5 Ways to Inspire Followes

5 Ways to Inspire Followes

Cast Vision

Casting Vision is part of leading. The term used often is “people without a vision will perish.” People that have a vision, that they embrace, are able to and willing to go far above and beyond what anyone could ask of them. If people have a vision on why what they do is important, then they will be willing to put it all on the line so that they may accomplish that vision

The apostles had a vision that Jesus gave them but we see that they didn't pursue that vision till they embraced it and made it their own. They were willing to put their life on the line so that they may achieve the things that Jesus asked them to achieve. Jesus vision was that all would repent of their sins and turn their hearts to Christ. He also had a vision that the disciples would not stay where they were at but start in their city and move out from there, a global vision. 

Encourage Dreams 

One of the greatest things a leader can do is the encourage his followers to dream, but not only dream but do what they dream. Dreaming and doing need to go hand in and but most leaders know that dreaming can cause issues, so most discourage it. The leaders who embrace it and encourage their people to dream, see a huge growth in productivity, creativeness, and happiness. We all have dreams, it is a leaders job to encourage it but more encourage the doing of those dreams. 

Dreaming also can encourage your people to come up wight he next great idea for your organization. If you take one person, lets say a CEO and we determine that this CEO has 25 years of experience in an industry. Now we take a group of 9 people all having an average experience of 10 years. Some are 1 year others are 15 years, but the average is 10 Years. Now if we add them group experience vs the CEO experience we see that it is 90 years to 25 years of experience. That isn't almost 4 times greater. Likewise with dreaming that 9 times more people dreaming. Does that mean you follow every dream? No, but your encourage the dreams in the hope that one of those dreams become revolutionary and changes everything as you know it. 

In the Bible, Elisha was on his death bed and he was trying to get a commander to have great dreams and vision for his self and his nation. He told this man to do 3 things and each correlated with some outcome. Elisha ends up scolding this man because he didn't have a vision or faith to do something greater than he currently imagined.

Attainable Goals

Achieving Goals is another great way to inspire people. When people have attainable goals to shoot for and they achieve it, it will inspire them to achieve the same goal over even a greater goal. When we attain our goal we set or others set for us, we are inspired. This can be seen with athletics and people that life revolves around goals. 

Goals also need to be attainable sand measurable. There is a commonly used idea for setting goals. SMART.  Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Oriented. You can find more on Smart by looking it up Online, but the benefits in using this method is it gives you a good frame work to make attainable goals. There are also other Ways to do “SMART” and all the letters can be change to fit you goal. 

Lead by Example

Leaders by definition is someone who leads. How do you know if you lead? Turn around and see if anyone is following. Now if you have people following you, it is time to lead how you want them to follow. Following the leader is a game I use to play when I was a kid. The essence is the same. We follow and imitate our leader. If the leader works hard, the followers will. So if you don't like what you see in your followers, look at what you are doing first. Sometime it is obvious and sometimes we need to ask trusted people. When people see what you do, they are inspired to achieve the level you are at. They look up to you and take their directions from the leader. 

The other side of leading by example is that you are doing what you expect your follows to do. If you expect them to be on time, work hard, and make wise decisions, then you as a leader should do the same. Otherwise your leadership is one of do what I say and not what I do. Jesus was a great leader that lead this way. He was selfless, humble, and diligent. Most of his disciples where the same way, some were not but most were. 

Celebrate Wins

Celebrating wins is another way to inspire people. Celebration anything inspires people to achieve it. Wether it be goals or great achievements, Whatever is celebrated gets done. If you want your followers to be inspired to press on and achieve the hard things, Celebrate the small wins along the journey to the end results. If we don’t, our people can feel under appreciated and not desire to achieve the end goal. 

Celebration can also be very creative in most situations. A party, or free lunch, or bonus are just a few ways to celebrate wins. Rewards are just a part of celebration and so are words of encouragement and positional promotions to name a few more. Being creative here is the key to making this work. 

