Session II - The Motivation

Welcome to Session II - The Motivation. Find this session’s summary and objective, key ideas and highlights, and pro tips for facilitating below.

• Session II Summary and Objective

  • Summary: An opportunity to help us each identify what has or has not previously motivated us to share Jesus with the lost and realize that the Gospel in us is the only thing that purely and deeply motivates us to share it with others.

  • Objective:

    • To practice assessing our inward motivations for making new disciples of Jesus.

• Key Ideas and Highlights of Session II

  • It’s been said, “Don’t give a man a fish, don’t teach a man to fish, but help him cultivate a desire for fish.” In this session, we want to drill deep into the heart of our why. We want to explore our deepest, core desire. We want to say that if Jesus’ love for us is not the deepest foundation of our why, then it is guaranteed that at some point, we will run out of steam and lose our motivation. Jesus, and Jesus alone, has to be our why.

  • The assessment tool in this session, called the Gospel Motivation Grid, is designed to help us explore how much what we say we believe aligns with how we live. We start where we want to be, as someone who is making disciples. And, as we move through the questions, we realize we can’t make disciples unless we genuinely love people. And we can’t genuinely love people if we don’t love God. And we can’t love God until we have first received His unconditional love and grace through the Gospel. It is at that point we realize that our deepest motivation is a Gospel motivation—a motivation rooted in God’s love, expressed through Jesus.

  • This session may be the most important one in the ACTIVATE(D) Team Series. Our motivation matters, and Jesus alone is worthy to be at the heart of our motivation. Oftentimes, we think Jesus is at the center of our motivation, but if we’re honest, our goals, methods, tools, or what we want to do for God is at the center. It is our strong conviction that everyone who desires to share Jesus’ love with others must possess a Gospel motivation.

• Pro Tips for Facilitating Session II

  • If some of your Team members experience guilt and shame in processing the Gospel Motivation Grid, help them see God’s grace in it. Our hope and prayer is that people will continue further down the Grid until they come to experience the grace in the Gospel. Making disciples, loving people, and loving God are all things people do. Therefore, it is easy to feel “guilty” or have the feeling that we “should” be doing more. The Gospel Motivation Grid highlights the truth that all of the things people do are rooted in what God did by expressing His love through the Gospel. Help the people understand that God’s grace is the motivation for why we do what we do, not guilt.

  • If your Team members struggle with the how of living from a Gospel motivation, don’t feel like you have to answer every question they have. We explore more of this in the next session. As a Coach for your Team, hold the space of tension and invite people to seek God. The work that God does in us as we wait on Him is amazing.

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