Team Conflict Means Change

One great resource that I’ve discovered this year is a book that is not even 12 months old, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods by Eckhard J. Schnabel. It’s a paperweight of a book, so I would only recommend it for the serious theology student and/or the team that wishes to study the Pauline missionary method.

Once you make up your mind whether the Bible’s record of missions in the book of Acts is prescriptive or descriptive, normative or exemplary, you can accordingly adjust your personal ministry to what you consider a biblical missions experience. It’s interesting that after Paul completed his first field term and then went on STAS or furlough, he changed his method. Of course, there was a great degree of team conflict upon completion of his first term between the two career units (Paul and Barnabas) and the JMB (Jerusalem Mission Board) over extra-salvific requirements for being a believer (Acts 15:1-2). Then those two units had interpersonal conflict again between themselves, especially related to the church planting strategy for the second term and whether or not it was good to take a J-man who didn’t complete his first term well (John Mark). So Barnabas starts his own team and goes one way to UPG in Cyprus (Acts 15:39), and Paul creates a new team and goes back to work with national believers (Acts 15:41). We are told in Paul’s letters that he had another conflict with Peter over strategic directions of the mission movement (Gal. 2:11). Wow! Non-stop conflict, or was it? Were these really ugly, knock-down-drag-out fights that ruined the church’s testimony? Or were these natural steps of adjustment for a growing movement and growing teams? I think the difference is the level of humility involved in the growth process.

To really work through something together, it takes conflict. Conflict produces change, one way or another. So the question remains: what changes? Hopefully, we are men and women of God who welcome change on our teams. But to welcome change means being a good follower as much as being a good leader.

Let me encourage you to answer the following questions personally:
1) Am I truly loyal to my team and its purposes? Do I value the same things as my team? (speaks to my integrity)
2) Do I see where I am making a difference to my team’s work? Do I look for ways to make my team successful? (speaks to my ingenuity)
3) Am I willing to change when it becomes necessary? Do I change fast enough to keep up with my team? (speaks to my versatility)
4) Do I see myself as ultimately responsible for my own actions? Or do I blame God or someone else for my predicaments? (speaks to my maturity)

When I look at Paul’s life and the demands that were placed on his team, I see a group of guys who were committed to the task of soul-winning and starting new churches, who were self-starters or “compelled” to reach new people for Christ (2 Cor 5:14), who tried new things when the situation changed (1 Cor 9:22), and who were willing to let the buck stop with themselves (1 Cor 11:1). Interestingly, an article was published a few years ago, entitled “The Importance of Followership”- a strictly business model for developing follower-led teams or shared ownership. In that article, those same elements that characterized Paul’s teams are listed. Interestingly, this conversation has developed even more in recent years. See here for a great paper from the Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management on the subject of "followership".

Our teams need leadership that understands followership. Someone once said, “If you think you’re leading and nobody is following, you’re just taking a walk”. I would add, “If you say you’re following but you don’t believe in the direction of your leadership, you’re just pretending to be on the team.” May God create true teams in us and multiply our leadership potential through our followership potential.

In Him,
Buck