Example

I have learned from many different models in ministry.

These would include my own pastors, as well as all types of other Christian leaders.

It was the Summer of 1969, and I found myself in Memphis, Tennessee, pursuing some practical aspects of training for ministry. For two years, I had served as week-end Youth Pastor and Music Director for Faith Baptist church in Chester, South Carolina. I traveled the eighty miles from Greenville to Chester on Saturday afternoons, conducted a Teen meeting Saturday Evening, and slept on a pull-out bed in the church office Saturday night.

Read the series.

You can’t convince them to do it. You can’t make them do it, but you know it’s the right course of action, and you feel responsible. What can you do?

Several common responses should be promptly rejected. Empty threats should be off the table for Christian parents, spouses, coaches, teachers, coordinators, etc. (Eph. 6:9). That option only builds resentment, damages relationships, and reduces whatever respect the leader has. Ranting and sulking certainly don’t help (Gen. 42:36). Quietly stewing in bitterness finds its way out eventually, too (Num. 20:11-12).

Better options include reexamining our sense of responsibility, reexamining the potential tools, and refocusing on the tool of influence.