Our leaders must be able to speak with engagement. And I don't mean that they just talk. But they speak. They:- Speak life into their students. They know their students well enough to encourage, challenge, coach and correct. They are making disciples - a big part of that is conversation.
- Speak about the mission at hand, to other adults, leaders, students, potential prayer supporters, churches, missionaries, pastors, friends, people who would never understand why they are doing what they do. You can't shut them up about what they are doing and why.
- Speak formally. Sometimes they get invited to share formally.
- Speak informally. Sometimes they don't get invited and they still talk.
- Take advantage 'teachable moments.'
- Are able convey the essence of the trip when they get home.
Life is filled with teachable moments - an unplanned event that can be used as a learning opportunity - we only seem to recognize them when we are outside of our normal context. Discussions look like:
- our current approach to evangelism after we just saw a street evangelist with a bullhorn
- whether the stuff they gave to the homeless guy would really help him and whether he was a scammer
- were those really street kids at the park and what does that mean for us?
- what a tiller does and why it helps plants grow
Speaking with engagement - much more than just talk.
Some questions:
1 - How do you teach people to recognize and take advantage of teachable moments?
2 - All of us are at some time guilty of just talking to hear ourselves talk. How do you personally maintain the balance of speaking at the right time?
Photo: JAB and FZ speaking to a living room full of Brazilian high school kids about how Jesus has made a difference in their dating relationship.
Missional Leadership Lessons #1 and #2 in this series.
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