Athletes in Action: Sports Missionary Method

No matter where I go, it's hard to find a place that hasn't been impacted by the missiological interaction between missions and sports. Athletes in Action (AIA) is a Great Commission Christian agency at work in Russia as well as in seventy-four other countries. Athletes in Action is an Ohio-based international missions arm of Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) and was begun in 1966 by Dave Hannah. At work around the world, AIA uses sports as a medium for sharing the gospel sometimes in places where a traditional missionary is not allowed a public religious ministry. In 2008, AIA published Vision and Direction for the Future, an annual report from its trustees to its constituents and financial supporters. Another more brief document, the AIA Fact Sheet, highlights its strategic projects and events as well as its domestic and international ministry teams. Its board of trustees has a broad range of representatives from many aspects of Christian and secular business as well as many sports authorities. With a budget of almost $23 million and over two hundred thousand volunteers, AIA uses sports not just as an avenue for witnessing but also discipleship, taking the principles of Christianity and applying them to sportsmanship. As an arm of Campus Crusade for Christ, founded by Dr. Bill Bright in 1951, AIA clearly has the same evangelism philosophy for showing “people how to know and experience God’s love and plan for their lives” (AIA Fact Sheet, p. 2). Whereas Campus Crusade has a broad range of missions applications, most notably its international broadcasting of the Jesus Film, AIA is focused specifically on athletic venues for reaching a more targeted audience. My personal interaction with AIA began in 2000 when sports missionary John McIntosh helped Pennsylvania-based Push the Rock do a sports missions trip to Bryansk, Russia. We continued to work with AIA in St. Petersburg and Moscow as we hired two young women to serve as sports missionaries with our team. One of those, Jessica Lenderman, has continued her sports missions endeavors through the International Sports Federation.

             

The AIA Missionary Method

AIA’s missionary method revolves around “five focus areas” that it calls its “key measurements” (Vision, p. 2). Using evangelism, discipleship, staff growth, staff recruitment, and finances as the baselines for evaluating its performance, AIA builds a quantitative foundation for discussing its missionary method.

AIA utilizes a decision-based approach to gospel presentations and seeks to use sports events as both the drawing medium and the opportune moment for establishing contact with unsaved athletes and young sports enthusiasts. After initial contact is established through the universal language of sports, a gospel presentation is translated and materials such as sports-oriented Bibles and other Christian literature are freely distributed. Because initial contact is usually brief and nonrepetitive, there is a strong draw for immediate decision-based conversion through a prayer of commitment. For follow-up, the new believers complete a commitment card that is then passed on to either residential AIA representatives or local church partners. For deeper discipleship with its athletes, AIA workers establish regular contact for bible study. Local websites are also maintained for ongoing follow-up.

            In essence, AIA defines its goals each year in terms of how many witnessing opportunities its representative had, how many first time decisions were made for Christ, how many athletes were involved in local chapters of AIA, and how many people AIA maintained on staff. In 2008, 914 staff were able to present the gospel to “over 85 million people in 75 countries around the world” (Vision, p. 1). AIA recorded over seven thousand first-time decisions for Christ and attracted almost three thousand athletes into AIA discipleship programs. The agency  was able to establish a presence on 125 college campuses and among “35 professional sports teams” (Vision, p. 7).

            AIA is a missions agency, albeit not necessarily in the traditional sense. It is an international agency designed to reach other cultures and people groups through the use of nontraditional and “universal” language, the language of sports (Vision, p. 1). The Vision and Direction for the Future document contains five testimonials from 2008 as to how AIA met its strategic missional goals in Poland, China, Holland, Canada, Nicaragua, Israel and America. According to a second strategy document entitled AIA Fact Sheet, AIA was involved also in some other key missional events like a Super-bowl breakfast, an All-Star Celebrity Golf Classic Breakfast, and some international ministry events in eighty-five countries around the world. In the fact sheet, AIA states that its goal is “to use the unique platform of sport to help people around the world with questions of faith” (Fact Sheet, p. 1).

            According to these two documents, AIA sees its missionary activity as primarily evangelism and discipleship. Local church planting or church growth does not play into AIA’s strategy, but as a branch of Campus Crusade for Christ, AIA sees itself as a parachurch organization in support of the larger activity of the universal church. AIA does not seek to train local church leadership in any way other than to perform specific tasks related to its own sports activities. It also does not employ church polity in its direction or performance, but it does partner with local evangelical church leaders for ongoing projects in targeted locations. AIA seeks to embody the fuller essence of being parachurch while at the same time maintaining its own autonomy from any local church.

