Sphere of influence—Part I–Basic Definitions

Introduction

    Note the following two verses:

Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.  Php 1: 6 (the context is 3-6 and is relating things Paul is thankful for about the Philippians).

For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every person that is among you, not to think of himself or herself more highly than he/she ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has given to every person the measure of faith. Rom 12:3 (the context is 3-8 and is about spiritual gifts). Rom 12:3

    Now while Php 1:6 is certainly corporately applied to the church at Philippi it also was inclusive of God’s working in individual’s lives.

    For leaders, Php 1:6 is a great promise. God will continue His work in shaping their lives towards Christ-likeness. (one of the major emphases in the book of Philippians).

    And the Rom passage, 12:3-8, shows that God’s working in terms of one’s giftedness is to help the gifted person to reach a full “measure of faith,” that is, use the gift to its maximum.
    
    These two passages indicate that God is working in two ways—both toward the building of character and also in terms of reaching one’s leadership potential and fulfilling God’s purposes.  

    Early on in our comparative study of leaders we listed the following five observations.

    1. God shapes or develops a leader over an entire
        lifetime.
    2. God intends to develop a leader to reach the
        maximum potential and accomplish those things
        for which the leader has been gifted.
     3. A time perspective provides many keys. When
         using a time perspective to analyze and overview
        a leader’s development, the life can be seen in
        terms of several time periods, each yielding
        valuable informative lessons. I call this time
        perspective a time-line. Each leader has a
        unique time-line describing his/her development.
    4. Shaping processes can be identified, labeled, and
        analyzed to contribute long lasting lessons and
        values.
    5. Patterns can be identified and are highly suggestive
        for anticipating future processing by God.
        

Sphere of Influence—An Important Measure
    It is the first two listed observations that I want to talk about in this series on sphere of influence.

    The phrase, "measure of faith," in Romans 12:3,6 implies a potential level of effective use of gifts varying according to God's unique gifting of individuals. Sphere of influence seeks to capture that notion. It applies the "measure of faith" from a leadership emergence standpoint. Leadership emergence is completed when a leader reaches that maximum level for which he/she is gifted and is continuously operating in convergence. The stewardship model also reinforces the Romans 12 concept. Those responsible for developing leaders should continuously seek to identify sphere of influence and make selection and training decisions, which challenge trainees to reach their God-given ministry potential.

 Definition
Sphere of influence refers to the totality of people being influenced and for whom a leader will give an account to God.

Basically there are 3 kinds of influence: direct, indirect, and Organizational.

Definition
Influence-mix is a term describing the combination of influence elements—direct, indirect or organizational—in terms of degree and kind at a given point in time.

Definition
The influence challenge process item refers to those instances in which a leader is prompted by God to take steps to expand leadership capacity in terms of sphere of influence.

    In this series on Sphere of Influence, I am going to talk about my own challenge at the moment—the expansion of my indirect influence. More on this next week.

Blessings,
Bobby Clinton