Nehemiah, Leadership, Teamwork

I've been reading recently in the Old Testament about Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem. That was a massive project that took some extreme efforts to accomplish. Obviously, everyone had to work cooperatively to make it happen. Nehemiah kept everyone focused in spite of hardship, opposition, and discouragement. The leaders (managers) at the various sections of the wall kept everyone working diligently. In chapter 3 of Nehemiah's book there are numerous expressions of how every group worked side-by-side with the neighboring group, all the way around the city wall, until the work was completed.

There are some obvious lessons for us today. Significant work requires teamwork. Groups of workers focusing on a common purpose, a goal. Businesses thrive on this idea. Politicians live or die by the dedication and support of their team. Suffice it to say, churches are no exception. The problem, however, is that far too often we (the church) become fractured, distracted, cross-purposed, and alienated from our fellow teammates. I'm afraid we'll never get anywhere without becoming a culture of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and mutual support. Jesus said as much. "By this will all men know that you are my disciples, that you love one another."

For my way of thinking, Nehemiah was pretty harsh. But the wall probably wouldn't have been built without him. God puts the kind of leaders in place when and where he needs them. Whatever the case, however, we all need to pitch in and contribute according to our abilities.

Staying Flexible

It is terribly important to stay flexible if you ever want to get anything done in any organization, especially a church. Sometimes the battle over protocol or policy is just not worth the heartburn. You have to ask, Is this a mountain I am willing to die on? If not, there's nothing wrong with some compromise. Give and take is the name of effective efficiency. If you're too inflexible you become a stick-in-the-mud that stops all progress. How much more important to bend a little here or there for the sake of working together for a common goal. No, of course I'm not talking about great moral issues here. Methods rarely equate to morality. In other words, who cares how a job gets done just so long as it actually gets done! Team members and networking teams have to bend and flex in order to keep from breaking.

Well, maybe I need to modify that next-to-last sentence above just a bit. It really doesn't matter how a job gets done, just so long as it actually gets done -- and the way it gets done isn't illegal, immoral, or doesn't hurt someone. The real question is: Do we equate methods with morality. Think about it.

Networking Teams

I first discovered the idea of networking teams while on a long train journey from Portland, Oregon to Cincinnati, Ohio during Christmas week, 1994. To pass the time I bought a book I thought looked interesting. The contents of that book revolutionized my understanding of effective organizations in today's world. The core concepts formed the structure on which we would eventually develop Teamnet Ministries. The book was The Age of the Network: Organizing Principles for the 21st Century by Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps, Oliver Wight Publications, Inc., 1994.

In The Age of the Network, Lipnack and Stamps proposed a new type of organization, what they called a "teamnet." The idea is that while teams are the best way to get anything done, a network of teams working together creates a nearly unstopable force. They coined the term "teamnet" to capsulize their idea.

As I read the book, I got more and more excited. I could see a church organized around this principle, coupled with the biblical doctrine of spiritual gifts, and administered by visionary leaders rather than status quo managers. Old-fashioned committees that normally talk more than act could be replaced by lean, focused teams composed of dedicated, passionate church members driven Holy Spirit inspiration. At the next Nominating Committee season in the church I was then pastoring (Hamlet, Ohio) I presented some of the ideas that had been rattling around in my mind since reading Lipnack and Stamps' book. One thing led to another, and eventually the intial organizational structure of Teamnet Ministries began to take shape. In time, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the project, which I defended in 1998, and graduated in June of that year from Andrews University with my D.Min. degree.

Since then, five churches that I have pastored have decided to try the Teamnet Ministries experiment, with varying degrees of success. Some have continued, while others have gone back to a more traditional method of filling church offices. Teamnet Ministries continues to be a work in progress as needed refinements are recognized and corrections are made.

This blog is open for input from people who have experienced working with Teamnet Ministries, for those who want to learn about it, and for those who believe in the potential of a church organized as a network of ministry teams working together for the purpose of God in the earth. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Teamwork - The Heart of Everything

Think about it. Nothing happens anywhere in the known Universe outside of some kind of relationship. Even the physical cosmos is governed by the relationships of heavenly bodies balanced by gravity and centrifugal force. In other words, everything that is contributes to the way things are. As John Donne said, "No man is an island." We all make a difference, one way or another.

Synergy is the product of two or more entities working together for a common purpose. Synergy accomplishes more that the sum of what each individual could achieve alone. Ducks and geese fly farther together in formation than if they all flew separately. Teaming up for a common cause makes everyone in a team more successful. Teamwork works, because that is the way creation works best.

It seems to me, then, that teams and teamwork should be the most natural organizational structure for the church. Hence: Teamnet Ministries. The whole doctrine of Spiritual Gifts is built around this concept. God gives different gifts to different people to use in concert with everyone else's gifts to accomplish His purposes through the church -- the body of Christ on earth. See Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; and Ephesians 4.

In another post I'll talk about using our gifts as priests in the priesthood of all believers.