Missiological Implications

The missiological implications for AIA’s method are tremendous. Because it is a decision-based approach for conversion, it represents a western rational model for evangelism. As such, AIA may have to work to overcome some cultural barriers within eastern settings where individual decision is not as highly valued as group thinking. The application of Christianity to specific western cultural behaviors as evidenced in sports is their method for discipleship. One disciple admitted that “competing hard is okay” after he learned that it was a tenet of Christianity (Vision, p. 3). This too is a cultural difference in countries where competition is seen as a negative trait, much less a Christian one.

It is project based designed to reach large masses with evangelism but target specific groups for discipleship. For example, in one event in Nicaragua an AIA mission team “spoke to 1000 people, with an estimated 100,000 more potential viewers” in a television broadcast (Vision, p. 3). It maximizes short-term trips rather than establishing long-term incarnational presence. Usually these trips are one week long.

It uses internationally recognized avenues such as the Olympics as platforms for sharing the gospel. These large-scale events are often nationally recognized and therefore hold greater potential than any one church’s missionary activities. Moreover, this stance contradicts the church planting movement mentality behind some of the more recent evangelical missions agencies’ work to maintain outside foreign influence at a lower profile.

Like many other American ministries, AIA’s strategy is numerically-based and results-driven. Therefore, careful attention is required for reporting witnessing opportunities, decisions made, and disciples gathered. However, it does not record baptisms or church plants as these are activities of a local church. When AIA presents itself not as a missional arm of the church but as a parachurch missional agency, it stays true to its primary task as an external pioneering presence.

AIA is support-based through business. It is not a tent-makers’ ministry. Many involved in AIA’s international missionary service support themselves or either find their support from independent businesses, but no outright solicitation is made from local churches.

It is talent-based leadership equipping. It is cutting edge in that sportsmen can see themselves as missionaries. There was a time when missionaries would not have thought of sports as a gospel medium, let alone as a platform for ministry, but AIA is proving successful in changing the paradigm of traditional missions within this venue.

It opens doors in locations where traditional missionaries might not be able to go. This leads to a discussion of the target not as geographic or ethnic but cultural or subcultural, with the specific affinity being sports. Whether or not interest-based affinity grouping can be considered part of a biblical missiology is a question that missiologists have only begun to ask recently.

That is why there is a question of indigeneity. AIA does not address any cross-cultural training or language acquisition for these one-week trips. There is no specific cultural training outside of intensive preparation for survival as an expat in a foreign field. Therefore, the long term impact of these short term trips can truly only be measured with the evangelism results that AIA has set in place. A trip is designed to produce converts to Christ and volunteers to the sports projects.

            Sports is a medium for evangelism, like teaching English as a Second Language, drama presentations, or humanitarian aid. It is a language for reaching those that the local church might not reach otherwise. AIA is standing in the gap as an independent missions arm to garner those who only speak “sports”. AIA’s strategy is make that medium a missionary tool is both unique and successful.

Imperative Features of a Master Plan for Change

We’ve talked for a long time about the need for developing master plans, and now there are name changes to those once hefty documents. Instead of a master plan, there is talk of putting together team strategy plans that are more time-defined with a short range focus. It would therefore be good to ask your team several questions as you work together to put together your goals and plans for this year and beyond.

As we look at Acts 15, we see where Paul and Barnabas had to adopt radically different change models, and the succeeding chapters expound on those action items at least for Paul. Actually there are many important things to consider when planning a change process, but those factors are best understood within the framework of their chronological context. French & Bell (1999) suggest that organizational change has three basic stages: diagnosis, action, and program management. Nadler, Shaw, & Walton (1995) insert transitional elements into these stages to form five chronological phases: diagnosis, clarifying and coalition building, action, consolidation and refinement, and sustaining. Regardless of how the stages are categorized, each phase must be carefully planned in advance, and some key components must be considered if that master plan is to succeed. Each phase creates its own series of questions for planning, and these questions provide an excellent checklist for managing those plans.
Q1: What kinds of questions has your team created to manage your change initiatives this year?

