Teamwork Within A Ministry Setting

 

          

            Teamwork within a ministry setting is one of the most foundational ways teamwork has been understood and incorporated. Within the public sector, while working towards the good of the organization benefits everyone, personal interests will generally come out on top when push comes to shove. However, what should differ in a ministry setting is the reality that the good of the organization benefits those inside and outside of the organization and there should be no competition in regards to personal interest. Accomplishing the vision or mission of the organization isn’t about profit and outpacing competitors but rather about reaching people and advancing the Kingdom of God. This is an important perspective to keep in mind while considering the following building blocks for establishing a highly efficient and productive ministry. To begin, we’ll delve into the three base components for teamwork and then explore two illustrations. Finally, we’ll add the pinnacle by laying out guiding a key biblical principle for living out these strategies.

            Communication is the first strategy for developing effective teamwork and this must include three components; consistency, clarity, and closure. I had a thought the other day while hearing my brother talk about the importance of a perfect God. He said that if God was even just slightly imperfect, He could be manipulated and what kind of god would that be? However, because He is perfect, He is also perfectly consistent. Now, we are not God but we are called to be like Him and so our efforts in ministry leadership should be consistent. This means that we communication on a consistent schedule, are consistent in judgement, and treat every person and situation fairly. Communicating with clarity means our communication is both concise and clear. Generally, in communication, overcommunicating is better in terms of how often but when we communicate, less is more. Information overload is a real and common issue faced by many teams so making sure we communicate exactly what we need to and with efficiency is important. Closure is really just follow through, it’s great to communicate initially but this must continue often and until project or situation completion.

            Conflict resolution is another process there needs to be a strategy for. Most often, conflict is viewed solely as being a bad thing in teams but that’s not necessarily the case. Cameron Piercy makes the case in his book, Problem Solving in Teams and Groups, that members can learn from conflict and become better teammates as a result. He identifies five different types of conflict including conflicts of substance which occurs when there are differing views on the facts. Second is conflicts of value which is when differing values leads to various rankings of priorities. Conflicts of process happens when members disagree concerning how or when steps should be taken towards accomplishing shared goals. The fourth type of conflict, conflicts of misperceived differences are situations where members interpret each other’s actions or emotions erroneously. Finally, relational conflicts are simply when personalities clash which is often a result of an individual’s ego. What’s fundamentally important to assessing conflict and developing solutions is having a proper understanding of why conflict exists. This may take time and effort to discover but poorly analyzed conflict may result in further problems or a more escalated situation. This will be touched on later on. Piercy lays out nine possibly strategies for resolving conflict including physical separation, rotation of team members, use of training, limiting group integration, etc. While all of these are potential options, none of them should be go-to responses within a ministry. Instead, a focus should be on resolving conflict through prayer, negotiation, third-party mediation, and humility. Consider this, if members can even resolve conflict internally by surrendering the work of the Holy Spirit, how likely is it they can effectively handle opposition from the outside? That said, Satan often tries to divide to prevent the ministry of the church so this should be accounted and prayer should be all the more the core strategy of the team.

            The third section of the base is team effectiveness. Team effectiveness can be stated as a team's ability to achieve their defined mission and objectives while not only exceeding in outcomes but also maintaining the well-being and satisfaction of team members. Going back to Cameron Piercy’s book, he details various systems used by organizations to evaluate performance. These are generally done for feedback to team members, self-development, reward systems, personnel decisions, and training and development. The metrics and process for conducting an analysis changes depending on the organization, type of industry, and core motivations. Within a ministry, there is a key distinction between how an analysis should be conducted compared to a for-profit entity. Chiefly, the motivations should be different as team members are generally, or at least should be, more concerned about the impact of their work rather than their financial or positional status. Because of this, evaluation and rewards for work completed should be viewed through a different lens compared to the business sector. A good example of this is someone who I had the absolute pleasure of working with for about four years. He was a man of the people, always had time for everyone, had a story for every situation, and never lost sight of the opportunity to spend time with others even when he had things to do. Within a ministry context, he was someone who excelled at caring, even over the phone with a consumer who called in. However, certain members of the staff didn’t always appreciate this and instead chose to focus on his productivity in his role as the ministry bookkeeper. This led to a deep annoyance with him whenever he was taking the time to talk or listen to someone. Now, there is a balance within a team of caring well for those on the outside while also not hindering the collaboration effort of the team and this needs to be considered. But that said, the ministry impact that he made personally was far more substantial as a person as opposed to the work he did tracking expenses and paying bills. Therefore, the true effectiveness of a ministry team goes well beyond the physical and this should be taken into consideration when evaluating the effectiveness of an organization.

            There are numerous examples of collaboration throughout the Bible including Acts 9:23-25 where it says, “Now after many days were past, the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul. And they watched the gates day and night, to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall in a large basket.” Our initial reaction to this may be to think it’s a cool story to be let down someone down in a basket to escape. But think for a second about how many people were probably involved in this process? It took people to find the basket, find rope, provide a home from which to lower the basket, multiple individuals to lower it down, someone to watch the wall to ensure no one was watching, and individuals who snuck Saul to where he would be lowered down. This was a team effort and one that obviously was executed to perfection with the Lord’s help. The lesson here is to never minimize the effort of a team. Showing appreciation to every member for their contribution is important and no role is insignificant. Second, the story of Gideon has always fascinated me and although it doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with strategies for ministry leadership teams, I do think there are two application points we can glean. First, going along with the previous example of Paul, just because a team or organization is small, doesn’t mean they automatically have capacity limits. God wanted Gideon and the people to understand that He was the one who would defeat the Midianites, not Israel. This is also true of the ministries and churches we lead. It’s not us who bring people to the Lord; it’s God who draws them to Himself. We are just the instruments that God uses to reach others. This may not appear to be a strategy at first but it is the biblical mindset that undergirds team effectiveness and evaluating performance. Additionally, the story of Gideon reminds us that God can and will use anyone who is willing to surrender to His leading. It shows us a team that worked together in unity and how servant leadership is lived in Gideon’s ability to lead by example.         

            This brings us to the pinnacle of this pyramid with one simple principle that guides everything else. This may come as no surprise but humility is where all of this points to. Without it, communication will be marred, conflicts will never be settled, team members will be more concerned about personal aspirations than team effectiveness, collaboration efforts will be hindered, and unlike Gideon, we will never get to a place where we are willing to surrender our insecurities in order to accomplish what God has for us. Humility is easy to write about on paper, it's much harder to live out. But, when we keep our eyes focused on the one who humbled Himself, even to the point of death, how can we not recognize our insignificance in light of what He's done and the opportunity we have to live and lead for His glory alone?