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!

One Simple Rule for Getting Church Members Active

“I know exactly what I am expected to do and exactly how to do it.” If church members cannot state that about themselves, how do we expect the church to grow?

One of the tasks of leadership is division of labor. Sometimes leaders get discouraged and think that no one is interested in doing work, but that is not true. Everyone knows that some people refuse to work, and many leaders resign to this as fate. They assume the people are carnal, worldly, and simply uninterested in spiritual matters. Undoubtedly that may be true for some people, but (for the most part) if a person attends a worship service they are interested in spiritual things. So why is it so difficult to get people involved?

Many factors may be involved in this. You may not be able to overcome many factors, but you can overcome some of them. When you do, you will generate ambitious workers. They may surprise you! The sad thing is, most of the resources for doing the work of the Lord are squandered, lying lifeless in the pews. This is not because of the laziness of the workers but because of the failings of the leaders. Leaders lead. They find ways to get people working and growing. They find the obstacles that are in the way of the followers and they remove those obstacles! Over time we will cover many obstacles. For today, consider the importance of communicating expectations.

One tremendous obstacle to helping people get to work is a lack of communication. If someone is assigned a task, he must know what the task involves. If he is not sure what is expected, he is less likely to do it. We cannot always leave it to the worker to discover his mission in the task, even if it seems obvious to us. They may have completely different ideas about how to do it and why. No one wants to hurt the work of others by failing to accomplish what is needed. So communicate the goals and activities they need to perform so they can succeed.

A lack of communication results in confusion. Some leaders mistake this confusion for apathy. This may come as a surprise, but many people are afraid to look stupid. If you come to me and say, "I need you to work the sound booth for our worship services" and I have no idea how to do it or what is required, I am more likely to say that I can't do it. I may not tell you that I have no clue how to turn the thing on, much less be responsible for recording the services. I can run the risk of looking stupid by saying I don't know how to perform a simple task, or I can just say "No" and avoid the risk. Which do you suppose I will choose? What some consider apathy may actually be confusion about how to complete the task--and perhaps a lack of confidence in their ability.

One major key to getting people to work in the church is for leaders to assign tasks and explain in detail exactly what will be required. A good way to approach the illustration above would be to invite me into the sound room, show me how everything works and how easy it is to record the worship service. After showing me, you should then ask if I would be willing to do exactly those same things next week with the promise that you will write down instructions in case I forget what I learned. Once I see that is it easy and that I can do it, I will be much more willing to help! People love to help others when they know exactly how to help them.

Another important part of that is the timeframe. We need to communicate how long the task will take and how often we will be expected to perform it. We all fear being asked to do something that we can never escape. If a person is needed for a period of time, tell him that in advance. State exactly how long the task will be required. And offer a way out if it gets too difficult. They may never take the "way out" but it is nice to know it is there.

If you ask people to write something. Tell them how long it should be. If you ask them to preach or teach, make sure they are clear about what they will teach and who the audience will be, and what the goal is. The bigger the task, the more information is required--especially for someone who has never done it.

The job of any leader is to make sure everyone has something to do. If we want a congregation to grow the way the Lord desires, that is only possible when all the members become active. Ephesians 4:16 says that in the body of Christ, “every part does its share” and this brings growth. This requires planning, foresight, and wisdom. When we have a plan we must include others in it and be specific about what they need to do to achieve success.

Next time we will look at the role of "purpose" in leading others to action.