5. Get Motivated

One of the more frequent complaints pastors have had over the years is that many of the lay people seem unmotivated. “The folks are too lackadaisical,” the pastor will say. “They just come when there isn’t anything more interesting for them to do, and it is like pulling teeth to get them to take a position of leadership.” Truthfully, I also know lay people who have the similar complaints about their pastor.
Those grumblings came to mind as I was reviewing the book “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins, recently. He wrote, “Spending time trying to motivate people is a waste of time and effort. The real question is not, ‘How do we motivate our people?’ If you have the right people, they will be self-motivated. The key is to not de-motivate them.”
Hmmm, I thought. All we need is the right people. That is easy for Jim Collins to say, but who are the right people. The question was ruminating as I thumbed backward in the book—something left-handers are apt to do. Suddenly, I found Collins’ answer: “Whether someone is the right person has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background, or skills.”
So, all this time we have spent trying to get our people excited has been mis-spent. Rather, we should have been spending our time in search of the right folks. I wondered whether this would pass the “Jesus” test. That is, would this be a description of how Jesus did it?
Strangely, as I thought about it, I began to realize that Collins might be right. Jesus picked 12 people to be his closest associates. Many have wondered why those 12 were picked. They came from outside the set of religious leaders. They appeared to have little education or wealth. They didn’t appear to be well connected in their community. They hadn’t been to seminary, so they had poor backgrounds and little skill development for starting the Church.
A few of them, as it turns out, were out fishing on the lake rather than listening to Jesus teach when they got the call. Think about that. Jesus had a multitude of onlookers wanting to hear what he said, but he turned away from them and picked out the folks who were ignoring him.
We, of course, have to guess at what character traits Jesus was seeking. Maybe it was a person like Thomas who would say, “Let’s go to Jerusalem and die with him.” He might have liked the questioning mind of Nathaniel who dared to ask, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Jesus might have preferred a disciple like Peter who was willing to cast a net in an apparently fruitless attempt to catch fish just because Jesus gave the command.
For whatever reasons Jesus picked these 12, we also know that he chose not to pick other more obvious choices. He did not pick Nicodemus, a member of the top religious leadership at that time. He did not pick those who thought they already knew the answers. He didn’t pick people simply because they followed him around looking for signs and miracles. He didn’t pick those who were in the synagogue every Sabbath making sure no one else sat in their spot.
All of this suggests to us that we may have been looking for motivated people in the wrong places. It is possible that we have a number of strongly motivated leaders in our communities. Our problem is that they could be the ones who are working at the gas station we pass on the way to church. Or they might be the ones who are in the fields on Sunday morning because they have concluded the church is for other people. All that is missing for them is for someone representing Jesus to come by and invite them on the journey.
Pay attention to who you meet this week. It might just be one of those people who has just the right character traits to become the highly motivated disciple of Christ your congregation needs. Take a moment to invite them to cast their net on the other side of the boat. In doing so you may just find the motivated leader you have been seeking.