The Motivational Power of Spiritual Purpose

A shoe company wanted to open its market in a remote island location. The CEO of the company sent a salesman to the island. After a month he came home a miserable failure. He had not sold a single pair of shoes. The CEO met with the salesman and learned that the reason for the failure was because people in that culture wore no shoes. 

Soon after this the CEO decided to give it another try. He asked another salesman to go. After the first week the salesman sent in a large order for shoes. For four weeks after that the salesman doubled his order each week! The CEO called the salesman and asked how he was doing such a good job in that island since it was so difficult to sell to them there. The man's response was, "Are you kidding? This is a gold mine here! Did you know that no one on the island has any shoes to wear?"

  

This old story illustrates the importance of attitude in sales. It also illustrates the importance of purpose in leadership. The first salesman could not find anyone who wanted to wear shoes. The second salesman sold the shoes. The only way he could possibly have accomplished that feat was to give the people a reason to buy those shoes. Could we not learn a lesson from this about encouraging people to be involved in the Lord's work?

I am not suggesting that we develop a system of physical rewards. I do not suppose to invent some system to bribe people to do what they should be doing anyway. I just want us to stop for a moment and answer the question, "Why?" Even the most active person in the world does not work for nothing. There is always a reason. A leader's job is to help people understand the reasons for doing the work. If they have a reason (purpose) that is compelling, they will do the work. Fortunately for us Christians, we do not have to invent purpose. God supplies that for us. A leader simply reveals purpose.

The church is a spiritual creation. Every activity of the church should have a spiritual meaning and purpose. If an activity cannot be explained as spiritually significant, it is merely something that will distract from the true aim of the church. Without this "higher calling" of spirituality, it will be very difficult to motivate people to do anything.

For example, taking care of the grounds at a church's meeting place can have spiritual purpose. It is physical work, but if you give people purpose they will take their work more seriously. Why not let the grass grow long? Why should we pick up trash from the lot? If the answer is to avoid citations or to make a pleasant building, we have missed the motivating factors. But tie in that work with the building up and growth of the body of Christ and suddenly menial work becomes important! And why not? Whether we like it or not we have church buildings in our culture. And whether it is fair or not, people will judge the church based on how the grounds look. We might as well accept reality and use it to our spiritual advantage! Creating a good impression will help our status in the community and it will help us when we find opportunities to teach people the Gospel.

Even evangelism must be approached spiritually. That seems obvious, but sometimes we do evangelistic things merely because we've always done them in the past. Gospel meetings are a great example. What was once meant to be a beacon in the community and an opportunity to evangelize has become mere habit to some congregations. There is no more spiritual purpose to the meetings. It becomes simply a matter of pride that they hold on to some image of times gone by when they were once a "great church". But do it correctly and a Gospel meeting can breathe life into a church! Make it a spiritual event. Give grand reasons for people to invite their friends and they will do it! There is no motive greater or higher than serving God.

This is a simple way to help the church grow: Revive the purpose that everyone should already see. Satan has a way of blinding us to it. Our own busy lives tend to take us away from what is important. Leaders will remind others that there is great purpose in our lives when we follow God's will. This can be all the motivation people need in order to start to believe that growth is possible. When the people believe the Lord's work has meaning and purpose, give them their noble work and unleash them to do it!