How to be 10 times better than your coworkers (Expanded)

Wouldn’t be great to stand out at your job at a whole new level? I was reading from Daniel and a verse captured my imagination. “…he (the king) found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.” (1:20 bold mine) Wouldn’t that be great?

Now I know that we need to be careful not to make a onetime miracle into a principle, but looking at the rest of the chapter there are some things we can apply to our lives. And wouldn’t you be excited about even being found five times better than your coworkers by your boss. Here are some things to do:

Pray for favor with your immediate supervisor and a few levels up.

The passage says that the official above Daniel had favor and sympathy for him (1:9). You can pray that for yourself every day on the way for work. While you are praying it wouldn’t hurt to pray up the organizational chart as well. This doesn’t exclude you if you are self employed. Pray for favor with the people that you do business with everyday. If you are a stay at home mom you can pray for favor with teachers and other parents that you deal with on a regular basis.

Pray for direction to avoid compromise.

Daniel did not want to compromise in the way that he lived (1:8). Ask God to show you where you should take a stand and where compromise may have snuck into your life. Deal with it quickly. In my Charles Finney book he highlights the importance of looking at both the compromise that you are doing and areas where you should be doing something that you are not.

Pray for ability to learn your job and understanding to excel at it.

Daniel and his friends were blessed by God to understand what they needed to do in their job (1:17). We could all use that. God says we can ask for wisdom with we need it (James 1:5) so we might as well ask that for our jobs. Again this applies even if you are in other areas as well. As I lead this non-profit I pray for wisdom to lead it well. Every parent knows they need wisdom to fulfill their role of parent well!

As you pray these three things and work hard you may be surprised at how your boss will end up thinking you are 10 times better than everyone else!

[tweetthis]Some simple steps to improve how your employer sees you! [/tweetthis]

4 suggestions from Jim Cymbala (Brooklyn Tabernacle) to build prayer in your ministry

Pastor Jim Cymbala Header

I am a little late to the game but when Jim Cymbala’s office sent me a copy of their 2007 DVD series I sat down and watched it all in one setting. I recommend it to you as a good series to take your ministry through. Even if you don’t purchase it his advice at the end of pastors is great advice to leaders to trying to build a culture of prayer in their ministry. Here are 4 things I took away:

Personalize what happens to you and your church.

He used the idea of grades in school. Understanding if your church is in first grade or high school in relationship to prayer will make a difference in what you do with prayer. I always encourage leaders to understand their personality and preferences before adding things with prayer.

[tweetthis]Is your church in first grade or high school in prayer? Lead them accordingly! [/tweetthis]

Strategically model prayer

Of course if you want to have a ministry of prayer you must be a person of prayer. But it is also important to model and mentor it to the leaders specifically and the ministry generally. Think of ways to build into your messages things like, “When I was in prayer the other day…” or “One of the things that I am praying for our group…”

Creatively teach on prayer

He talked about pastors who get excited about prayer and then come back and start a service that the church is not ready. Then they are, “double discouraged”. You may need to teach for a while before they are ready. He offered a great piece of advice to not only teach on the how of prayer but the power that prayer has to make a difference. This will get people ready for more prayer.

Give space for prayer in the service

We may think we need to launch 24-7 prayer or a weekly prayer service but the ministry is not ready. A place to start is during your regular service. Find ways to extend prayer into the life of the service. Maybe it will be to extend prayer for a couple minutes after the singing but before the message or maybe it will be extending your prayer time at the end of your message as a model of prayer.

With these four things hopefully you can think of one practical step you could use this week to help your ministry go to the next level.

(Note this was originally sent as part of our leaders Building A Culture Of Prayer Email. If you want to be part of this growing group you can sign up here)