Romans 12:3 // Inject Confidence

For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)

For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken. (Proverbs 3:26)

Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: (Acts 11:25)

The texts I am up to in my Bible reading build perfectly on this next verse in Romans: We are not to have confidence in ourselves but in what God wants to do through us and equally through those around us, therefore we are willing to temporarily abandon the successful and fulfilling work that we are doing to activate others for ministry.

I want to be very effective in ministry, and the trap for those who manage to be effective is they end up doing everything, since they are the best at everything.

So while it is good to be excellent at what we do, it is better for ministers to generate others who are even better. How is this done?

Inject Confidence: Make sure people know from your attitude towards your own work and from your feedback to them that we do not need to be confident in our own gifts or abilities, but in God's ability to give us the words and deeds to achieve his objectives if we make ourselves available.

Prioritize Multiplication: Be willing to suffer criticism or even loss, because that will happen when you are focusing on activating and training fellow servants. There will be people who complain or maybe even leave church and blame you for not giving them more attention, endure this patiently and keep making disciples. But...

Sow every field: Don't assume that certain people don't have potential to be trained because they are not well known in the church. These are exactly the kind of untapped potential that you need to be activating and empowering, and yet they are the people who are most commonly neglected, they may rarely complain, but left untended they are far less fruitful than they could be. This means visiting people who have been been visited, even if they have no obvious "needs" and are hard to pin down to a date.

Strategize: Spend time working out what a member's untapped potential may be and invite them to get involved in various ministries that may suit them.

Personalize: Discipleship is just blowing hot air without actually coming alongside people, or inviting them to join you in your work.