God-Reflecting Teams are Like...

In our last blog we spoke of the perichoretic nature of God and of human teams being a reflection of the image of a Triune godhead. This blog will describe briefly what such teams actually would look like if they are based on that ultimate reality.

If our humanness itself bears the stamp of God, then (even with the reality of sin being acknowledged) the teams that we function in should also reflect the dynamics of the ‘team’ we see in the Bible. What would that kind of model team look like? Here are seven team descriptors that we will explore in turn.

Covenanting · Visionary · Culture-Creating
Collaborative · Trusting · Empowering · Learning

Covenanting: Implicit in the eternal, infinite love of the Father, Son and Spirit is a covenantal relationship. Even though we created beings do not exactly mirror this divine harmony, scripture does illustrate God’s desire to extend covenant and relationship to his children. Members of ministry teams covenant both to be in a relationship of God’s love and to agree on their mutual purposes and plans and the practicalities of seeing them fulfilled.

Visionary: Because God is sovereign and acts with intention, teams can be fueled by a mission that God has given them to embrace and to do. Teams (and their committed individuals) are the effective means of accomplishing God’s divine purpose and intent. They sense that their work has ultimate meaning and that they are engaged in something eternally significant and seek clarity about what each member’s role is in accomplishing that objective.

Culture-Creating: In a fallen world, we are called to establish and sustain the culture of the Kingdom (which is admittedly counter-cultural) in community with team members. We have ample evidence of the destructive and dysfunctional cultural norms replayed by media and every-day encounters in our neighborhoods. As culture-creators, teams are powerful influences that shape and drive values and narratives that facilitate a ‘Kingdom on earth’ culture.

Collaborative: In the nature of God we find what might be called ‘perfect collaboration.’ Collaboration should not be confused with uniformity — and the diversity of spiritual gifts given to the church reinforces this fact! A healthy, collaborative team recognizes the unique character of each member, renders each other’s weaknesses irrelevant, makes members flourish, and focuses on gifting and capabilities aligned toward the God-given calling of the team.

Trusting: It is God’s character to be utterly trustworthy. Broken trust destroys team unity and fellowship. There is no more powerful way to devastate a team than to betray another’s trust. Conversely, in a world that thrives on self-aggrandizement, betrayal and deceit, an ethos of committed trust maintained by a team is a redemptive source of healing and ministry to the church and the world.

Empowering: [Delegating] It is the very nature of God to pour out self, to extend grace, to give up life for us, that is, to be voluntarily emptied that we might be full. Similarly, the responsibility of a great team is to give away responsibility in order to empower others to learn, grow, and fulfill their potential before God. Empowering teams become highly effective by widely sharing their mission, power, and responsibility and creating broad involvement with minimal hierarchy.

Learning: In His omniscience, God has no need to learn. Teams consisting of finite members however are called to discover and experience the revealed presence and truth of God. Such teams experiment, take prudent risks, innovate, and attempt to apply their learning in practical ways that strengthen vision and advance Kingdom objectives.

Church teams that model themselves on the nature and character of the triune God will be god-honoring, thriving communities that are vivid examples of the healthy teamwork in a world that is often incapable of working together.

*This and the previous post have been largely based on concepts drawn from the book entitled Leading the Team-Based Church (Cladis, 1999).

Lee is a long time member of Manchester Christian Church and has served in a variety of leadership roles including treasurer, elder and part time staff member. He is currently a member of the Strategic Leadership Team and the Leadership Development Team.

Our Teams: A Reflection of the Godhead?

In a doctoral dissertation 15 years ago that was subsequently published as a book, George Cladis, a New England pastor, makes a bold statement. “I have come to a rock solid conviction that has revolutionized my ministry: if a church is to succeed in carrying out a healthy ministry and developing a good Christian community there must be stable and high-quality relationships among the members of the principal leadership team.”

Most leaders would agree with his statement and acknowledge the pragmatic need for healthy team dynamics in any organization or mission that is larger than just a few people. Teams are important and we need to attend to their effective working in the context of the church. But the insight that Dr. Cladis offers is that teams work not only on the foundation of an organization’s necessity but also because teamwork is an intrinsic part of the very imago dei (image of God) built into all of us as human beings.

How does the very nature of the Godhead (trinity) resolve into human teams? Theologian Shirley Guthrie writes, “The oneness of God is not the oneness of a distinct, self-contained individual; it is the unity of a community of persons who love each other and live together in harmony.” Cladis recalls the analogy of John of Damascus in the seventh century of the Trinity to certain imagery used in Greek theater. Perichoresis was the theatrical term used for a circular dance and in that sense the triune community of the Father, Son, and Spirit is a perichoretic reality that implies intimacy, equality, unity yet distinction, and love.

The true reality of God as Trinity is an excellent and insightful theological model for the establishment of meaningful, healthy ministry teams in the church of the twenty-first century. It also turns out that healthy, relational communities happen to be one of the most powerful longings of our ‘post-modern’ culture and are deeply attractive to the Ones for which we are praying! While much of the culture we live in is contradictory and our society may even embrace that which is sordid, we nevertheless can discern deep human longings that teams built on Biblical values can tap into. Look at the following list of post-modern characteristics and see if healthy teams do not resonate with our culture:

• The universe (creation) is viewed less as a machine and more as an organism.
• Structure and hierarchy are perceived with skepticism.
• Authority must be based upon trust rather than position.
• Real leaders are visionary instead of leading by dictate.
• Life and work are inter-twined and are spiritually rooted.
• Formal organizational structures are smaller but informal networks are bigger — even global.
• Innovation and creativity are rewarded.
• Work should follow gifts and passions and these should be collaboratively shared.
• Mainline denominations are seen as passé and a relic of an irrelevant past.

These nine statements were not true when MCC was founded in the early 1960s, but they certainly describe our world today. Many of these deep beliefs directly align with the team-based ministry model of our church. They offer essential opportunities for team participants to demonstrate the reality of the Gospel message to the world around us.

In our next blog we will take a look at several characteristics of healthy church teams that flow naturally out of the perichoretic nature of God and of the regenerated community that is the church.

*This post and the next will be largely based on concepts drawn from the book entitled Leading the Team-Based Church (Cladis, 1999).

Lee Beachy is a long time member of Manchester Christian Church and has served in a variety of leadership roles including treasurer, elder and part time staff member. He is currently a member of the Strategic Leadership Team and the Leadership Development Team.