Video Transcript: Motivate

Be an effective manager. Task seven, motivating. How do you how do you  motivate people to do stuff? Jesus calls his disciples, Matthew 4:18. As Jesus  was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter  and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake for they were  fishermen. Come follow me. Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for  people. At once they left their nets and followed him. How did Jesus get these  people to do that? They were fishermen. He says, Come follow me. They drop  their nets and they follow him. How do you get people to do things? How do you  motivate How does a manager motivate those he or she leads number one, ask  people to follow you. That's what Jesus did. He simply asked him to follow. I  remember when I planted a church in Vancouver back in 1988 my family, we  were in Michigan. We moved out to British Columbia, Vancouver area, and we  did a little canvassing. We wanted to plant a church, but we didn't have any  people. So where do you get people? My wife played the piano a little bit. I  played a little bit of guitar, but we were trying to put together a worship team,  and someone that I knew from another church that was helping us do a few  things mentioned that their neighbor across the street, which was one block  from where I was living. The neighbor across the street played the guitar. They  didn't go to church, but they played the guitar. He played the guitar. So I went  over there one day, knocked on his door. He answered the door. I said, you  know your neighbor across the street here said you played the guitar. And I'm  interested in guitar players, so he invited me in. He played the guitar sang some  songs, and I said to him, well, in a month, we're having a grand opening church  service, and would like to know if you'd be willing to play your guitar at that  grand opening service. So he said, Okay, so we practiced, we had that grand  opening service. We we started out with 10 people, and we made 20,000 phone  calls into our community, and we ended up with over 200 people coming to that  grand opening service. He played the guitar at this service. It was, it was a  great, great success. Well, after the service, I went up to him and I said, Well,  next week, we're doing this service again on Sunday. Do you think you think you would mind playing the guitar next Sunday? So he said, Okay, so the next  Sunday he came, he played the guitar. After that service, I said to him, Well,  we're gonna do this service again next Sunday. Do you think you could play the  guitar? And he said, okay, and you know, you can guess what happened. He  kept coming. He became a Christian. His whole family became a Christian, and  now 20 years later, he's actually the worship leader at that church, leading two  different worship bands. They just got, they just finished a $4 million building. So he's a he's a great guy. But how did it all start? It? It started by me simply asking him to follow. Are you willing to just do something? So a lot of times in order to  motivate someone to get someone to do something, it really starts with you Just  asking. Just ask people you need help with something, ask people to follow, ask  people to join your church. If you're planting a new church and you don't have 

members run around asking people if they'd like to help, and people will. I  remember we had different people, you know, we did this phone campaign  inviting people to come to our Grand Opening service, and then we found out  the we had the names of the people who responded the most. Thought they  might be coming, we called about 20 of them and asked them to bring cookies  to a service they'd never been to before. So this is a visitor. We're talking to the  visitor, and we're saying, Hey, could you bring cookies? Because you know, a lot of people will be there, and everyone's new, and we need someone to help out.  Would you be willing to help out? And people want to help out, but you need to  ask. So ask people to follow number two, appeal to a greater cause or  adventure. When we did the church plant, it was an adventure. We have  nothing. And would you like to be a part of something that is nothing? You know.  depends on how you ask. If you know, we don't have anybody, we don't have  any money, we don't have a church. We have no one to do anything. Would you  like to join? Or, hey, we're starting something new. You can be in on the ground  floor of this new venture that could change the world. That's how we thought  about it. We thought, as we're planting this church, we are planting the greatest  church that has ever been planted. Would you like to be a part of that? Would  you like to be a part of this new thing that has never been done before? Now,  maybe it's been done before, but that's what it seemed like to me, because it  was a new venture for me, and that's how I communicated it. This is a this is a  great adventure. How often do you get to be a part of something like this? A lot  of people, especially those that are born into the church, they're born into a  church, they live, and then if they move, they just go to some other church. Most people live their entire life and never once have the adventure of being in on a  church plant. So you talk to people and say, Look, this is your this may be your  only opportunity ever to be in an adventure of planting a church. And that's what  you know God really needs us to do. We need to Plant more churches, and you  get to be a part of it. So it's really how you present something? The church that  I'm currently in, it grew to some three, 400 people. Then they had a problem with the pastor and the people and the unity, and the whole thing blew up, and it went down to about 100 people. So when I got there, there was 100 grumbling,  disgruntled, unhappy people. And I said to them, okay, we can be a church of  100 and we can be grumpy about it. We can be unhappy and, you know, or a  poor, little, tiny church, or we can be the most incredible launch team ever. I  mean, when I planted a church, I had 10 people to help me, but here we could  have 100 if we just saw ourselves as a church plant. Let's get rid of our name.  Let's get let's just start all over. If we just start all over, we say we're going to  plant a church. We have 100 people already that want to help plant. We have  100 people launch team. That's incredible. That's That's 10 times what I had in  Vancouver. So appeal to people's sense of adventure, not the status quo. You  know, we're just doing this thing. We're fixing something that's broke. No, we're 

