It Takes Teamwork
By Kevass J. Harding

Teamwork is essential to the vitality and life of the church. One person cannot do it all. The pastor of the church should not attempt to do all the work in the church. When God spoke to Ezekiel, God spoke to Ezekiel only about prophesying to the dead bones. God did not give Ezekiel all the work. And even today God does not give the work to one person but gives the work of ministry to the entire body. This is also seen in the “feeding of the five thousand” . . . . When Jesus took the two fish and five loaves of bread, he didn’t hand out the fish and bread individually to each of the five thousand people. Rather, Jesus took what was little and handed it to his disciples. The disciples in turn had the people sit in groups; once the people were in groups, the disciples gave the fish and bread to the group leaders. The group leaders in turn gave the fish and bread to the group; the entire body ate and was satisfied. What this shows is effective administrative team work.

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Jesus Asked the Right Questions
By Marc Brown

In the ninth chapter of Mark, Jesus asked his disciples: “What were you discussing on the way?” He was evidently aware that the disciples had been debating who the greatest was among them. Jesus could have responded to the disciples’ power struggle by telling them their discussion was nonsense. He could have told them to stop dealing with petty and trivial matters and get a grip on reality. Instead, Jesus asked the right question: “What were you discussing on the way?”

Jesus did not get drawn into the triviality of the disciples’ power struggle. Rather, his question helped the disciples focus on the importance of being a disciple: “If any one would be first, that person must be last of all and servant of all.”

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Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.

Regular worshipers are often too close to the church to see it from the perspective of the outsiders. Martha Grace Reese in Unbinding the Gospel (Chalice) suggests asking non-churchgoers to talk with you to get their perspective. Some examples of suggested questions are:

Have people ever invited you to their church?
What did you think when they asked you?
Did you go?
How did it feel?
If you didn’t go, why not?

Editors:  Lovett H. Weems, Jr. and Ann A. Michel
Production and distribution:  Joe Arnold

Copyright © 2007 by the G. Douglass Lewis Center for Church Leadership. Leading Ideas material may be freely distributed with attribution (exclusive of material protected by separate copyright).