Chaplin's Corner

A Bible reading in our church one Sunday morning recently ended with these words: “Therefore encourage one anther with these words”. A company from whom our church buys some of its stock of cards for giving out at baptisms and weddings is called “Words of Encouragement”. How many times every day do we have the opportunity to offer words of encouragement? A surprising number of times, I suspect. Yet how often do we really take advantage of these opportunities? In our modern world people so often seem all too ready to offer words of criticism, to put people down. Yet what better way to use words than to use them to offer encouragement? I suspect that probably many of the world’s greatest inventions have become reality because those folk working on the germ of an idea were encouraged by those around them to persevere at those times when their quest seemed impossible. As leaders within Scouting we have a particular opportunity to offer words of encouragement to those young people in our charge – and perhaps not just an opportunity to do so, but a responsibility.