In the diagnosis phase, three areas must be addressed: leadership, identity, and architecture. The diagnostic question to ask about top management is if the level of commitment and competence of the senior leadership team matches what is required to change. Diagnosis of corporate identity is done by a realistic review of what is currently good and what would be better about the company. Paul implemented this diagnosis when he refused to take John Mark along on a second term (Acts 15:38). For IMB this is being addressed on the local level through setting MAP goals this year whereby an individual team member’s goals are nested in the overarching team goals. The locale and structure of the organization must also be assessed for its strengths, weaknesses and flexibility throughout the change process.
Q2: How do your individual goals “nest” in your team’s goals?

In the clarifying and coalition-building phase, it is vital to refine a clear vision for the desired future. A strategic team of change advocates must be built during this phase. It is also at this time that the changes and interventions must be carefully spelled out and sequenced. By implication, Paul's commendation from the Antioch church allowed him to choose a new team members, Silas, for this very purpose (Acts 15:40).
Q3: Has your team set aside time to clarify the vision for 2010 and 2011?

It is during the action phase that politics runs high. This phase begins with the launching of major changes and is completed when the new architecture is implemented and when the new organization emerges. The most important factors to consider when planning the action phase is maintaining optimism and properly handling resistance. Paul's major team changes began in Acts 15 in Antioch and culminated in the additions of Timothy in Lystra (Acts 16:1-3) and Dr. Luke (Acts 16:10).
Q4: How ready and willing are you to initiate new changes for your team?

Just as diagnosis was important as the beginning, it must again be implemented during the consolidation and refinement phase. The major objective at this time is to determine who really fits within the new organization and providing synergy to the new teams of key supporting people. This can be handled through coaching, listening, and modeling. Sometimes Paul picked key chronos moments for the inclusion or exclusion of certain team players (Acts 15:38; 2 Tim 4:11).
Q5: Are there any players on your team that are not being utilized to their potential?

Sustaining requires reflection and evaluation. It can also be a time of encouragement and refreshment to those who came through the change process. Each of these phases can and should be planned. However, Nadler et al (1995) warns against rigidity of planning when unforeseen shifts in the master plan might afford opportunities for a better way. Planners must be thorough, courageous, flexible and determined. In other words, be careful to plan some wiggle room in your plans!

Two books I highly recommend:
Nadler, D.A., Shaw, R.B., & Walton, A.E. (1995). Discontinuous change: Leading organizational transformation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
French, W.L., & Bell, C.H., Jr. (1999). Organizational development: Behavioral science interventions for organization improvement. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Intentional Team Building by Exploiting the Strengths in Opposite MBTI Personality Types

How different are your team members? Do opposites really attract? Do they work well in a team setting? Of all of the commentary I’ve heard over the years regarding team building on mission teams, perhaps the most succinct is that building a cohesive team is elusive. One effective team building strategy is to volitionally create a team with individual members that have developed the personal strengths of contrasting personality types. Although a mixture of this sort has the potential to sabotage all productivity, it also could maximize effectiveness. Just imagine leading a team with personalities ranging from Mikhail Gorbachev, an ENFJ, to Clint Eastwood, an ISTP (Know Your Type, 2002). Together they could minimize each other’s greatness, or they could lift the team to an even greater level than that for which the individual members are already known. Both could tear down walls, but they might approach the problem in different ways. It makes me wonder what kinds of biblical models for teaming we can find in the New Testament. For some reason, I cannot imagine the apostle Paul whispering through gritted teeth, “a man has got to know his limitations,” but he did not have a problem eliminating Timothy (or Barnabas) when he needed to.

Teams are made up of individual members with unique personality types that influence their leadership styles and decision-making processes. Among the Russian IMB teams with whom I have the privilege of interacting, I cannot think of any who have strictly homogenous member traits. On the contrary, they are “members of one body” (Rom 12:4), but they are as vastly different as thumbs and knees. Not only should a team leader be aware of those various Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) types, but he or she should also build a team intentionally with as much representation from each of the sixteen types as possible. When a team can be led to recognize and capitalize upon opposite strengths, that team can reach maximum potential for obtaining and processing data. The differences among team members do not necessarily have to be competitive or at odds but rather the one strength could complement and fill in the gaps for what the other lacks.

