Highly Engaged Followers of Jesus Christ

Yesterday I read a short newspaper article concerning a study done by one of our main competitors on the subject of employee engagement in the workplace. It had a bit of a mixed message for Canadian companies, in that they ranked about fifth in the world for the proportion of employees who were "highly engaged" — a positive message — but at only about 15% of employees being highly engaged it seems that there is a lot of improvement needed.

Highly engaged employees are very valuable — they are the people who are willing to jump in and do extra or extraordinary things when the need arises, because they are highly engaged in the goals of the organization. The article indicated that the sorts of environments that go into encouraging engagement by employees vary greatly by country or by culture, taking into account the aspirations, goals and values of the employees themselves.

I was intrigued by this concept because it seemed to speak to the sort of thing we're trying to encourage in the church — highly engaged followers of Jesus Christ — without getting bogged down in the language of "leadership". People who are highly engaged may exhibit that engagement in myriads of ways, each in keeping with his or her own unique personality, skills, gifts, calling, etc. And the way in which an individual exhibits high engagement may well change over time, perhaps quite quickly as the surrounding circumstances change. An individual may take up the task of leader at one moment, when that is what is needed, and then lay it down again when the need passes — perhaps to respond to another need in a totally different manner.

The stories I heard on Tuesday night, when our two Focus 3 groups met together, as well as other things I've been hearing, tell me that the Focus 3 project has certainly played a significant role in raising the level of engagement of many people in our local body. And that is far more important than whether or not these individuals ever take up the task of leader in any formal or ongoing way, or ever take on the self-identity label of leader.

For myself, I find the language of encouraging people to be highly engaged followers of Jesus Christ far more effective in encouraging my own level of engagement than the language of developing leaders. Perhaps a large of the difference is the way engagement embraces the whole range of personality, passion, gifts, skills, life experience, calling in way that leadership language simply cannot. Anyone can be highly engaged in following Jesus Christ and living out of the Kingdom of God, there is no need to divide the body between those who are leaders — or have the potential to become leaders — and those who are not. And that certainly aligns better with Paul's metaphor of us all being indispensable members of the Body of Christ, precisely in our diversity.

I think I feel myself becoming more engaged.