The idea of working in teams is one of our guiding principles. You could say it’s one of the reasons why we are called: World Team(s)
In our World Team Ministry Framework, we describe a team as: “A team is a group of individuals united in healthy relationships who work together toward a shared vision. They serve each other, listen to each other, rely on each other’s gifts and strengths, and bolster where each is weak. Our teams accomplish more together than the individuals can working alone.”
There are a good number of applications that we can draw from this principle, but let’s focus on one in particular: that the members of any team “pool” their resources, offer their gifts and talents to serve the group to accomplish something larger than their own personal mission or vision.
We say that no one has all the gifts and skills needed to establish a community of believers on their own, but we can often act as if we do. It is in allowing different team members to exercise their gift(s) that the team finds forward traction in the Spirit. It is one of those times when we clearly recognize how much we need one another.
Sometimes when we read this guiding principle, we can read ‘team’ instead of ‘teams’ (plural). By doing that, we may miss an important insight. No team is an island by itself. As World Team, each team is part of a larger group of teams that need each other in order to gain traction towards accomplishing the vision God has laid on our hearts as a global community. As teams which make up World Team, we also need one another. There are resources and gifts in other teams within World Team that would be useful and helpful to other teams; gifts and capacities that could be shared for the growth of the entire group.
One small practical application might be how one or several World Team team(s) in another part of the world could find, mobilize, and coach new workers to join a team in another very different part of the world. I know there are plenty of other applications, small and larger.
Filed under: Collaboration, One another, One another commands, Teams | Leave a comment »
Perfection is elusive. In fact, it’s unattainable in this life. However, that does not keep us from expecting that standard of ourselves and of others. Oftentimes, I either say to myself or I hear other people say: “Why couldn’t (I) they just have done ____?” And you can fill in the blank.
Then another thought came to mind. How should we pray for one another in a ‘gospel centred way’? Prayer is one of our guiding principles, and the Gospel is the ultimate guiding principle from which the others flow. So, what would it ‘look like’ to pray in a way that drives us back to the Gospel and our dependence upon Him?
Thoughts Along The Journey 