Hatfield Church - Vicar's Notes

One minute encourager

August 2011

One minute encourager

People have often commented, following a funeral service, that it would have been nice to have heard the lovely things mentioned whilst the person was still alive. I couldn't agree more! Don't you agree that there is so much negativity and lack of encouragement in the world that people are crushed and held back from achieving their full potential? Not so much by bad things said, but simply through lack of encouragement and things that are not said when they should have been. We've all seen the face of a child light up when they are encouraged or told how wonderful they are, which gives us a warm feeling too. Jesus was a great encourager of others. Just look at how he chose, called and moulded those unlikely disciples, encouraging them to reach their God-given potential.

A really influential book I read many years ago, when working as a manager for ASDA, was called ‘The One Minute Manager' by Kenneth Blanchard. What it didn't do was to encourage managers to work for only one minute, but to use many minutes during the working day to encourage employees. Blanchard urged the reader to use sixty seconds, one minute, to catch their employees out. Not catch them doing something wrong so they could have a telling off, but catch them doing something right and congratulate and encourage them. This is one of those wrong-way-round ideas that Jesus taught us to adopt in our own Christian discipleship and one I'm also asking us to adopt in a deeper way, too. We all like the assurance in knowing that we're doing the right thing or are on the right track. We all like to receive the metaphorical ‘thumbs-up' which gives us confidence to continue. So could I ask that, on a regular basis, we all just take sixty seconds, one minute, to encourage each other? Not in a gushing, over-the-top or embarrassing way, but just a small sign to someone who may be feeling a little lost that they are indeed on the right track.

With every blessing. Paul