Since a team may be defined as a “number of people… who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable” (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993, p. 45), I propose that team function (purpose, performance and evaluation) might be enhanced by intentionally highlighting the strengths in each of the four Myers-Briggs dichotomies. Myers (1998) only briefly touches this team leadership approach as she applies the usefulness of allowing various types to play certain roles in the problem-solving process. Her seven steps to problem solving using types are excellent, and she develops the possibilities of type strength by asking bipolar questions (p. 39). These possibilities can be expanded further into the functions of teaming.

Some have metaphorically described the E-I dichotomy in terms of batteries. Whereas a car battery is recharged through driving the car, a cell phone battery is drained through ongoing use. Extraverts “receive energy from interacting with people and from taking action” while introverts receive their energy through quiet time and introspection (Myers, 1998, p. 9). A team leader may maximize team effectiveness by allowing extraverts the opportunity to rejuvenate themselves through actively interacting to define the team’s purpose. A leader can capitalize on the strengths of extraverts through group action and interaction throughout the performance process as well. Extraverts can also help to evaluate how the team did as a whole in fulfilling its mission and to provide feedback through verbal evaluation.

A leader could also push a team forward by allowing introverted members to develop a synergy with group purpose through their own personal experience. As introverts “take initiative when the situation or issue is very important to them” (Myers, 1998, p. 9), they can catch the vision that what the team is doing is personally important and help the process to run accordingly. This inner creativity can help especially in the evaluation of how individual members performed. Leading a Bill Gates to energize a group through his extraverted interaction while at the same time allowing a Jimmy Stewart’s introversion to help personalize the group’s processes could only enhance the team dynamic (Know Your Type, 2002).

Myers (1998) defines the N-S dichotomy as the data intake portion of Jung’s mental function (p.8). Whereas intuitive persons tend to see “the big picture”, sensors tend to see what is “real and tangible” (p. 9). A true leader can use both for a well-rounded team. Intuitive people can be the strategic visionaries for team purpose. They can push the team to perform farther than their current goals. They can also be led to help transition a team from the evaluation stage to the next level of attainable goals. A leader can use sensors to give concrete facts for the purpose of the team. Definitive behavioral objectives are one of sensors’ greatest achievements. Sensors can also provide the framework for a solid evaluation checklist. With Mikhail Gorbachev’s intuitive vision and Clint Eastwood’s concrete sensing, a team could be directed to restructure all visible barriers into new paradigms while helping the team know their own limitations and work within that structure.

If the N-S dichotomy describes the data intake portion of the mental function, then the T-F dichotomy describes the data processing portion. Both thinkers and feelers can be piloted to “complement each other, filling in each other’s blind spots and balancing decision-making” (Myers, 1998, p. 30). Combining the “most incisive analysis” with the “most skillful understanding and handling of people” produces the most productive team (Myers, 1998, p. 31). Thinkers can discover the logical purpose in meeting a particular need. The rational steps for completing the task set order to the team’s performance. Accordingly, there are reasonable consequences for each action evaluated. With feelers on the team, a leader can help to create an atmosphere of purpose-driven interpersonal enjoyment. The team must enjoy the process of functioning, and feelers can bring this out. Sometimes the best evaluation is based upon rewards and punishments, pleasure and pain; feelers can sense this course in advance. While leading a team to coordinate Madonna’s thinking preference with Mother Theresa’s caring strength might seem ridiculous, it could be reconciled for the greater good.

The J-P dichotomy describes the application of the mental process. A team leader can bring out the best in team members with perceiving preference, those who prefer “taking in information”, and in those with judging preference, an inclination for “organizing that information and coming to conclusions” (Myers, 1998, p. 6). Judgers can be used best to organize team purposes into logical mission statements. They can create systematic and scheduled action plans for group procedure. A leader can use these members to make the final decision for evaluation.

Since perceivers are spontaneous, flexible, and would much rather experience than control, a team leader could empower them for marketing the team’s purpose and vision casting. They can handle any unforeseen events within the performance context, and their spontaneity could seize any unanticipated needs for mid-stream evaluation. Colin Powell’s judgment would be a useful asset on a team that needs control, and Walt Disney’s unique perception of reality could provide the flexibility for that team’s success.