creating something brand new. Offer reward for success. If we succeed, you  know, this will happen with the associate that I had say, you know, if we get 100  more people, we can actually start paying you number four match people's skills to the task I mentioned in the previous video that we have something in our  church called Pathway Church University. We call it a university. It's just our  church, but we challenge people. We challenge that every we suggest that every single person has a skill or an interest things that they're really into and, and it's  a skill that could be given to someone else and, and the idea is a relationship  can be formed as you're trying to teach someone. And we always ask for a  spiritual component with that so challenging everyone. You know, we had a hard time getting teachers to teach anything until we said, look, you can teach the  thing that you're into, the thing that you are good at, and so when you allow  people to teach what they're good at, then they're already motivated, because  they love this thing, they spend time with this thing, and they're happy to maybe  help someone else. So match people's skills to the task. If you if you have this  task. I want you to be the greeter of our church. You know, when someone  comes in, someone new, you say hello and you welcome them, and you're  talking to the shyest person in the church. You're taking someone who doesn't  have the skill and giving them a task that's extremely hard for them to do, and  it's nothing but hard work for them, and after three weeks, they quit. Why not  find this extroverted, outgoing person that just loves talking to people, and now  you've given them an excuse to do it. They love doing it. So match people's  skills to the task number five challenge with difficult things. I said this many  times already in sessions previously, but people want, in a way, they want things to be the same. It's easy when there's a routine. You just walk in, you just do it.  But on the other side, people get bored and and they end up quitting because  they're just bored. So even though people don't initially want a challenge, in the  end, they will thank you for it. So if you really want to motivate people, you got to keep things new and keep things fresh. Number six, let your people see the total picture of the part that they're painting. So, you know, I give an assignment to  people that they need to, you know, this week, find someone to maybe call up  on the phone or write one little encouraging note. Okay, it's just a simple little  thing, but help them see what that does. So, you know, 2, 3, more, two, three  months down the road, something good will have happened to somebody.  Someone sent a card at just the right moment. Let them get up and tell the  testimony of what happened. You know, I was I was down, I was discouraged. I  was like, ready to quit my job, ready to quit my family, walk out on my family, and then someone from the church sent me this note, and it changed everything. So, you know, help people see that the little thing that you're asking someone to do  turns into this incredible thing. When I was in seminary, I volunteered to teach  seventh grade catechism, and when I was teaching the seventh graders, they're  like, What is this seventh grader? Like, 12, 13, 14, years old, something, 

something like that. And they're, they're rebellious, they're they're disruptive. And I remember teaching thinking, Ah, this is not going anywhere. I I'm the worst  Either I'm the worst teacher or I don't know, I just, I just felt like it was total  chaos, that I was getting absolutely nowhere. And that's what I did for the years,  like I don't know what I accomplished there. Four or five years later, I did a  chapel at a school in the area, and after the chapel, I was going in the parking  lot to get into my car, and all of a sudden, these three kids, three kids come  running out from the school. And there were three kids that I had taught back in  seventh grade. Now they're, it's five years later, they're in 12th grade, and they  came and they acted like I was their long lost buddy. They told me encouraging  words about, you know, back in seventh grade, and how they appreciated  everything I did. It was like, what it was like, I didn't see that picture at the time.  I'm doing this little thing, but I'm not seeing the result of this thing. So people,  you know, you give them tasks, they're working hard. They're doing the Sunday  school thing, they're doing the education thing, they're helping out with the  coffee. They're doing the greeting. They're doing all the things that church does,  but they can't see the impact. Help them see the bigger picture number seven,  help them see what they cannot see. I love the story of Elisha and his servant.  Elisha, he was in this house, and all his enemies ended up coming to him and  surrounding his little house and and, you know, they wanted to capture him. And the servant steps out of the house, and he sees all the enemies, and he rushes  in, and he tells Elisha, and now we're in trouble. All the enemies are surrounding us. What are we going to do? And he's panicking, and Elisha prays a simple little prayer. He just says, Lord, open the eyes of my servant. And when God opens  his eyes, he could see all the angels surrounding all of his angels, the angels  with their swords and and their weapons. So all of a sudden, Elisha could see  what he couldn't see. And that's what we need to do with our people. You want  to motivate people. You have to help them see the ultimate goal. They have to  see what we're really trying to accomplish. It's all these little things that we do,  you know, inviting someone to your house. What does it do? You have no idea  what it does. Saying, you know, seeing some young person do something and  going over to them and saying, you know, I noticed. I noticed you helping out  that person. I noticed that you went over there and started talking to them,  because they were all by themselves. Let me tell you what that does. That is an  incredible thing. You are incredibly mature for your age. You say something like  that, and it sticks with people. When I was in fifth grade, I had an art project, and I made this, Abraham Lincoln out of paper mache, and it was about this high,  and I looked at a penny, and I made the face. And other people were making  like, you know, little pigs out of paper mache and little balloon things, animals or  whatever they were just. But I was making an Abraham Lincoln with the long  coat on and the hat and all these things and the beard and, you know, and my  teacher, I remember my art teacher, came by, she looked at it, and this is what 

