Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Empowering and Exploiting

I recently finished reading a book that has stirred my mind and heart more than any book I've read in a long time. It's called "The House Church Book" by Wolfgang Simson, and there is so much in this book that I disagree with, and yet so much that I love and that strongly challenges me. I'll be posting a review of it in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to blog through it a bit. I'll start by posting this table that you'll find on page 125 if you pick up the book.

How to Empower Others How to Exploit Others
allow them to functiongive them functions
believe in themmake them believe in you
delegate authorityrequire submission
further God's plan for themmake them part of your plans
invest in themuse them
love them, and say solove the task more than the people
give them what you havetake what they have to give
discuss with thempreach at them
freely spend time with themrequire appointments
give them the keys nowmake them wait until you retire
serve themlet them serve you
praise themaccept their praise of you
transfer masterhooddemonstrate masterhood

This lays out so clearly what I was trying to put into words when I blogged about Life-Giving Leaders. The column on the left is what I aspire to--being someone who empowers others for the task to which God has called them. Take some time, look at the list, and see where you fall. Are you an Empowerer or Exploiter?

5 comments:

Jean said...

actually bud - the column on the left is what you aspire to!

Unknown said...

AMEN. Praying your leadership will only ever be the life-giving kind.

andy said...

Whoops! Thanks for spotting that, mom!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this. It's succinct and helpful. The left column looks wonderful, but also more difficult than the right column. Nevertheless, I pray I can start/continue shifting more from functioning in the right column to the left one.

I'd like to post this on my blog, too, in the near future if that's okay. I'll credit you and Simson's book.

With gratitude,
Stanley

andy said...

Stanley, please feel free to post it. No need to credit me--I just copied it straight out of Simson's book! ;)