Teams and Church Planting

Teams are powerful and popular in the North American culture today. Some see teams as a fad that is beginning to fade in the business sector. They are too much work and take too long to develop. They are often misunderstood. Just changing the name of a staff or committee to a team does not make them a team. Teamwork is work. There are no magic pills or shortcuts to building effective teams. Many books are available on the wisdom, power, and development of effective teams. Teams have a strong biblical and missionary heritage. Jesus provided an example when He selected a team as a ministry principle. Paul began his church planting journey as part of a two-man team and continued to use teams in his ministry. In church history, a significant amount of missionary activity and advance was carried on by unrecognized teams of church planters, not by individuals.

The church planting team can be defined as a group of diversely gifted servants working together to extend the kingdom of God by developing and implementing strategies to make disciples, build community, and develop ministry teams so that new churches are planted. A church planting team does not refer solely to the development of a paid staff as a team, but also includes a family functioning as a planting team, and the selection, development, and utilization of church members as a planting team.

Joe Gibbs is a man who understands teams. He led the Washington Redskins to three Super Bowl wins in 1982, 1987, and 1991. He then turned his team building talent to NASCAR where his teams won the championship in 2000, 2002, and 2005. Joe Gibbs writes, “Pick the right people and put them in the right jobs … Successful team-builders develop a knack for recognizing the right people for the right jobs. They then train and equip those people to use their God-given gifts and talents for the good of the team.” [1]

From Gibbs statement, three critical factors stand out:

• Recognizing the right people for the right jobs
• Equipping and training them
• For the purpose of using their gifts and talents for the good of the team

Here we will take some time to explore Gibb’s first critical factor—recognizing the right people for the right jobs (In future articles we will explore the other factors). In seeking to find the right people for a team, Bill Hybels writes that there are three factors to consider: character, competency, and chemistry. [2]

Character
In church planting and missionary team building, character does matter. In Paul’s instructions to Timothy and Titus concerning church leaders, Paul puts a greater emphasis on character than title or position. Of the 20 different qualifications Paul listed for pastors and deacons, 18 had to do with character. An example of this emphasis on character is seen in the following two verses where Paul lists 11 character qualities, “For the overseer must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled” (Titus 1:7-8, NASB). Gene Getz writes, “When Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus and instructed them regarding certain leaders, he first and foremost spelled out [character] qualifications.” [3] In seeking the right person for the right place on the team, the team builder cannot overlook the issue of character.

Competency
A second issue in seeking the right person is competency. Competency relates to the ability of an individual to do the particular task needed. The team builder must be able to clearly answer, “For this position on the team, what tasks need to be done?” Then these questions need to be answered: “Does this person have the skills necessary for these tasks?” “Where, when, and how has this person demonstrated these skills in the past?” There are some wonderful people of sterling character who do not have the skills necessary to do a task. Lack of competency would not prevent a person from being enlisted, trained, and deployed in a ministry but would indicate that person should probably not be the team leader in that particular ministry. One of the critical competencies for team leaders is the ability to build team. For a church planting team member, it is critical that they possess the ability to build a team that does the work of a ministry. Two examples of members of a church planting team might be the worship team leader and the children’s ministry team leader. These two should not be so much performers of those ministries but developers of teams of individuals who do the ministries.

Chemistry
The third issue in seeking the right person is chemistry. Chemistry seeks to understand how the person fits with the other team members. Do the individual’s values match the church and church planting team’s values? Does the potential team member’s personality type compliment and add to the diversity of those already on the team? Some team leaders look for their “best buds” to be a part of the team. Others look for people with similar personality types. The need in teams is for diversity that compliments. A good football team is not made up of 11 good wide receivers or 11 outstanding centers. Visionaries and people persons make good leaders on the church planting team, but the team needs detail and task-oriented people to bring balance to the team.

As a church planter, think about these words paraphrased and adapted from The Dance of Change by Peter Senge:

Written by Gerald Colbert. Gerald is a member of the Church Planting staff at NAMB.

[1] Joe Gibbs, Racing to Win (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2002), 168.
[2] Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 177.
[3] Gene Getz, Sharpening the Focus of the Church (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974), 109.
[4] Adapted from Peter Senge, The Dance of Change (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1999), 378-380.