"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom." 1 Corinthians 2:1
How do you go about getting people to do work of ministry? That is one of the age-old questions. I would dare say that it will be a question that will continue until our Lord Jesus makes His grand re-appearance at the end of the age. And until then, we human creatures will continue to work to engage people in ministry in better and in poorer ways.
Up front, I'm going to say that I don't have the best solution, or anything like that. What I am going to say is that I can see how certain motivations are more powerful than others, and some are called for in one situation, but not in another. So this topic, like so many others, is more varied and dynamic than we might typically want to approach it.
To start off this discussion, though, I want to focus on one primary area. Do we communicate that we want people to engage in ministry by making them feel guilty for their current level of engagement, or do we seek to influence them to greater engagement? I realize that guilt is actually one means of influence, and I will argue that it is one of the weakest ones, especially in our day and age.
Guilt, I would suggest, is never the ideal means of engaging people in ministry. At the best, it may promote a time period where they are engaged, but since it starts off from a negative emphasis (i.e., you should be doing more), it simply cannot help but arrive at a relieved end. Once the level of guilt has been "covered", then it's back to where the person was before.
Influence is a whole other line of thinking. Influence means that you don't have some way of coercing people into ministry engagement; you have to be persuasive. You can't just say, "Do this,", but you have to demonstrate what you want them to be engaged with, and how to go about doing it. Yes, this takes more effort and time, and the working of the Holy Spirit, but in the end, influence would seem to bring about more lasting engagement in ministry, and even more joy.
Guilt, or influence? I think we would mostly agree that influence is better, but in practice, find it much easier to fall back on guilt. But maybe today is the day to start making that change in approach.
How do you go about getting people to do work of ministry? That is one of the age-old questions. I would dare say that it will be a question that will continue until our Lord Jesus makes His grand re-appearance at the end of the age. And until then, we human creatures will continue to work to engage people in ministry in better and in poorer ways.
Up front, I'm going to say that I don't have the best solution, or anything like that. What I am going to say is that I can see how certain motivations are more powerful than others, and some are called for in one situation, but not in another. So this topic, like so many others, is more varied and dynamic than we might typically want to approach it.
To start off this discussion, though, I want to focus on one primary area. Do we communicate that we want people to engage in ministry by making them feel guilty for their current level of engagement, or do we seek to influence them to greater engagement? I realize that guilt is actually one means of influence, and I will argue that it is one of the weakest ones, especially in our day and age.
Guilt, I would suggest, is never the ideal means of engaging people in ministry. At the best, it may promote a time period where they are engaged, but since it starts off from a negative emphasis (i.e., you should be doing more), it simply cannot help but arrive at a relieved end. Once the level of guilt has been "covered", then it's back to where the person was before.
Influence is a whole other line of thinking. Influence means that you don't have some way of coercing people into ministry engagement; you have to be persuasive. You can't just say, "Do this,", but you have to demonstrate what you want them to be engaged with, and how to go about doing it. Yes, this takes more effort and time, and the working of the Holy Spirit, but in the end, influence would seem to bring about more lasting engagement in ministry, and even more joy.
Guilt, or influence? I think we would mostly agree that influence is better, but in practice, find it much easier to fall back on guilt. But maybe today is the day to start making that change in approach.
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