Practical Encouragement

There are so many great, small but significant things you can do practically to encourage others.
Just a simple thing like saying, ‘that was wonderful! well done!’ can take that moment of ‘I hope this was OK’ and turn it around to breathe a quiet assurance in the hearer’s heart.

In my specific area of training up new leaders of worship or if there is a leader feeling particularly vulnerable at a certain time - just a simple thing I do ON PURPOSE is to stand where they can see me from the corner of their eye, and my role in that moment is to simply cheer them on, even if you simply are like a bit of a security blanket, just being aware to give encouragement, staying inconspicuous, not letting anyone else know that is what you are doing and simply setting them up to win. The feedback we receive from little practical moments like this is incredible.

Talking through mistakes or musical ‘train wrecks’ also helps to keep any kind of faults in their place, and helping those coming through to see that if an error was made, that it was simply a bad musical choice, rather than anything to do with their character.

It is a very insecure, manipulative leader who will take your character to task over a simple, innocent mistake.

Over the years, I have seen literally hundreds of men and woman leave churches or ministry over events and mistakes on a platform such as these, that were not handled lovingly but simply either unspoken of, and then they were never used again, or they were berated publicly only to be lost in a sea of humiliation. A lot of what we do is in a public arena, so you find there is less room for error and certainly nowhere to hide when you make a blunder.

Encouragement is welcomed at any time, but it is CRITICAL to those in stages of early development, or to those who have just simply made an error and are feeling emotionally fragile.

And I might add, developing ON PURPOSE your sense of humour will certainly make moments like these (and many others) much easier to cope with!!

I personally have made so many mistakes while leading worship, or speaking, not to mention all the countless mistakes I’ve made OFF the platform. You learn over time that if you don’t laugh at yourself, AND be kind to yourself when you’ve made an innocent mistake, that life would certainly be SO much harder to negotiate.

Encouragement is also a superb act of kindness, as it puts those you encourage on a wonderful, lifted atmosphere – an atmosphere of LIFE and promise, rather than simply settling for the atmosphere of status quo.

And kindness is infectious.

When facing personality conflicts, even insecurity issues, it’s incredible how a stance of kindness offered to those around you tends to release a fragrance of selflessness, often putting your own issues at bay.