Steward Leadership - Encourage with Authority

 

    This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters and leaders. 

We continue our series on steward leadership as we examine some major themes on this topic. Today I want to provide some additional instruction regarding something that I shared two weeks ago. 

To quickly review, a steward is defined as “someone who manages resources belonging to another person in order to achieve the owner’s objectives.” In our context, we are managing resources and exercising the authority provided by the Lord for our Village Church Planting work. 

Here again is the recent prayer of one of my fellow OMS Regional Directors. “Lord, please help us steward the authority entrusted to us.”  

In my last episode, I shared these instructions to leaders from Titus 2:11, 12 and 15. 

“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age … These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.” 

Today I want to say more about our responsibility to encourage with all authority. I’ll speak first about encouragement since for most of us that is the easier of these two duties. My French is not very good, but I recognize that the word “encouragement” has its origin in the French language. It means “to give heart.” 

As leaders, when we encourage those who follow us, our words lift their spirits and motivate them to continue their Kingdom work. To press on for the work of Christ. 

Many years ago, I learned something very important about encouragement and feedback. I had a boss who would say nice things to me, but he was seldom specific.  He would say things like “good job” or “keep up the good work.”  Honestly, that was not very encouraging to me because his words lacked specifics. 

So, leaders, I would coach you to provide specific words of encouragement to those whom you lead. You might say something like “you did a very good job presenting that lesson.” Or “your planning for that training event was outstanding because you communicated clearly to everyone involved.” 

We must also follow Paul’s instruction to “rebuke with authority.” That is a more difficult, but sometimes necessary, part of our leadership responsibility, and I will address this topic in my next podcast.  

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters and leaders.