Lastly

This is not a comprehensive list. It is just a few that I have personally seen to be effective in inspiring people. If you know of another ways to inspire people list it down in comment section below. Till next Time, 

-Benjamin Marc Grenier

Kicking Our Own

Kicking our own while they are down- 

Today’s post is going to be more about some thoughts I had. 

In a resent pod cast i was listen too. Chris LoCurto http://chrislocurto.com mentioned about how we has the body of christ will so often beat up our own when they fall or make a mistake. The world is looking for faults in people and when someone who is high up falls it becomes a big deal. People talk about it, and we continue to beat people up for it. I could go down the list but as pastors, we are notorious for this. When a pastor is at mega church, their church is growing and people are coming to Jesus, they get lots of attention and scrutiny. Some say they are preaching heresy, or feel good message, or insert issues here. Then they fall or something happens to them, the world normally start beating them up and pastors/other christians follow. 

I have been very guilty of this. I won’t name pastors that I have done this with but I been convicted because many times I attack them. Just because their style is different doesn't mean they deserve to be beat up. If they are still reaching people for Jesus and getting people to find out who Jesus is, then why should we beat them up because it isn't our cup of tea. This also goes to say that there are people that make mistakes and come to admit them. Sometimes these mistakes are small and some are big but both are mistakes. Both can be ammunition for our assault on their ministry. 

In churches we developed a culture where if it bad for a pastor to be wrong or do wrong. Yes, we should expect some sort of standard, but we expect pastors to live a life that only Jesus could live. We love to watch people fail and burn, then join in on beating them while they are down. Things i have said in the past as example, “I knew they were too good to be true,” “See thats what happens when…,” “Why would they give up…,” “I knew they would fail.” Our words and thought can really cut into people and beat them up. Many times we do this because in some way we are jealous or covet what they have even if we don't directly think it. Number, fame, success, money, life, or people. As a culture and churches, we define success by those criteria instead of the criteria, “Am I doing the best I can.”

Should we be on the look out for false prophets? Of course but what makes a false prophet? Is it his message, or maybe things he might say? Is it his heart where we look at his fruits? Is it by the attention he gets so we judge him out his loudest moment? Aside from contradicting Jesus and the Bible, I don't know if we can get on someone for having a different view than us. Could we all get to heaven and ask Jesus “what is the real/true denomination? Is it Pentecostal, Baptist, Calvinist, Catholic, etc.” And he response, “You are all wrong.” Is that possible? I would have to think it is. We all are reading the same text and all seeing the same stories but we are all looking at it in different ways. So how do you tell if someone is teaching something that is false? Know what the Bible says and compare what they say to it. 

Most of the time we confusing method with the message. We don't like the method they are using to get across a point or to invite more people or to close out people, so we demonize them. We see them as less holy then “us.” We don’t even look at the lives changed or the word being preached, or the people that are being called to ministry though this method. We as the saying goes, “Throw the baby out with the bath water.” We discount their ministry, they fruits, and their life and their message because it is not delivered how we would want it delivered. And when the person that we are demonizing fails, we say it is because of (Insert issue). We wait till they are the weakest and we pile on and beat them up with the world and the devil. 

We will always have issues with people method and even how they interpret some scriptures. We will want to put them down to lift ourself up. We will look at them and scrutinize their life. But what we really need to do is ask the simple question. “How would I want to be viewed by them and other pastors?” If we want people to give us the benefit of a doubt, then we need to do the same. We need to look at what are they doing, who are they reaching and if their is an issue, don't gossip about it, go to them and talk with them if you are able. If they chose to not see it your way, chose to agree to disagree. It is better way. It is better to see them fighting the same fight we are facing. They have trials and temptations just like us. We fail, they fail. We are human trying to be like Jesus and so are they. 

In conclusion, treat others as you would be treated. Give people the benefit of a doubt. Love them and pray for them. We fight the same fight. Lastly don't judge someone without knowing the details, there is much we don't know about them and their life. Thanks for reading the post. Till next time, 

Benjamin Marc Grenier