Keller says that we cannot grow unless we are in the soil of encouragement. And he offers some warnings about
encouragement. We cannot surround ourselves with people that are so cowardly that they just affirm us, nor with people who are so impatient that they hand out advice too quickly. While some among us have been given the gift of encouragement, most of us have to work at it. We need to learn to take our tenderness and mold it into useful directness. Or we need to offer our impatient desire to just get things done to the Lord so that he can mold it into something peaceful and useful in the Kingdom. Deacon Cindy Hamilton concludes this Acts series with a message from Acts 11.