Let’s say you’re a leader…in the church, in your home, at your job, on your team… How do you lead? It turns out there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, and it goes all the way back at least to Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians:
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5.14, ESV)
I love this verse:
- Admonish the idle
- Encourage the fainthearted
- Help the weak
Be patient with them all.
And it takes wisdom to discern between the idle who need admonishment, the fainthearted who need encouragement, and the weak who need help. The symptoms are the same: they’re not doing anything! But why?
- The idle are just lazy. Admonish them.
- The fainthearted could do something productive, but they’re afraid. Encourage them.
- The weak can’t. Help them.
Get these mixed up, and our admonishments, encouragements, and help are misdirected.
When I served at an Air Force leadership school, we taught The Hershey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model.
Basically, the model starts with, say, raw recruits, or a new hire, or any situation where people don’t know what they’re supposed to do or how to do it, S1 on the chart. The appropriate behavior is “highly directive” with little encouragement “supportive” leadership. You can’t encourage someone to do what they can’t do. You have to show them what to do and how. After they get going, then you can add encouragement to keep them going, S2. Then it often happens, when the task or job has lost its novelty, people can do it, they just don’t want to, S3.
Combining Situational Leadership with 1 Thessalonians 5.14, you can’t encourage someone to do something they can’t do. That’s applying an S2 solution to an S1 problem. Encouragement for those who are idle is applying an S2 solution to an S3 problem. In summary:
- S1: weak, untrained. Train them. Help them.
- S2: they’ve started, keep them going. Encourage them.
- S3: they’ve lost interest. Admonish them.
This puts “help the weak” in a new light. There may be some weak who need perpetual help. But it makes more sense to think of weak as people who are unskilled, and untrained. Marine recruits are “weak” when they show up. At the end of the 12 weeks, they’re not weak anymore. Help the weak be strong…by training!
Teaching Time with God comes to mind. First, we help them by teaching a method. The task itself motivates them. “I’m meeting with God!” Then, we encourage them to keep going. There will usually be a time when they know how to do it, but life gets in the way (Mark 4.18, 19). Those are the ones we admonish.
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5.14, ESV)