I’ve started two churches in my life and both times there were occasions in the beginning when I could put the entire church in my car and take them out to eat…

I find myself increasingly using web apps for all sorts of tasks. Some are for new tasks and some replace desktop apps I’ve been using for years. I thought I’d share my current favorites with you guys.

I like Daniel Pink’s stuff a lot.  I thoroughly enjoyed this short presentation he did at a Global TED gathering.  I think everybody that leads someone else (business leaders, church leaders, family leaders, etc) ought to watch this.

This backs up my own experience as being a pastor.  External motivators just don’t work in the long-run.  I’m sure there’s a place for them in the short-run but they will eventually start to falter.

Pink specifically lists three powerful internal motivators that should be understood by every pastor/leader…

1. Autonomy: People enjoy serving where there is some self-direction.  In other words, people want to be a part of the process and contribute on a higher level than just being manual labor.  Collaboration will almost always birth motivation if handled well.
2. Mastery: People like working at tasks that they can get better at over time.  They want a sense of accomplishment that comes from being challenged and growing through that challenge.  A person that has met every challenge on a certain ministry team probably needs to move to another team so that new tasks can be experienced and new accomplishments can be achieved.  Measurable personal achievements tend to create motivation.
3. Purpose: People want to feel like they are contributing to something greater than themselves.  This is the essence of service together in a community.  There’s a cry in every heart to do remarkable things while serving side-by-side with others.  Deep down, we all want to participate in a “barn raising.”  We want to multiple our efforts with others to see the world changed.  A bold vision, properly communicated and understood, will jump start waves of motivation in any organization.

At the end of the day, if people don’t sense that they are contributing, growing, or working towards a higher goal, they just aren’t going to last or, worse yet, they’ll stay in a position solely out of a sense of duty and they’ll do a lackluster job because you can’t fake genuine enthusiasm and motivation.

Any movement, cause, church or organization can only last so long by simply saying what they are against.  That will eventually wear a little thin.  The motivation of being against something will inevitably begin to wane.  It just won’t last.  It can’t last.  At some point, every movement, cause, church or organization must take a stand and state clearly what it believes.

It’s easy to sit back and take pot shots at something.  Anyone can do that.  It takes no skill, energy, intelligence or creativity to bluntly criticize while offering no other feedback or potential solutions.  In fact, I try to pay no attention to those types of armchair critics.  Instead, people should first enter the arena and try to accomplish something themselves before they ever begin to voice their opinions.

I recently listened to a podcast by Andy Stanley where he was stressing that we should become students instead of critics.  He said that he tries to never criticize anything before he first gets to a point where he can actually defend it.  I loved that.

The truth is that it’s easy to be a rebel but hard to be a revolutionary.  Rebels just revolt and criticize and bemoan all the problems of every system, and the world itself.  Revolutionaries see the problems too but they work to chart a new course, a potential solution, and then, most importantly, they endeavor to live that new course out.

Let’s be revolutionaries, when warranted, and lead the fight for positive changes in our world but let’s refrain from being bold but, ultimately, do-nothing critics.

I hate labels. They tend to reduce people to mere terms and phrases inside of looking at them as the unique creations that they are. As bad as they can be, there is something a lot worse…a label maker.