Side By Side
When we begin to ask how to help someone, the answers are as varied and drastic as the day is long. This response provokes fear, fear provokes inability, and inability helps noone. In the end, we end up delegating far too much to “experts.” What if I told you that helping someone is as easy as walking side-by-side with them? Or, as the subtitle of Ed Welch’s book describes it, “walking with others in wisdom and love.” Ed Welch extends to us an easy, manageable, and achievable method for walking with one another through sin and suffering. For this reason, I heartedly commend this book to you.
In the first half of Side By Side, Ed Welch reminds us that we are needy people. Most readers will be tempted to skip this half. I mean, don’t we all know we are needy? Let us diagnose that assumption with a simple question: when is the last time you asked for help? We rarely ask the Lord for help in all areas of our life, and we definitely will not ask someone else for any help in any area of our life! For people who life as if life is figured out, we are slow to help others in need. Herein lies the crux of Welch’s argument: we must acknowledge our need if we are to help any in need. As Martin Luther once said, “Only keep your eyes fixed on what Christ has done for you and for all men in order that you may learn what you should do for others.” Welch encourages us to first say “help” to the Lord, for in Him “we live and move and have our being.” Second, he encourages us to say “help” to others. As someone born and raised in the South, I can testify that the best way to make people feel loved is to make them feel needed. When we open ourselves to the help of others, they will be much more likely to open themselves up to our own assistance.
Now, you may be saying, “This is great, but how do I help people?” In the second half of Side By Side, Ed Welch points us to the power of relationships. The major way of helping one another is by loving one another. He teaches us how to introduce ourselves, engage in small talk, and advance to more significant discussions. This book does not provide a three-step program to alleviating the world’s problem; instead, Ed Welch utilizes the communion of saints for the healing of sinners. If this seems too simplistic, let me ask you a question: where has your most beneficial help come - a close friend or a professional? When trouble strikes, who would you call first? For most of us, the answer is the close friend because that close friend knows our heart and knows how to bring it to Jesus Christ, because that close friend prays for us and loves us. Ed Welch’s answer is simple: build relationships where you can bring Jesus to that person and that person to Jesus.
For some one us, this book will teach us a new skill. For many in our church, this book will fine-tune an already cultivated gift. For both, Ed Welch brings us to a place of need so that we can help those in need. For those helping and those being helped, the most powerful words we can say are, “I need Jesus.” From this position of need, we walk side by side, doing life together in wisdom and love.
You can buy Side By Side here.
