Affect your circle of influence
Jun 06, 2019 03:26PM ● By Beacon Senior News
Each year, I was given a budget of how many hours I was allowed to schedule for staff each week. One day, the program director asked me into his office and told me how the number of hours our staff was working was exceeding our budgeted hours.
I told him, a little defensively, that I had always scheduled our staff within the number of hours I’d been given, but my position didn’t allow me to have control over the number of hours people actually worked. I told him that the floor supervisors were responsible for that, and that I couldn’t tell them what to do since their positions were parallel to mine.
“I’m not asking you to,” the director replied. “All I’m asking you to do is to affect your circle of influence.”
I pondered what the director said, and started bringing awareness to the issue by mentioning the number of hours our staff were working (in a non-threatening way) whenever possible. Sure enough, our labor hours began to come into line with our budget.
In Matthew 16:18 (NLT), in talking to one of His disciples, Jesus said, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means “rock”), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”
The word Jesus used for “church” was a word known in Jewish as “Ekklesia.”
Ekklesia was actually a secular word, meaning a social impact group with implications of affecting society, all the way up to and influencing government.
That’s what we, the church, are to be. Each of us has a circle of influence given to us by God. We can’t force our society to change, but if each one of us works to affect his or her circle of influence, we will see the effects of our work upon society.
One pastor put it this way: “Go and preach the Gospel; and if necessary, use words.”
What we do affects others. So who can you affect in your circle of influence for the Kingdom of God? ■