Since teams are composed of people who often vary widely in personality types, it behooves a team leader to draw out the strengths of each member’s type. Rather than run away from opposite personalities, an effective team building strategy is to celebrate and combine those differences and infuse their strengths into a complementary team. Although the world may never see a team with such stark differences as Madonna and Mother Theresa, a leader can harness and harmonize such individual strengths for a team that is stronger than just one member’s type. Do you know your own team members’ personality preferences? How could you use them to make your team stronger?

References

Katzenbach, J.R., & Smith, D.K. (1993). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high performance organization. New York: Harper Collins.
Know Your Type. (2002). Famous types. Retrieved May 14, 2002, from http://www.knowyourtype.com/famous.html
Myers, I.B. (1998). Introduction to type (6th ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists.

Reflective Thinking Process Applied to a Case of Developmental Step Omission

Most of us have had to deal with conflict in church at some point. During the summer of 1997, one of our church teams experienced a severe case of interpersonal conflict while on a mission project. Although I tried to the best of my ability at the time to facilitate a resolution to the problem, the conflict was never resolved. It actually resulted in personnel changes, hurt feelings, and several months of decreased morale. If analyzed according to the Reflective Thinking Process of problem definition, problem analysis, suggested alternatives, solution selection, and implementation, the problem could have been prevented or dealt with in other ways that might have proven more effective for resolution (Folger, Poole & Stutman, 2001).

Problem Definition

After having been on the pastoral staff at a relatively large and growing church for a couple of years, I approached the senior pastor about starting the process of making staff changes. We had just hired a young youth pastor for the summer. I was his direct supervisor, but as I was attempting to move the organization toward a more team-based approach to ministry, I placed the bulk of the responsibility for the youth program upon his shoulders. Desiring to transition of the youth ministry from me to him, I took two teams of youth under what I considered to be his direction on a mission trip to Mississauga, Ontario. The church had already been involved for several years in taking summer youth teams to Mexico, and new volunteers each year filled positions eagerly. I had already put a process in place to prepare a team for 6 months prior to the actual trip. Logistics, budget and task distribution were all worked out in detail, and intense prayer went into each year’s team-building activities. Parental permission slips, medical insurance documentation, and spiritual gifts inventories were just part of the comprehensive files kept on each participant. All of our past trips had met great success and were usually deemed life-changing events for participants.

But as 1997 plans for preparation for the summer trip and new personnel additions were underway, several things went wrong. First, when the teams found out that new personnel not yet in place would be directly supervising the trip, an atmosphere of hesitation prevailed in our prep meetings, and some parents even refused to allow their teenagers to go unless I also went. I had already begun transitioning the youth groups and the youth leadership teams to a more team-oriented management approach, but the new youth pastor still functioned from a traditional management style in many ways. Secondly, many of the volunteer youth leaders and chaperons who were veterans to such trips failed to regularly attend the weekly prep meetings, citing lack of time and not really seeing the need to repeat last year’s preparation as the main excuses. Also, we merged this particular trip with another church group who was preparing their team in another location. I had a sense of impending problems, but I naively went forward with the project.

As we traveled from Georgia to Ontario, serious interpersonal conflicts immediately began to arise among team leaders. In an effort to express his new leadership position, the new youth pastor actively attempted to resolve these conflicts but was met with mutiny by almost all of the team leaders. Conflict grew so intense that serious verbal fights broke out between individual team leaders, between leaders and youth, and between teams from the two churches. One of the drivers threatened to return home early, another leader expressed that he would never again be involved in future projects, several evenings of crying ensued, and daily telephone calls back to the senior pastor of the church resulted in this particular trip being classified as the worst project in the history of the church. The young youth pastor was devastated at his inability to lead and at the unchristian reaction to his leadership, and he resigned his post within a couple of months on a very sour note. For almost a year following the event, morale remained extremely low within the youth program and there was relatively little numerical growth in the year that followed.

Problem Analysis

Looking back and knowing what I now know, I can see several areas where our 1997 teams were not properly prepared nor facilitated. Tuckman and Jensen’s stages of group development (as cited in Huszczo, 1996) show that a team needs to go through a natural process from forming to storming to norming to performing in order to function effectively (p. 159). Although the core group of youth met weekly to prepare for this trip, a change in leadership meant having to adjust to or form again with new members. A change in leadership also meant a change in leadership style, and in our case it was a reversion back to a management style prior to my own leadership. The lack of attendance by some of the youth leaders also resulted in their not being included in the forming and storming stages. Because the team from another church experienced its own development of forming, storming and norming, these stages had to be revisited when the groups merged. All of these dynamics thrown together created a situation of the mission team undergoing the forming stage when it should have actually been performing.

