Energizing and Encouraging

The next step for leaders is to energize your people. Let me tell you, the very best way to energize your people is with one simple word: ENCOURAGEMENT! Studies in the work place have shown that employees work harder and with much greater motivation when encouraged and praise instead of discouraged and reprimanded. I believe the same is true within the body of Christ. Trust me, I’m a church leader, and it becomes real easy to “shame” the people into a ministry, and even easier to fuss when things are not going as you would have hoped. For many years in ministry, I struggled with the area of handing ministries off to other capable leaders within the church, simply because I wasn’t sure they could perform the task as well as I would want them to do. And someone finally got my attention by reminding me that I was hindering some people from using their gifts and talents and receiving the joy that they could have by their personal involvement.
On the other side of the coin, there are a lot of ministry leaders in the church who are simply not giving 100% to their calling. I know this as well as you do, and yes, it can be frustrating. So what do you do? Fire them from their position and replace them with someone else? Call them into your office and ask them to shape up? Bring someone along side them to hopefully “take over” the task? Sadly enough, this is many of our responses, however, let me offer another suggestion. Try being an encourager. Let me give you some phrases that should dominate a leader’s talk:
Thank You
Good Job
You are doing an AWESOME job
You ministry is so important
What can I do to make your job easier
You are such an asset to our ministry
Thank you for being apart of the team
ETC. ETC. ETC

You will never know how far a little encouragement may go in the lives of others, but I guarantee you, you will see productivity increase as praise increases. Be an encourager, a motivator, an ENERGIZER!