Leading Teams with Care - Lesson 1

Well, welcome to course number two, entitled “Leading Teams with Care.” I'm excited about this particular course because this is where we get practical about Christ in our leadership. The first course, “Leading a Healthy Church Culture,” we're focused primarily on what the basics are all about of being a Christ-centered leader, and how then to lead people into a healthy - or to use a different term - a Christ-centered culture. So with that as the backdrop, with that as the foundational piece, now we get to use some building blocks to begin to get practical about what it means to lead and function in that kind of a context. So this course, the second course of four, is entitled, “Leading Teams with Care,” that CARE stands for something that we will become very familiar with in the course of these next few hours. But a great starting place is to begin with Scripture.

I love this verse in Genesis, where in the very beginning, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” There is that plural designation, let us make man in our image. I'm not sure that the Bible writers would have used the word team to describe the Trinity, but certainly, the concepts are there. What do we see in the Trinity that reminds us of what we understand about teams? When you think of the Trinity, and I use the word team, what comes to mind? Exactly. Great unity. 

In John Chapter 17, in fact, Jesus was praying for his disciples, and he said, I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name that you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. So the great example of our unity, of our oneness, is indeed the Trinity itself, which was there before the beginning. So we see that unity. What else do we see in the Trinity that reminds us of a team? Can you think of anything else? 

Exactly. So there is unity, and there's these complementary functions, so that the Father has a function -- we go through this in some detail -- the role of the Son, the role of the Holy Spirit. Certainly, various perhaps overlapping functions at times, but definitely a distinctive in terms of their functions. So we see that unity and that diversity, that unity and that designation of function without sacrificing value. All three persons of the Trinity are certainly of extreme and infinite value to us all. So from the very beginning, from the very creation account, in fact, before the beginning, we see this notion of team bleeding through even in the Trinity as we watch it unfold. And then, of course, as the writer of Genesis reminds us when God determined to make man, he said it's not good for a man to be alone. I will make a helpmate. So there was that sense again that we’re made for one another; we're not made to be alone, but we're made to be in relationship with each other. 

And then moving over to the New Testament, what do you see about team that's built into this text? “Instead, (Paul writes to the Ephesians) “speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each does its work.” What are the implications if we use the word team? Now, obviously, Paul used the word body, but if we use the word team to describe what Paul's talking about here, what are some of the principles that he's talking about and he’s teaching in these verses. Thoughts? 

STUDENT:  Common purpose. 

Common purpose, which is? 

STUDENT:  Well, they're glorifying Christ. 

Okay, glorifying Christ.

STUDENT:  As well as making him known. 

And so according to this verse, it's building each other up in love. So it's a building up. It's a growing up. It's a maturity process that we're after. What else do we see here? 

STUDENT:  Connected, working together. 

Okay, the emphasis is on the connectedness. I'm not a person that understands medicine very well, but maybe somebody here can tell us the function of a ligament. What's the function of a ligament? 

STUDENT:  A ligament holds something in place and restricts its movement. 

Okay, so restricts it and holds it in place. So it's holding something else besides itself in place. Is that right? 

STUDENT:  It connects two bones, connects one bone to another bone. 

Interesting. What else does this teach here? There is a head who is Christ Jesus. Anything else that comes out of this text about team.

STUDENT:  Growing and building up in love. 

Right. So that's the goal, is growing and building up in love. 

So there's one head, there's many members, and –

STUDENT:  Again, there's a complementary nature there. Each part is doing its work in the unity towards the common goal. 

Towards the common goal. Yeah. So I want to make a strong statement, and I'd like your reaction to it. I believe teamwork is the will of God for the people of God. What do you think about that statement? 

STUDENT:  Well, if God indeed designed us for relationship, out of that relationship has to come some sort of fruit, and the fruit can only be accomplished by a team; some plant, some harvest, we all have different functions in this garden or this process of growing together. And so I do believe it's accurate. 

Anybody disagree? 

STUDENT:  I personally don't disagree, but I've seen people who don't demonstrate that leadership, kind of the – 

Lone Ranger thing. Well, we'll have a chance to explore that a little bit more, because there are some nuances to that and some complexities to it, but that's just a starting statement, and the reason I say that is because in the corporate world today, teambuilding and teamwork is a fad. It's very trendy. It's something that if you walk into corporate America, for example, most everybody has had training and exercises on how to build teams. It's a very popular and quite frankly, very profitable kind of enterprise today. 

Ultimately, that isn't what this course is about. It isn't about success or profitability, but it's about being faithful to who God has called us to be as His people. This idea of teamwork actually grows out of who we are. It grows out of our identity as believers, and it grows out of our identity and who we belong to. As the Trinity demonstrated it so well for us in creation and Paul talks about what we're called to, the word that we use in modern parlance is team building, is teamwork. So this whole notion of team is a high calling, and so I hope that from the very beginning this is not just a way to be successful, but really at the core of it, we're doing it because it's the right thing to do. We're doing it because it's what we're called to do and to be as God's own. What do you think about that? I'm just interested in your reaction to that. 

STUDENT:  I'm reminded of the example that you gave us the first time we met, and that's that during the Civil War, so many folks lost their lives. They were all volunteers, and a lot of them were fighting against friends, family, neighbors, but they did it for three reasons. They did it because they were committed to the cause or the purpose, or the word that you used, the calling. Secondly, they were committed to the community, that family or whatever that entity that they were part of. And thirdly, to the leadership.

Great points. 

STUDENT:  So this community, this building, the team is a community. If we don't build a team, a community, a family, or however we define it, we probably will not accomplish the commitment to get to where we're going. 

Other thoughts? Comments? 

STUDENT:  Are you putting any definition on the size of these teams? Because I don't know if I really think of a congregation as a team. They might work together in community, and relationship is important there, but in sort of like the secular sense, that wouldn't be a team, you know, teams maybe are smaller, half a dozen people kind of thing, so is that going to come in? 

We will get into that discussion, what is a team? And it does relate to size somewhat, and we will get into some specific definitions not too long down the road. It's a good question, though. At what point does a team become a community is the question. Great question. 

Well, any effective team has goals and wants to move forward as a unit to reach those goals. That's why we like being on teams, because teamwork can help us to go forward. So the question is, as you reflect on the teams that you have been on in the past and maybe present, how would you rate the effectiveness of those teams? I'd like to ask you to do a little individual exercise, and I'm not going to embarrass you or anything with this, but think about the teams that you've been on before and then the teams that you're on now, and you might want to jot down a few of those teams, maybe in the last 5 to 10 years, depending on your age and your experience. And put a numerical value, if you can, next to the team's effectiveness so far. In your experience, how would you rate the effectiveness of that team, numbering one to ten, one being the lowest; in other words, one is this was a pretty lousy team, and ten being, man, we need to teach the Trinity a lesson or two. So one to ten. Okay? What would be your ratings? So just take a few moments and write that down.