Can We Start A Movement?

May 19

I was watching the finale of American Idol last night and Jelly Roll - the musician and this year’s Artist in Residence on the show- was singing a duet with the eventual winner of the show (no spoilers here).

They were singing a couple of Jelly Roll’s songs and, frankly, the other guy was out-singing him. Was he jealous? Was he insecure? No. Instead, he looked like a proud father, with a beaming smile from ear to ear and an arm on the guy’s shoulder as they sang together.

My wife - who doesn’t nearly get into the show as much as me and who merely watches it with me because she knows how much I love it - looks up from her phone, watches the performance unfolding on the stage and declares, “Jelly Roll is a Barnabas.”

In that moment, I couldn’t have been any more proud - of my wife…or the show for that matter.

I know it’s a silly singing show but there’s nothing I love more than seeing people chase their dreams with reckless abandon. And Jelly Roll - a guy who I admittedly prejudged when I first saw him - is one of the greatest encouragers you will ever see. He literally fans the flames of the contestants’ dreams and champions them every step of the way.

When my wife picked up on the Barnabas nature of Jelly Roll, I thought maybe she picked it up from my message this week titled, “Be A Barnabas.”But it’s been a crazy weekend and, truthfully, she hadn’t listened to it. But she’s been reading through Acts lately and every few chapters Barnabas shows up encouraging everyone in his path. He invests resources in his fellow believers, vouches for Saul after his conversion to Christ, spends a year in Antioch spurring on the Gentiles who had come to Christ and mentoring them in the faith, and stands up for John Mark after he had failed because he recognized the value in him.

If you know me at all and if you’ve followed my story or messages, you know how much I love Barnabas and how I’ve shared about my real-life Barnabas - Homer Greene, who I only knew for 6 months, but changed my life with the way he encouraged me.

I believe with all of my heart that biblical encouragement can change the world. It’s the entire basis for this ministry!

I want to encourage others and inspire them to do the same. I want to start a Barnabas Project where entire communities get intentional about encouraging others.

It’s ambitious, I know, and maybe you think I’m a little nutty about this, or at the very least going a little overboard.

But it’s what God has laid on my heart. I certainly don’t have the power to start a movement like that, but God does. And the entire story of the Bible is God working through unlikely people. So why can’t He work through you and I.

And let me say that if all this ministry does is encourage a few souls in their moment of need then I’m okay with it because I’ve been faithful to do what God has told me to do.

But, man, what if…what if God wants to start a movement in our midst?

One of my favorite movies is “Pay It Forward” where a kid tries to change his world by doing acts of kindness to people who are in need of it and encourages them to do the same to others - or Pay It Forward. He keeps at it but feels frustrated by the fact that the movement isn’t going as he had hoped. But (spoiler alert) the kid ends up dying and then we see scenes of how this movement has been spreading all across the nation unbeknownst to those who loved this boy. I know it’s just a movie, but I believe encouragement is contagious and - if God is at the forefront of it - who’s going to stop it?

Today, where I would love to start is to ask you a few questions. I would love it if you responded in the messages or you can DM me.