At church, always, one finds heartening encouragement (5)
I believe the answer is:
cheer
'encouragement' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'at church always' is the wordplay.
'at' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'church' becomes 'ch' (common abbreviation).
'always' becomes 'eer' (poetic way of saying ever).
'ch'+'eer' is 'CHEER'.
'one finds heartening' is the link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cheer that I've seen before include "Festive food and drink" , "Inspirit" , "provisions for feast" , "Shout of approval" , "Applaud vocally, hurray etc" .)