What motivates you to run a leadership development team? I was thinking about motivation this last week, and I asked myself this question.
My motivation comes from many quarters. I love teenagers, and want them to have the best of options as they go into life. My motivation also comes from a general dissatisfaction with the status quo in Christian leadership. By raising up a new generation of leaders, the status quo can be broken. I also feel very strongly about giving the next generation ALL of the tools they need to lead in a manner that is honoring to Christ.
What motivates you?
Is it an intense love for your students and their future?
Is it a way to take some of the work off of you in the youth ministry?
Whatever motivates us will eventually become known, so you had better be honest with yourself right now. You know that you’re students are more discerning than we’d like to think. They smell a phony a mile out.
Being up front about our motivation will help them understand the way you teach and why you teach.
By the way, find out what motivates your students as well. Why are they on the leadership team?
By working to eliminate greed, self-centeredness, and laziness from our motivation, we teach better and become more effective. When we eliminate these traits from our student’s perspectives, we turn out better leaders.
In the Trenches,
Matt
Showing posts with label motivation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motivation. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
More Than Motivation
What are we offering our students?
Are we offering them a spiritual pep talk and sending them out into the world?
How’s that going?
At first, they need a refill every week, so they come back. Sooner or later, they realize that what you’re offering them doesn’t and can’t last, so they stop coming. That’s the problem with motivation. Motivation brought on by emotional pep talks is extremely satisfying in the moment, but as the experience fades, so does the motivation.
So what are you offering your students?
We have to offer something more than motivation.
We have to give our students something to stand on, so they don’t have to come to you for motivation. Jesus gives life, He gives them the Holy Spirit, and He gives them purpose. When you understand your purpose, you don’t need motivation so much. When you have the Holy Spirit, He’s there to help when you start to slow down.
Our job isn’t to give motivation. It’s to lay the foundation of Christian Leadership Principles and to help them discover their purpose. It’s to go on the journey with them and help them make sense of it, but not to motivate them. This does lead to them not needing us so much, but it’s not us they’re supposed to lean on, it’s Jesus.
When we offer our leadership students motivation, this is what we get:
1. Students are dependent on us.
2. Students lose interest quickly.
3. Students looking to external motivation, and not to the Holy Spirit’s prompting.
Knock off the self-help stuff and give them something they can use.
In the Trenches,
Matt
Are we offering them a spiritual pep talk and sending them out into the world?
How’s that going?
At first, they need a refill every week, so they come back. Sooner or later, they realize that what you’re offering them doesn’t and can’t last, so they stop coming. That’s the problem with motivation. Motivation brought on by emotional pep talks is extremely satisfying in the moment, but as the experience fades, so does the motivation.
So what are you offering your students?
We have to offer something more than motivation.
We have to give our students something to stand on, so they don’t have to come to you for motivation. Jesus gives life, He gives them the Holy Spirit, and He gives them purpose. When you understand your purpose, you don’t need motivation so much. When you have the Holy Spirit, He’s there to help when you start to slow down.
Our job isn’t to give motivation. It’s to lay the foundation of Christian Leadership Principles and to help them discover their purpose. It’s to go on the journey with them and help them make sense of it, but not to motivate them. This does lead to them not needing us so much, but it’s not us they’re supposed to lean on, it’s Jesus.
When we offer our leadership students motivation, this is what we get:
1. Students are dependent on us.
2. Students lose interest quickly.
3. Students looking to external motivation, and not to the Holy Spirit’s prompting.
Knock off the self-help stuff and give them something they can use.
In the Trenches,
Matt
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