There were instances on the trip when assertive tactics, aggressive tactics, authority tactics, and coalition tactics were employed that should have been immediately dealt with. Folger et al (2001) defined verbal aggression as “shouting, blaming, browbeating, etc.” (p. 243). These behaviors really have no place on an effective team let alone in a church group, but they were evident throughout the trip. Since no one had really ever experienced this before, none of us knew how to approach the bizarre behavior. The young youth pastor attempted to invoke the formal authority of his position while others in the group attempted to invoke even higher authority by calling home to ask the senior pastor to resolve the conflict. Individuals also began to withdraw from the larger team to form alliances with subgroups within the team. These tactics should have been dealt with in a spirit of love, and rules to handle such behavior should have been laid out and agreed to in advance. However, due to the task of ministry in two Canadian congregations that expected results from the week, the tactics were ignored and were only handled upon return back to Georgia.

Suggested Alternatives

One of the problems with the Reflective Thinking Process is that “parties may not be able to agree on a problem definition” (Folger et al, p. 272). However, there are several alternatives for dealing with the exhibited behaviors that might have been warranted. Although the members of the team might not have agreed to why the problem existed, I believe they would have all agreed that something should have been done to resolve it. They may not have been able to verbalize what the problem actually was, but they could have cited their feelings and thoughts in relation to the trip.

Groups in preparation for projects normally undergo natural stages of development. Ours did not. Because factions within our teams did not participate together, perhaps they should have remained working as separate factions while on the project. If the group had not properly formed, stormed, and normed, perhaps I should not have expected them to perform. Of course, the trip itself was no place for the group to form; so I could have kept the groups that had developed separate from the others by assigning separate tasks.

When aggressive behaviors such as shouting and blaming began, perhaps there needed to be an immediate clarification of individual perceptions, agendas and feelings. Each person brings her own emotional baggage to the table, so perhaps time allotted for the group to process some of these emotions in a safe atmosphere of corporate prayer each evening might have helped. Our team’s work was very time-defined and pushed to the limits for project completion, but perhaps time clarification of feelings could have been structured into the overall plan.

A separate time for mentorship and actual transition of leadership to the new youth pastor would have also been useful. Thrusting a large task upon new personnel after having only been in the position for 2 weeks was perhaps unfair. Bridges (1980) said that “any time any member of system changes, the other members will feel a twinge” (p. 69). Great care could have been taken to help the youth group and youth leadership properly process this transition time.

Solution Selection

All of the aforementioned alternatives are useful for seeing how the problem could have been solved. If I were faced with the same scenario again, I would take extreme care to insure that task groups develop naturally and experience each stage before expecting effective performance as a team. I would encourage bonding activities that teach members to show patience and tolerance in the forming stage. I would encourage embracing the unique differences that each member brings to the team and a celebration of the team’s makeup. Of course I would clarify tasks, but I would also encourage the establishment of norms if group rules were broken.

I would also be more prepared to handle verbal aggression by not taking things personally but seeing each behavior as a reaction to some uncomfortable stimulus. I would attempt to discover that stimulus by providing time for feeling clarification, and I would build this time into the programming for a future trip. A proper orientation stage in task development assumes that there would be task definitions, work expectations, and an explanation as to how information should flow; so I would try to redirect the verbal aggression back into a context of our common purpose in the project.

I would also have foregone the torch-passing to the new youth pastor until a later date when the transition had more naturally run its course. Perhaps a gradual shift to his leadership would have been the key to unlocking the hesitation expressed in the prep meetings. Huszczo said that “a team concept effort requires virtually everyone involved to think of themselves as a leader” (p. 105). I probably needed to work with this new youth pastor more to help him understand the group’s recent transformational history. Perhaps only then might we have possibly integrated our team leadership knowledge to the exciting agenda of new church personnel.

