1-3-2-Influencing People

What secondary issues hinder your ministry from fulfilling it's mission?  What principles here could help you free the church for a wider mission?

Influencing People

What's needed today is leadership which helps people achieve what they are capable of, to establish a vision for the future, to encourage, to coach and to mentor, and to establish and maintain successful relationships.

The first step toward success in influencing people is establishing a good communication style.

Here are the first steps to successful communication

1. Make communication a top priority.

2. Be open to other people.

3. Creative a receptive environment for communication.

You absolutely must make time to communicate.  Be open to other people - above, below, and beside.  Once people do take the risk of telling you what they think, don't punish them for their openness.  Do nothing -absolutely nothing - to discourage them from taking the risk of communicating again.  Communication is built on Trusting relationships.

Treat people like people.  Motivation can never be forced.  People have to want to do a good job.  Dale Carnegie put it this way; "You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get interested in you...  People are not interested in you...  They are interested in themselves - morning, noon, and after dinner."  There's nothing more effective and rewarding than showing a genuine interest in other people.

Look  at things from the other person's point of view.  Step outside yourself to discover what's important to someone else.

Listen intently.  Listen because you are genuinely interested.  That kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay anyone.  Are you actively listening:

1. Do you ask questions and wait for an answer?

2. Do you respond quickly and directly to the questions that are asked?

3. Does the other person feel you are listening actively to him or her?

People everywhere love to be listened to and they almost always respond to others who listen to them.  Listening is still the best way to learn.  Nobody is more persuasive than a good listener.

Create a shared sense of purpose.  Treat people like the individuals they are.  But make each member responsible for the team results.  Share the glory, accept the blame.

Take every opportunity to build confidence on the team.  Be involved, stay involved.  Be a mentor.  Team players are the leaders of tomorrow.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Put yourself in the other person's place.  Treat trainees like colleagues, and don't condescend, dictate, or berate.  Encourage people.  Truly respecting others is the bedrock of motivation.

Admit your own mistakes.  Think twice before you criticize or assign blame.  Criticize respectfully.  Above all, be constructive.

Set goals that are clear, challenging, and obtainable

Leaders never lose their focus.  They keep their eyes on the Big Picture.

Consistently high performance comes from a balance between work and leisure.

Your thoughts make you what you are.  Gain strength from the positive and don't be zapped by the negative.

"Those who do not know how to fight worry die young." (Dr. Alexis Carrel)

For every ailment under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none
If there be one, try to find it,
If there be none, never mind it.

Put a stop-loss order on your worries, keep things in perspective.  Get busy.  Ask yourself.  What's the worst that possibly can happen?  Prepare yourself mentally to accept the worst, if necessary.  Then work calmly and methodically to improve upon the worst.  Tame your worries and energize your life.

Enthusiasm is a feeling that has to come from inside.

Getting Creative

(This article taken from InterChristo Career manual)

Would you like to meet some Christians who dared to integrate their lifework around mission? The following stories are of actual men and women in a wide range of work settings who successfully integrated the three dimensions of work in unusual and creative ways.
In all fairness, we couldn't expect you to integrate expression, provision, and mission in your own career until you saw how others did it successfully. So we want you to look at the stories of some Christians who invested their faith, hopes, and dreams in a real God who helped them integrate the three dimensions of their work into rewarding careers. As you read, feel free to identify with the person(s) in whose work you most clearly see yourself.

Judy: Fashioned to Help

Judy is a fashion designer who's gifts in fashion design were expressed in work that provided for her needs. But it was her sense of mission that really tied her lifework together. When Judy's church sponsored some Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees, she volunteered to help immediately. Before long she realized that what these refugees needed most of all were jobs. Judy also noticed right away that her newfound friends were hard-working and very skillful artistically. Judy helped the refugees start a small business. She donated her expertise in design. The church bought some equipment, and the local mall provided some low-cost space for a tiny retail outlet. Within a year and a half, Judy was working full-time in the growing business that provided for her needs and the needs of eight refugee families.

Al: Faith at Work

Al was the owner of a small electronics manufacturing firm that employed 75 men and women. As demand for his products grew, so did the stress level of assembly line workers. Al became concerned when he saw tempers getting shorter and production time growing longer. He knew there was a handful of Christians who might be open to a creative solution, so Al went ahead with his idea.
He hired a chaplain from a local university ministry team to come to the plant one day a week. This "new employee" hit it off well with the workers. Before long, brief, informal discussions turned into deep, meaningful talks.
Today the chaplain leads a weekly Bible study with the plant's workers. Among the regular attendees are Al himself and two employees who became Christians through the work of the chaplain's ministry. Al was happy to stabilize his production level, but even more excited to see some of his employees find a new spiritual dimension in their lives and in their work.