she said to me. She said, you're very creative. You're very creative. That's all  she said. But I'll tell you, from fifth grade on, that's how I saw myself. I am very  creative. When I went to college and university, and I would write a paper and I  got the paper back, I wouldn't look at the grade. The grade was not what was  important to me. What I wanted to see is this is very creative, because I'm a  creative person. That's who I am. No matter what it is I do, I'm very creative in  his sermon, I am very creative the way I run the church, very creative. Okay,  that's how I think about myself. But I think about myself that way because  someone long ago made that one little comment. See that's you need to help  people see that the little thing they do can have an incredible effect. How does a manager motivate number eight celebrate little wins. You're in a Bible study, and you teach your the people in your Bible study how to pray. One of the simplest  ways to get someone to pray is to simply say, Hey, we're going to pray as a  group, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, I'm going to say praise. And  then if you have a praise item, all you have to do is say that just say one word, I  praise you God for your love, for your greatness, for your concern, for your  grace, for your grace. You can pray out loud for the very first time in your life  with three words. Then I'm going to say Thanksgiving. And anything that you're  thankful for, you can say, then I'm going to say supplication. Supplication is our  needs. So whatever it is that you need, Lord, I need guidance. Lord, I need your  wisdom. A person can pray out loud in a group for the very first time with just a  phrase. They don't have to start the prayer. They don't have to figure out how  you start a prayer and how you manage it and say all the right words, and then  how you bring the whole prayer to a close. What are the great closing words to a prayer? No, you can. You can pray out loud for the first time with in front of a  bunch of people with only three words. Then, you know, so you do that, and then when you're done, you celebrate that with them. Wow, you Is this the first time  you prayed out loud? Yes, it is. Wow. Great job. See, you're celebrating. You're  lifting up movement. You're lifting up progress in some little area, celebrate  every little win. We talked about that in the feedback session. People need to  know that they're on the right track. Number nine, celebrate defeats as moving  closer to a win. So you try something, you know, we tried, I tried this thing where we're going to do this canvassing, and I invited the whole church to come, and  only three people came. I could get mad at the whole church, or I can say, well,  we gotta find a different way. And I know at least one way that doesn't work. I  think Thomas Edison looked at that. He he tried, like, 1000s of different  filaments for his first electric light bulb, and someone said, Well, how did you  keep going after you know, hundreds and hundreds of failures, you try this  doesn't work. Try this doesn't work. Try this. How'd you just keep going, going  and going. And Thomas Edison said, Well, after, you know, a couple 100  defeats, I knew at least a couple 100 things that didn't work, I could cross them  off the list. This doesn't list. This doesn't work. And so I'm getting closer to the 

thing that works. I'm eliminating all the things that don't so again, it's how you  see things. Yeah, you're going to try things and you're going to fail. And the  people that you're trying to motivate, they're going to fail, and because they fail,  they'll want to quit. But instead of letting them quit, you turn it to a positive look.  We learned something. What did we learn in this failure? We've got to do it a  different way. Thank goodness we are learning it now. We didn't spend our half  our life doing it wrong. Number 10. Give them positions based on what they do  for the organization, not on how much you like them. The tendency as a  manager is to cozy up to the people you enjoy spending time with. I mean, that's just natural. So the people you get along with people that have the same sense  of humor that you do. For me, a lot of times, it's people that play the same sports I like, and those are the people I like to hang out with, and my tendency is to  promote them towards positions. Even though they're not the best at it, I have to think about who does what best and promote them to those positions. Number  11, give tasks and the authority to carry them out. A lot of times we give tasks as a manager. Look, I want you in charge of the retreat, but we don't give them the  authority that goes that would How do you give them authority? You give them  the authority by recognizing their authority in a public setting. So in a worship  service, I will say this person is in charge. We just had a camp out with our  church, and there was someone that organized it, that ran it, that he does it  every year during the two weeks before the camp out, and all during the camp  out, I call him Pastor Mark. He's not the pastor. He's just, you know, he's a he  works at some other job, but during those three weeks, I call him Pastor Mark.  And at this camp out, we had a few baptisms, adult baptisms, and we did it in  the pool, and my associate pastor had been working with them, so he was going to do the baptism, but he needed someone to help, you know, dunk someone  under. And he asked me to do that. And I said, No, let's have Pastor Mark do it.  See, I'm trying to recognize pastor, Mark. He's in charge of this whole thing, and  I want to honor him, and I want to do it in such a way that everyone sees that he is the one that's in charge of this. So when you give people the task, also give  them the authority, and you do that by recognizing in a public way, give them the authority to do it, motivation. It's really, you know, it's a struggle, in part, because people, different people, are motivated by different things. So you have to find  out what motivates whom, and try to use those things.