the barnabas effect

Today the church remembers a man named Joseph. You probably know him by his nickname, Barnabas. The name his friends gave him means "Son of Encouragement," and apparently he earned it every day. 

He was the kind of person whose name on your phone would make you smile. The kind of person you'd tell yourself on a hard Thursday, I just need to make it to Sunday and I'll see Barnabas.

We live in a lonelier world than most of us want to admit. People are drowning in noise and starving for someone who actually sees them. Someone who remembers what they said last week. Someone who calls not because they need something, but because they were thinking about you. People like Barnabas are rarer than they should be. 

His resume is remarkable. He validated the early church in Antioch when nobody else would. He was the first person to vouch for Paul when the disciples were still afraid of him. When Paul gave up on young John Mark, Barnabas refused to. Church history turns on that decision. 

Read Acts long enough and you notice something. The story keeps stopping to introduce you to someone. Dorcas sewing garments for widows. Lydia opening her home without hesitation. Priscilla and Aquila pouring themselves into a young preacher named Apollos. Over and over, Acts interrupts itself to say: look at this person. Look what the church made. Not a program. Not a building. A person. Someone generous, someone present, someone who shows up for the people everyone else has written off. Barnabas is just the first that Luke names. 

Does anyone ever have your name on speed dial for that reason? Is there someone, a teenager looking for direction, a struggling friend, someone on the edge of giving up, who is hanging on until they can talk to you? Are you, for anyone what Barnabas was for John Mark?

Two questions worth sitting with this week: Who is your Barnabas? And who needs you to be theirs?

Peace, 
Travis Segar
Pastor for Care and Community