Kathy & Keith: Hospitality Plus

Kathy was a legal assistant at a major big-city shipping company. Her husband, Keith, was a high school science teacher. Both of their jobs demanded lots of over-time. After a couple of years, the two realized they had put too much energy into fulfilling their respective job responsibilities, and too little time into forming lasting relationships with their co-workers.
Kathy and Keith decided to invite the couples and singles they worked with over to their home for a series of dinner parties. It opened up a world of new experiences for the couple. They learned how to cook new dishes. They discovered how to make their home a center of hospitality. Most of all, Kathy and Keith learned some of the personal needs of the men and women with whom they worked.
Kathy and Keith saw their dinner parties become the springboard for some new and growing relationships. Their work became more rewarding since they knew their co-workers better. Today, they are praying in new ways that God will heal the hurt and brokenness of those who've shared their personal struggles.

Ken & Carrie: New Mission

When Ken was twelve years old, he attended a world missions conference at his local church. After that, his life was never the same. First, he learned about people all around the world who had never even heard the name of Jesus. Second, he read that Jesus' final instructions on earth were that Christians should go and tell the world about the Lord. Third, he saw his first eighteen-foot snakeskin, and the spear that killed it.
Over the years, Ken's perception of world mission matured, but his commitment never changed. Four years of college majoring in Bible and anthropology, plus two college summers of short-term missions assignments confirmed what he knew all along: He was uniquely gifted and motivated to sensitively share his faith cross-culturally.
Marriage to an attractive missionary's daughter was contingent on her commitment to go to a country and people group for whom Ken had developed a particular burden.
Now, after two more years of specialized training, and three years of language study, Ken and Carrie are missionaries working among a people group that never heard the gospel until now.

Bill: Port of Call

Bill was a naval officer for nine years. His tour of duty took him to most of the world's major ports. Naturally, he loved to travel. But what excited him even more than seeing a new country was visiting with familiar friends in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. These were missionaries whom Bill came to know through his church back in the States.
Bill used his government clearance as a passport to get into foreign countries he could otherwise not visit. He arranged to meet the missionary in his respective city and use the time to deliver greetings and letters from back home. He also offered invaluable encouragement and fellowship that Bill's new missionary friends said they so desperately desired.
Bill's ministry has never interfered with his naval responsibilities. What it's done, besides offering a practical source of one-on-one support, is strengthen the relationship between the missionaries and their home churches. Plus, it's encouraged Bill to share his ministry idea with other Christian military personnel who've since used this creative approach to start their own means of outreach.

ORDINARY PEOPLE

Just ordinary people,
God uses ordinary people
He chooses people
Just like me and You
Who are willing
To do as He commands
God uses People
That will give him all
No matter how small your all
May seem to you
Because little becomes much
As you place it 
In the Master's Hand.
(Danniebelle Hall)

Juan: Family Family Goals

Juan's work as a newspaper reporter often kept him at the office until 7:00 p.m. When his son's soccer team needed a coach, Juan decided to talk to his boss to see if he could arrange a new schedule. The editor obliged. Now Juan covers a city beat that allows him to leave the paper at 3:00 p.m. This gives him time to lead the team practices.
Juan and his team posted a winning record. But another victory that didn't show up on the score-board was the relationships that Juan and his wife were able to develop with several of the parents. After the season was over, two couples regularly came over to Juan and Rosa's home. One non-Christian couple took a particular liking to Juan and his wife, and now they regularly attend church with them.

Karen: Market Sharing

Karen was a successful stock broker in Chicago where her earned a six-figure salary. However, she chose to live on $30,000 a year. With the commissions she amassed from dealing on the commodities market, Karen was able to donate five times the amount she made to a number of international and local ministries. These included one of the city's most needy foster homes, an evangelistic outreach in India, and a feeding project for the starving in Somalia. Karen also set aside some of her earnings to travel and personally visit these ministries in order to gain a better understanding of how she could help.
Today, back home in Chicago, she has begun a fellowship of Christian brokers who've committed to pray for, and minister, to their fellow workers. She also volunteers two nights a week in the foster home she supports financially

MAKING MAJOR CHANGES

As you've just seen, mission opportunities can happen right in your own place of work. They can also grow out of opportunities created by Christians who are willing to make major changes in their careers. Here are some examples of men and women who did just that:

Jerry: Engineered to Serve

Petroleum. It had produced a lifetime of financial success and professional reward for Jerry, a respected chemical engineer. For years the main avenue he had for sharing his faith was a men's Bible study at church. When he saw his own brother become a Christian, something changed inside Jerry.
He began to see the need for evangelistic outreach. When he learned that petroleum engineers were needed in Saudi Arabia, Jerry and his wife saw an opportunity to combine work and ministry. He took a new job at a processing plant on the Persian Golf. This became his "tentmaking" job. Today, while there are a few opportunities for him to verbalize his faith, Jerry lives the Christian life and trusts God to show him new chances to be an effective witness.
Jerry and his wife risked career, financial security, and their future to move overseas. What they've gained, however, is a ministry in a new setting that still allows Jerry to grow in his profession.

