him. They did not believe that the Saul who had been so vicious in his persection of them could have become a follower of Jesus himself.

Only one person believed in Saul, or Paul as he came to be known.

And that was Barnabas. “Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described fro them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.”

By now Barnabas really was living up to his new name and was an enormous encouragement to everyone in Jerusalem, not least to Paul. Sadly, however, they were facing immensely difficult times. Paul took time out and returned to his home town of Tarsus.

The church in Jerusalem heard that a group of followers of Jesus needed particular support in Antioch … and so they sent Barnabas – “when he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion, for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and o faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord.

But Barnabas knew he needed help in building up the church in Antioch and so he travelled to Tarsus and brought Saul back to Antioch.

So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people.

It’s fascinating catching a glimpse of the significant part played by this Son of Encouragement – in partnership for a short period of time.

But things happen … and things stick even after such a short period of time.

It is here in Antioch that another nickname is coined. This time it is a name for all the followers of Jesus Christ.

It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians”.

Then we come to one of the most powerful part s of the story.

Saul as he is still known and Barnabas have a very powerful message to share. They are engaged in teaching to help the disciples grow.

But teaching is never enough on its own.

A prophet, Agabus, comes to Antioch, with the leading of the Spirit, he predicts that there is going to be a very sever famine that will devastate many parts of the Roman world. The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Practical help alongside the teaching.

One of the things Vic has done until very recently has been to be one of our church visitors. Among those he would visit was Hilda Read. Hilda asked me to call round to see her this week. Unable to get out of the house, she told me how she had been profoundly moved by the pictures of the famine spreading through East Africa at the moment. She wanted to do something about it and had put aside some money she wanted to give. I got on the phone from Hilda’s to Mary Michael – and we have re-jigged our Communion Collection so that through August we will support Christian Aid’s response to the emergency in East Africa with our special collections.

Discipleship involves a message to share, practical help to give – it is only possible through the strength of the Spirit – and we need people to be our ‘Sons of Encouragement’.

There’s one more dimension to the Barnabas story I want to mention.

It is from that church in Antioch that Saul and Barnabas are commissioned by the people in the church to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to Cyprus and on into the Mediterranean world.

It is the first of Paul’s great missionary journeys. But Paul does not make that first journey alone. He goes with Barnabas.

And the two of them are a partnership.

I guess that’s what I have valued most about these last three and a bit years – the very real sense of working in a partnership together with Becky.

There is, however, a twist in the tale of Barnabas and Paul as they part company.

It’s not the same reason we are parting company – but church work does have its downs as well as its ups. Reading the story of the church in the New Testament it always has been the case – and because we are people all of whom are blemished I guess it ever will be thus!

Paul loses patience with young Mark, and Barnabas ever the encourager insists in sticking together with him. They part. And from Acts 16 we don’t meet up with Barnabas again.

Or at least, not quite.

We have to wind the clock forward to the point at which Paul is in prison. He writes one letter to the church in Ephesus telling them to put on the whole armour of God – a wonderful passage that cropped up in Sunday Special last week and again at Messy Church. Another letter is written to Philippi and two more to the church at Colossae – the church itself, and to the person who hosts the church in his home, Philemon. In Colossians 4:10 it looks as if once more Barnabas’ work of encouragement has borne fruit, Mark and Paul are back together again.

For us today, it is my prayer that we all of us will have encouragement from others, that we will give encouragement to others – above all that Becky will take encouragement from our church family here at Highbury for whatever lies in the future.