Implementation

Herrington, Bonem & Furr (2000) said that “in a working group, each individual is responsible to a supervisor. In a team, each individual is responsible to the rest of the team” (p. 131). Analyzing the situation, I would have to say that our group was not yet a team. Although I would have liked to call it that at the time, the members had not yet had the time to gel into a team. The group had existed as a direct result of my personal leadership over the course of several years, and it had not yet transformed into a self-directed work team. Even with the conflict being experienced, the group did not know how to evaluate what was happening nor determine a proper course of action.

Perhaps these alternatives might not have changed the conflict at the time, but I think they would have done a great deal to mend the broken relationships that followed and would have created an atmosphere more conducive to healing the low morale of the team. “Reflecting Thinking does not work well when people have fundamental disagreements over values, because it presumes agreement on criteria used to evaluate solutions” (Folger et al, p. 273). In this conflict, however, the group agreed fundamentally on their vision, mission and core values; they simply got sidetracked on secondary issues, because they had not been formed into a team.

References

Bridges, W. (1980). Transitions: Making sense of life’s changes. Cambridge, MA: Perseus.
Folger, J.P., Poole, M.S., & Stutman, R.K. (2001). Working through conflict: Strategies for relationships, groups, and organizations. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
Herrington, J., Bonem, M., & Furr, J.H. (2000). Leading congregational change: A practical guide for the transformational journey. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Huszczo, G.E. (1996). Tools for team excellence: Getting your team into high gear and keeping it there. Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black.

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

Team Player

I’m currently evaluating of one of IMB’s training modules for the International Centre for Excellence in Leadership, "Developing Mission-Driven Teams". According to Learning Tasks #3-6, one of the interesting things about team effectiveness is that the team’s strengths and challenges have to be assessed from several angles: biblically, theologically, missiologically, and corporately. From my experience, to overlook even one of those aspects can make your team vulnerable to Satanic attack and/or irrelevance.
Here are some questions to consider (based on ICEL):
1. Are you working on a “mission-driven” team? What makes you say that?
2. How do you think your personal input helps to make your team a more biblical team? Do you have clear and measurable biblical goals like Nehemiah did? (Read Neh. 1:4; 2:4; 4:4 and 6:9). Do you and your fellow team members bathe your team’s work in prayer? Do you praise God for your victories?
3. Do you think your team is working from a proper theological framework? Even though your team is not equal to a local church, how does your team’s culture reflect the culture of a local church? Are there any theological inconsistencies?
4. Do you think you are working on an “apostolic” team or not? How does the word “apostleship” apply to your team?
5. Corporately, is your team more like a baseball team or a tennis team? Is it more like a basketball team or a cross-country track team? Is it more like a football team or a weight-lifting team? What makes you answer that way?

The way you (and your team) answer these questions will determine what kind of team player you will be. Here is a great brief article from Psychology Today in 2003. It’s a gentle reminder of what it takes to be a team player. Why don’t you ask your teammates what kind of player they think you are and what kind of team you guys have.

God bless you in any endeavor for ongoing excellence for the cause of Christ!

In Him,
Buck

Teaming 101

I’ve been reading an interesting book right now entitled, A Vision of the Possible: Pioneer Church Planting in Teams, by Daniel Sinclair. Chapter 4 of his book is devoted to teams. All of us are working on teams. Some of us are on a team with our spouse, while others are working on a multiple-unit team. Hopefully, we’ve already included many nationals on our teams as well. Teaming is biblical; the apostle Paul did it in several ways on his 4 terms, and yes while he was on STAS, he built teams and experienced team conflict. So there is much to be learned about teaming. Here are some questions from A Vision of the Possible to spur your thinking the next time you meet with your team(p. 53):

1. Would you say that your expectations for team life and ministry are overly optimistic (or “blue sky”), too pessimistic (or jaded), or pretty realistic?
2. Does the New Testament really only give examples of pioneer work in teams?
3. What is our model of team?
4. What are the gifts present in our team?
5. Is our team a good environment for biblical body life? Are we modeling this well for local believers (or will we be able to in the future)?
6. Does this team help you or hinder you in being on task and thriving spiritually?
7. Where are we on the “Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing” sequence?
8. What’s the right size for our team?
9. Does this team help me to have a healthy outward focus on ministry and majoring on the local people, or is there a danger of too much inwardness on our team?
10. How do we make team decisions? Does that process need any adjustment?

For further reading, I recommend an article entitled “Teamwork 101: 6 Steps to Becoming a Better Team Player” found here.

In Him,
Buck