I’d like to talk to you a little bit about creating ownership. Now if you’re a leader and you can just say to people “hey do your job or we will find somebody else” that will motivate people and they will do their job. And yet most of us find ourselves in positions where we are only operating out of influence and not position. We are volunteers, motivating and inspiring other volunteers to see what God is doing and find their part in it.
So how do you create ownership and buy in? Well, this is a really important question especially again for those of us who are leading volunteers, who are leading a movement where you cannot just tell people “do it because I said so!”. And We actually don’t want that. We don’t want people to just do it because we said so. We want people to have a sense of what God is doing and actually get involved and stay involved and be motivated to stay involved because God is up to something great. And they see it and they want to be a part of it. We’re talking about sending people to the hardest places. We don’t want them to go just because we told them we want the sacrifices they make to be made for Jesus. He is the only one worthy! He’s the only one qualified to really tell them to go. And He’s the one who made the sacrifice first and He’s the one we are making the sacrifice for.
And so as mission leaders, missions mobilizers, how do we create ownership? Well, a really key part of this is actually creating this space where people can see, learn and see, what God is doing and then hear it from God Himself. See, catch God’s heart, get their hearts broken with the things that break God’s heart. And then actually get involved because Jesus is worthy not because we told them to do anything. And so that is a key part, letting people hear from God and discern what he’s doing and what he’s asking of them. OK?
Another key part in creating ownership is to actually come in asking questions. Many times we like to come in as the expert seems much more efficient to just tell people what to do and it seems very slow to just ask questions and allow people to discover what God is doing and their part in it. That definitely takes more time. And yet, in the long run, there is much more momentum much more strength when there are volunteers who are actually doing it because the Holy Spirit invited them to do it and not just having to be continually informed and continually motivated by us. So, the second part of creating ownership might be asking questions and not just giving advice and telling people what to do.
And then we can also just delegate authority and really tell people to get involved and take on responsibility carry things forward. And so as people pray, as people give, it activates that principle which is “where your treasure is there your heart will be also”. If we invite people to pray and give and go, of course. That engages their hearts, connects their hearts with the things that they’re investing in and then they have ownership they have buy-in in this whole process. So mission mobilization really needs to be excellent in the art of creating ownership.
Photo by Ander Burdain on Unsplash
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