Week 10

Week 10
March 26th, 2009
Kelly Jones

How a person learns to work with people. How can you learn how to better work with people.

All you need is love. Right? We work well with others out of love, even when we do not feel like loving them. As ministers, and as Christians, we are called to love as Christ loved. We are called to love not just those who love us back, but love our enemies. We are asked to love the unlovable. Who are the unlovable?—the annoying story-tellers that cannot take a hint to stop talking, the complainers who always have something to whine about, the compulsive apologizers that pity themselves for not doing anything right, the elusive personalities that you cannot seem to understand what they think about you….the list goes on and on. The thing is—we are called to love—but loving is a choice! We are not called to like these people, but we are called to love them.

What does that mean? What does that look like? LIKE THIS: loving others as you love yourself. You always want what is best for you, you are always putting your desires and wants first, and you are always finding ways to improve when you fall flat on your face. You want to be poured into, pruned, and made new. Loving others as you love yourself.
So how does this help me in working with people? It helps you to have patience, peace, and understanding that you could not have on your own because you are loving them by the love of God. Part of working well with others is seeing them as God sees them—seeing their potential and their worth. The biggest road block in working with others comes when two mindless, self-indulgent people come together with their own interests in mind. As ministers, we need to be the better person. There are going to be people who want what is best for them. Your job as a minister is to want no only what is best for them, but best for all who are involved. So, if I were to list out ways to better work with people this would be it:

1.Love them
2.Know their worth
3.Know their potential
4.Know their needs and desires
5.Know your own worth, potential, needs and desires (so that others do not threaten yours).