Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

leading

Why Guilt is a Cheap Motivator

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Sharing my faith was the last thing I felt equipped to do.

As a first year student in university, I knew that there was something called the Great Commission, but I didn’t know what to do with it. So after looking through all the Christian clubs listed online, I decided to join Campus Crusade for Christ, since they were all about evangelism (it’s now called Power to Change in Canada, or Cru in the U.S.).

That first year was incredible and I owe so much of my spiritual formation to that ministry. I learnt how to share my faith, I was filled with the Holy Spirit, I saw multiple people give their lives to Christ, and I went on a mission trip where I met my wife, Christina.

Everything was perfect, except for the fact that I was doing it all out of guilt.

At some point that I don’t remember, things shifted and I realized that I began sharing my faith with others because I felt like I had to, not out of a joy that I got to.

I wasn’t introducing people to Jesus because God loved them, I was doing it because I wanted God to love me more. And I was afraid that if I missed an opportunity to share Jesus with a stranger, that somehow it would be my fault if they went to hell. After all, what if they never met another Jesus loving, Jesus believing person again?

Honestly, I can’t pinpoint the moment I started to believe these lies, but I know that I didn’t get it from this ministry.

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Building a Discipleship Culture That Will Grow Your Church

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Are you happy with your existing vision, strategy, and values, or do you need to revisit them?

Are you producing disciple-makers, disciples, or consumers? Are you worried that what you’re currently doing isn’t sustainable or scalable? Do you need to overhaul your church, but aren’t sure what to do differently?

The fact is, we often lead the way we’ve been led, disciple the way we’ve been discipled, and teach the way we’ve been taught…unless we consciously decide to do otherwise.

We often lead the way we’ve been led and disciple the way we’ve been discipled!

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And with the accelerated pace of life, the unceasing demands of ministry, and the relentless fact that Sunday is always around the corner, who has the luxury of time to stop, audit, and make systemic changes to the way we lead, disciple, and teach?

As a result, the two things that we often (unintentionally) end up neglecting is self-development and team-development.

In a previous article, I address the issue of self-development and provide you with a list of questions from my book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry. So be sure to go back and answer those questions before moving on.

Let’s now talk about staff or team development.

The fact is, as a pastor and church leader, you are both a boss and a disciple-maker—and this applies whether or not you’re the senior leader.

(Now I understand that you may not like the word boss because it sounds domineering, but I’m simply trying to emphasize the fact that you’re the leader and that you have responsibilities that directly affect others.)

So take a moment and think about everyone on your team—whether it’s your staff team as the senior leader, or your volunteer team as a staff member.

On the one hand, you are responsible for the ministry that God has entrusted you with.

So in order to get things done in a scalable manner, you can’t do it yourself. You need to work with and through your team—just think about Exodus 18 and the account between Moses and Jethro. This makes you the boss, the leader, or depending on your culture, the chief cheerleader or number one servant.

On the other hand, you are also responsible to equip those under and around you for the work of ministry (Eph 4:12-13).

And I’m not talking about equipping others to make coffee, clean the toilets, and carry your purse, or murse…I’m talking about “equipping the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness” (Eph 4:12-13).

While making coffee and cleaning toilets can definitely be a character shaping exercise and be a part of moving you to maturity, that’s not what I’m talking about…

I’m talking about building a culture that allows your team to develop both professionally and spiritually.

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