Empowering People

Jesus is an Empowerer

“Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19).

​Before He ascended into heaven, Jesus Christ declared, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18b). However, the power didn’t remain in His hands alone. His declaration was followed by a wonderful promise, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me” (Acts 1:8a).

This was not the only time that Jesus shared His power with His people. When the seventy-two disciples whom He sent to the cities in Israel returned, He confirmed the power that He invested in them for the work of the ministry, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19).

​Jesus was an empowerer. His style of leadership and ministry is an example for us today that if we want the Kingdom of God to advance, ministers ought not to be hoarders but sharers of power. The Holy Spirit and His power is not just for a few people; “for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39).

​Five-Fold Ministry

In the English translation of the Bible, Ephesians 4:11–12 goes like this, “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Some people say that verse twelve is the “three-fold purpose of the five-fold ministry.” Nevertheless, in its original text, commas were not added into it. It is supposed to be “for the perfecting of the saints [so that they can do] the work of the ministry [resulting in] the edifying of the body of Christ.”

If we want the Kingdom of God to advance, ministers ought not to be hoarders but sharers of power.

Raymart Lugue

The purpose of the five-fold ministry is not to “monopolize” the ministry but to perfect or mature the saints. God didn’t intend the whole work of the ministry to be upon the shoulders of only five people or offices. If it is a home mission’s church, this might be the case for a specific period as time for the people to mature must be first considered. We cannot expect a newborn child to do some household chores, that’s being insensitive. However, if that child becomes a teenager and he still doesn’t know how to contribute to the betterment of the household, it is definitely a maturity problem that needs to be addressed.

When the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers empower the saints and equip them for the work of the ministry, the labourers in the Kingdom of God will multiply. If every person in the church finally finds his place of service, the whole church will surely be edified. The aim is not to contain the power to do the ministry in one office; the goal of an apostolic minister is to share the power so everybody else can do their own ministry “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

Success in Empowerment
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John Maxwell shared an interesting story about Dan who told him about one of his greatest successes in empowerment:

“When Dan first started with me, he was an intern, fresh out of graduate school. He had a lot of talent, but he still had some rough edges. I worked with him quite a bit – modeling, motivating and mentoring him – and in a short time he grew to be the first-rate pastor.

In just a few years, he became one of my key players. When we had a new program that needed to be created and implemented, I frequently looked to Dan, empowered him to take on the task, and gave him my full confidence and authority. And he took care of it. Time after time, I’d give him a major project, he would work through the whole process, implement it, raise up leaders to run it, then come to me for another task. He continually worked himself out of a job.

In 1989, about six or seven years after Dan began working for me, I came to a point where I realized I needed to hire an executive pastor, a kind of chief administrative officer. And I knew right away that I wanted Dan to fill the position.

Now I knew that when you raise up a leader from within the ranks, there are often resentment and resistance from some of that person’s colleagues. But I had a strategy. As I began to transfer my authority to Dan, I tried my best not to miss an opportunity to publicly praise him, show my confidence in him, and remind everyone that Dan spoke with my authority. As a result, the rest of the staff quickly rallied around him, and he was empowered as their new leader.

It has been said that there is no success without a successor. The true achievements in the Kingdom of God are never the number of sermons we prepared nor the number of events we organized but the number of people we’ve brought to the feet of Christ. Success happens when we invest in other people. It happens when we are known not by how good we perform but by the people we’ve empowered. 

One of the most tragic occurrences I read in the Scriptures is Absalom’s decision to build monuments for himself. “During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, “I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day” (II Samuel 18:18 NIV). He had no son. He didn’t even empower other people who would carry his name and legacy after he died. 

As ministers, what do we want to be known for? What would be our legacy? Do we want monuments that can easily be destroyed and forgotten? Or do we want sons and daughters in the gospel for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ? Be an empowerer!

Kingdom-minded ministers work smarter, not harder.

Raymart Lugue

Some Benefits of Empowering

Empowering others is a win–win style of ministry. Firstly, people under the ministry of an empowering minister are like paper in the hands of a talented artist – they become treasures. Oliver Wendell Holmes observes, “The biggest tragedy in America is not the great waste of natural resources –though this is tragic. The biggest tragedy is the waste of human resources because the average person goes to his grave with his music still in him.” Each person has God-given potentials invested in them and there’s no telling what God can do through them if we will only choose to empower them in the Kingdom of God.

Secondly, a minister – whether he is a preacher, Sunday school teacher, usher, musician, singer or administrator – who chooses to empower others utilises the power of unloading. There are two types of weight: weight that comes to us through life and the weight that we pile on ourselves because we do not share our ministry. There are some things that we need to delegate to others so we can do the things that God wants us to do. We will discuss more about delegation on the final chapter, but let us be reminded that “if we want God to infuse us with last-day revival power, then understand that first we may need to unload some things in our lives.”

Lastly, no matter how much work we do, we will not advance far in the Kingdom of God if we cannot work through and with other people. Paul Chappell shares the following story about empowering others and working with other people:

The 1988 centennial celebration in the small town of Bruno, Nebraska, was an incredible display of the power of teams. Seven years earlier, Herman Ostry had purchased a farm, including a barn, half a mile out of town. In 1988 when spring flooding covered the barn floor with twenty-nine inches of water, Herman decided it was time to move the barn to higher ground. The $1,500 estimate from professional movers was too steep, so Herman’s son, Mike, devised another plan. He estimated that the barn weighed roughly 17,000 pounds. If 340 people carried fifty pounds each, they could simply carry the barn to its new location! Mike built a grid of steel tubing around the barn and attached handles for the carriers. On July 30, over four thousand people from eleven different states watched as 344 people carried the barn about 120 feet. Minutes later, the barn was sitting on its new foundation. What one person could never have accomplished alone, 344 people were able to do together.

Paul Chappell

Kingdom-minded ministers work smarter, not harder. If we are smart enough, we will choose to empower others so that the work can be multiplied, resulting in the edifying of the body of Christ and our much anticipated worldwide revival.