Here is a good summary from an article I came across again recently in my files:

Encouragement includes the giving of courage, hope, confidence, support and help.

The apostle Paul ties the act of encouragement to the process of building up one another: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11).

We can aid our understanding of the word encourage by looking at the gift of encouragement (or exhortation) as stated in Romans 12:8. Students of the Greek language indicate the word comes from the same family of words used to describe the Holy Spirit as our paraclete, “one who comes alongside us to help.” Leslie B. Flynn wrote of encouragement as helping to strengthen the weak, steady the faltering and console the troubled. . . .

In Scripture encouragement is often closely aligned with restoration and renewal of Spirit. For example, Psalm 3 is David’s reflection on the horrible experience of having his son turn against him, causing such a rift that all David’s relationships were broken. Psalm 3 indicates, among other things, that God replenished David’s courage (encouragement), restored his confidence (depleted by his experience) and revived his hope. Some of the same of the same results will accrue from our involvement in encouraging others.

A study of 42 NT references to the word encourage quickly reveals this is a ministry for all believers, though some have special ability because of God’s gifting. Encouragement is coming alongside another to offer help and hope.

A good post from Seth Godin the other day.

I would add also — as Seth does — that silence can be heckling, too.

For example, with our 16-month-old, we know that if there are certain behaviors that he shouldn’t be doing, one strategy to root them out is to ignore them. The things that you ignore tend to go away. The things that you reinforce you tend to get more of.

The problem is that if you are silent about good things, you can end up (inadvertently) stamping them out as well. And not just with toddlers. Here’s how Godin puts it:

. . . Just like it’s heckling when someone is tweeting during a meeting you’re running, or refusing to make eye contact during a sales call. Your work is an act of co-creation, and if the other party isn’t egging you on, engaging with you and doing their part, then it’s as if they’re actively tearing you down.

This is one reason, I think, that the Bible is replete with passages to encourage one another and build one another up. We are to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” and “encourage one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25) and “speak only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29) and “encourage one another and build one another up” (1 Thessalonians 5:12).

If you aren’t actively building people up, there is a sense in which you may be inadvertently tearing them down. I don’t want to say that that is always the case, of course. But we should definitely be alert to the possibility that, sometimes at least, failure to encourage is to discourage. Our general bent toward one another should be to take every opportunity that we can (and makes sense) to build people up.

Here’s Godin’s whole post:

The other night I heard Keith Jarrett stop a concert mid-note. While the hall had been surprisingly silent during the performance, the song he was playing was quiet and downbeat and we (and especially he) could hear an increasing chorus of coughs.

“Coughs?,” you might wonder… “No one coughs on purpose. Anyway, there are thousands of people in the hall, of course there are going to be coughs.”

But how come no one was coughing during the introductions or the upbeat songs or during the awkward moments when Keith stopped playing?

No, a cough is not as overt or aggressive as shouting down the performer. Nevertheless, it’s heckling.

Just like it’s heckling when someone is tweeting during a meeting you’re running, or refusing to make eye contact during a sales call. Your work is an act of co-creation, and if the other party isn’t egging you on, engaging with you and doing their part, then it’s as if they’re actively tearing you down.

Yes, you’re a professional. So is Jarrett. A professional at Carnegie Hall has no business stopping a concert over some coughing. But in many ways, I’m glad he did. He made it clear that for him, it’s personal. It’s a useful message for all of us, a message about understanding that our responsibility goes beyond buying a ticket for the concert or warming a chair in the meeting. If we’re going to demand that our partners push to new levels, we have to go for the ride, all the way, or not at all.

Negativity is all a matter of perspective. Negative people can make any situation, no matter how great, seem like the end of the world. And positive people can make any situation, no matter how bad, seem great.

Mark Sanborn illustrates this well with a common story in his book You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere, Can Make a Positive Difference:

An old favorite joke of mine illustrates the positive attitude of a person who takes responsibility for his or her life, even in those circumstances they don’t completely control.

Twin boys were born to two happy parents. But as the children grew, the parents noticed a dramatic difference in the outlook each had on life.

One boy was completely negative. His perspective was consistently one of gloom and doom. No matter what happened, he was downhearted. He was able to find a rain cloud in the sunniest sky.

The other boy was buoyant and looked at everything positively. No matter what happened, he could find the silver lining in the darkest cloud.

The parents began to worry that each child had a problem. So one Christmas they attempted a bold experiment to try to change their son’s dispositions.

For the boy with the negative attitude, they bought the most wonderful gifts: a new bike, a train set, board games, and other fun diversions.

To the boy with the positive attitude, they gave a pile of horse manure.

On Christmas morning, the boy who was negative was led into a room containing all his wonderful gifts. But rather than being delighted, he complained, “The bike will become dirty and scratched the first time I ride it, and the other toys will break or wear out.”

Their other son, upon seeing the pile of manure, shocked his parents by instantly shouting in glee.

“Why are you so excited?” they exclaimed.

He replied, “With all this manure, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

My point? When something bad happens, the challenge is to search for the pony, not with the naive enthusiasm of the boy in the story but with the informed optimism of a leader.

And, of course, this is biblical:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

When we notice things that could be better, it’s easy to respond negatively. This easily leads to (or is) complaining.

Complaining, in addition to just being wrong, tends to create an overall attitude of negativity that is not helpful. This not only sucks the joy from your life and those around you, but also makes it less likely that people will actually want to do something to fix the problem. Playing the victim doesn’t inspire people.

Seth Godin posted the other day on how to point out problems without falling into the trap of complaining. It’s a short, good post that is worth reading.

The gist is this: Instead of saying “my job has this problem and that problem, and it’s really starting to get to me,” you say: “In this economy, I’m lucky to have this job, and it’s almost perfect. It would be even better if…”

Or, instead of saying “they spent $10 million developing this device, and it can’t even do this or that,” you say: “I love owning this device, it lets me manage my life and contacts, and the one thing that would make it even better is…”

The latter approach is the way proactive people talk. It puts the focus on the positive first, where it belongs. Then everything after that is about how to improve things.

The former approach, on the other hand, just leaves you focusing on the bad. And it would seem likely that if you generally think that way, pretty soon the bad is all that you will see everywhere — which would not only be wrong, but would also be a pretty depressing existence.

It is so tempting to complain. There were a whole mix of things today that made my wife and I just want to throw up our arms in frustration.

But our motto (borrowed from our former pastor in Iowa) is “you can’t make it tough enough for us to complain.” Actually, she is better at that than I am — much better. I am still learning and making progress.

Everybody encounters things like this all the time. The best solution is to have the attitude “I will not complain, no matter how frustrating things get.”

And then there is a second component, which is just as important: Be a person who always strives to be part of the solution to other people’s problems.

When someone comes to you for assistance, and you don’t know the answer, it’s tempting to just pass them off. Try not to do that. Life is tough enough.

Fight the frustration of life by working on behalf of others, even when it doesn’t come easy (or it may not be “your” job). Try to figure out something you can do, even if it’s not obvious at first.

And in the times when you truly can’t take the time, or truly are incapable of doing anything, at least express that “I really wish I knew of a way to find the answer here, and I really hope you can get this figured out.”