Robert: Song of Joy

As a popular radio disc jockey, Robert was the man many people in his home town woke up to every morning. Robert's career was growing. He had hopes to become station manager and even part owner of his station's network family. But Robert decided that he wanted to do more with his life than spin top-40 records from 6:00 a.m. to noon.
He decided to give up his popular morning shift and work for a much smaller Christian station. The pay was only a fraction of what he was previously making. But Robert found a new satisfaction by creating innovative programs that had a Christian focus. Robert grew with the station. Today, he's able to reach a whole new audience of people with whom he shares his faith. And some of the programs he's introduced at his new place of work have set standards of broadcast excellence that managers at some of the secular stations have noticed and admired.

Sheri: Gift-Giving

Sheri owned a successful gift shop in her home town. After a shaky start-up period she saw business grow, especially with elderly buyers. The seniors who came in stopped and talked. They shared their concerns, their stories of loneliness. Sheri listened to them all. She began to visit the nearby community center where these men and women ate their meals.
Sheri was a businesswoman, but at heart she was also a gifted organizer. After weeks of volunteering her few spare hours at the center, Sheri decided to sell her shop. With the earnings, she was able to work full-time at the senior community center as the new activities coordinator. She accepted only a fraction of the salary her friends wanted to pay her. The seniors had never experienced the fun of crafts, music, and outdoor recreation, until today as Sheri is puting her gifts of planning and enthusiasm to work.

Ryan: New Fields of Growth

For as far as he could remember, Ryan's only field of exploration had been outer space. That's because as an aerospace engineer, he had worked on many manned missions designing huge rocket boosters. One Sunday, he volunteered to help on a refugee farm project through his church. The agricultural habits and back-breaking labor made Ryan see right away that he had definitely gone to work in a "foreign field." But the project was successful. It gave the congregation a source for fresh vegetables and gave the refugees a needed source of income. The project also gave Ryan an unusual sense of accomplishment.
As Ryan's involvement with the refugees grew, the church asked Ryan if he would go on salary, full time, to organize other refugee projects. Ryan agreed. He left his job inn the aerospace field and went on to work in his new field. He now administrates job development programs for over 300 refugees through his local church. At times he misses his former work, and the financial and lifestyle adjustments have been significant. But, by getting a new ministry off the ground, Ryan has utilized a whole new set of talents. And it has given him a whole new sense of purpose that he never had before.

Trudy: Creative Direction

Big sales and prestigious awards were what Trudy had to show for here seven years as an art director at a prestigious advertising agency. She had also received enough gray hairs from the pressure of the job for her to know that it was time to take a break. She and her husband decided to have a baby.
Today, Trudy loves being a mother. She has arranged her schedule so that she can still spend 20 hours a week offering her creative services to Christian organizations. She has the freedom to set her own schedule and work at her own pace. Plus, Trudy has the satisfaction of seeing her work promote organizations and causes into which she can put both her talent and her heart.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

None of the people you've read about here found it easy to integrate all three Biblical dimensions of work around the central focus of mission. Among other things, these Christians risked career stability, financial security, and the possibility of being rejected by friends-all because they knew that God wanted them to transform their respective work, and their lives, for His purposes. These people were willing to follow God's leading. They listened. They prayed. They struggled. They obeyed. Ultimately, they acted on the mission and career opportunities that God put before them. And making this step, in His name, has made all the difference in their lives.

Homework

Think about a successful leadership experience you have had.  Select one of your best experiences.  Get a vivid image of it.  Describe it fully:

1. Where and when did it take place?  Who initiated it?

2. Who was involved?  What was your role?  What were the results?

3. What motivated you to assume leadership?  What risks, if any, did you take?

4. What were your initial feelings?  What did you feel during the project and at its end.

5. How did you foster cooperation?  keep up enthusiasm?

6. How did you lead by example?  Communicate your values?

7. Write a few words that best describe your experience, how you felt, what you learned about leadership style and practice, and what you felt to be the single most important factor in your success.

8. Now identify what you feel you need to improve your performance.

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