March 26, 2025 • 35 mins
Read the show notes at https://malphursgroup.com/283
Join hosts Scott Ball and A.J. Mathieu as they delve into the dynamics of teamwork within the church context. In this enlightening episode, Scott and A.J. explore the five types of teams drawn from the insights of the book "The Wisdom of Teams" by Katzenbach and Smith. They discuss how these categories—working group, pseudo team, potential team, real team, and high-performance team—apply to church staff, elder boards, and volunteer groups. Discover practical steps to assess and elevate your team's effectiveness, fostering an environment of mutual accountability and genuine affection. Plus, explore the intrinsic value of moving from simply collaborating to genuinely caring for one another, as inspired by biblical principles. Tune in to elevate your church team's performance and unity today! Remember to check out the Healthy Churches Toolkit for resources that can transform your team's dynamics. Subscribe and transform how your church team works!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Five types of teams today on the Church Revitalization Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast
brought to you by the Malphurs group team, where each week we
tackle important, actionable topics to help churches thrive.
And now here's your hosts, Scott Ball and A.J.
Mathieu.
(00:23):
Welcome to the Church Revitalization podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm
joined by my friend and cohost, A.J. Mathieu. Good day.
Alright. Today, we're talking about teamwork teamwork. And,
so cards on the table. Are you are
you a a kind of guy that likes books, A.J.?
Well, I know that you should. From the book. That depends on the
(00:46):
book. Yeah. Yeah. I like this one. This one is called
The Wisdom of Teams. I'm holding it up if you're watching the
the video version by Katzenbach and Smith. It is a business
book. It is about creating a high performance organization. This
version that I have, it's like a third edition, I
think, and it first came out in '93. The current
(01:09):
the version I'm holding up here is from 02/2003.
And as of 02/2003, A.J., it had sold 350,000
copies. So, it's a good one. So if you, if
you're interested in team building books,
might I commend you to read this one? And one of
the the things that he they talk about in this book that I found
(01:32):
really helpful and in fact, when I do trainings with
elder teams, I I share a chart from the
from the book that I'll we'll try our best to include it in the
article today as well if we can. There are
these you said five types of teams, and that's
true. But if you wanna think of it, it's almost like five levels of team.
(01:54):
You know, like, five, five levels. There there are different kinds of
teams. Levels. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And
so, if you this is this is very helpful
concepts. If you have a volunteer team that you're leading, if you have
a board that you're leading, if you have a staff that you're leading, these
concepts translate in all of those environments. And what
(02:17):
I'd love for you to do as you listen to this episode is try to
figure out which of these five,
types of team is your team right now. It
doesn't have to stay that way. It's often not static. You can kinda move between
this, these levels of effectiveness. But what are
you right now, and what would it take for you to become just to cheat
(02:38):
and look ahead, you know, to become a high performance team, which is sort of
the pinnacle of excellence? What do you what needs to change about
your team in order to to get to that fifth type
that we'll talk about today. So that's the scope of today's episode. We're
gonna we're gonna run you through these five different types of teams.
Be thinking about where is your team right now, and be thinking about various
(03:00):
teams. You could your staff team might be in one setting. Your elder team
might be somewhere else. The volunteer teams might be somewhere else
entirely as well. So you can think about all of those contexts. Yep. I think
the I think the real value here is the granularity of
five types. Because a lot of our default thought
is, like, okay. There's a group of people supposed to be working together to do
(03:22):
something. Are they effective or not? It's almost it's kinda like we have two types
of teams. So we've got those that end up producing what they need to and
those that don't. And so I I do like I
like these five, and I think our viewers, listeners
will, be able to dig in more to this because they're gonna be thinking
then, like, oh. And there's there there's kind of there's some unique
(03:44):
elements happening between the perhaps not high performing team and
those that are ours. Yeah. This is gonna be a great episode. Hey. Before we
dive into the first type of team, just wanna, briefly
remind those of you listening and watching, to go to
healthychurchesToolkit.com and sign up. There's there are great
resources in there to help you become a higher performing
(04:05):
team. So, there's elder training in there. There's leadership pipeline design
training in there, and as well as, a lot of
resources in the resource library that are geared towards
helping teams get better at being a healthy team. So,
go to healthychurchesToolkit.com. Sign up for a seven day
free trial. Check out the resources in there, and, it's a good supplement
(04:28):
to what we're talking about today in the podcast. Let me I'm going to put
I'm going to, like, literally show the page of the book. So if you're watching
on YouTube, you'll get the benefit of seeing this, but I'll describe it for those
of you who are not watching on YouTube and you're listening in the
car. So there are these five types of teams, and we'll we'll talk through each
of them. It starts with a a working
(04:49):
group, the working group, and, and that has
a low to moderate
effectiveness level. The second type of team
actually goes down in effectiveness, and this is
a pseudo team, which we'll talk about what what are the markers of
that? The third type of team is a potential team, and it is it is
(05:11):
rated as about the same level of effectiveness as a
working group, as the kind of people who don't even call themselves a team.
Then you have a real team, which is a a, relatively speaking, pretty high
performing group of folks, and then the high performance team.
And we'll talk about what differentiates the two. How do you go from being a
real team to a high performance team? And so it's it's this interesting sort
(05:34):
of chart that shows
that when you when you move from a working group to a
team, it is actually possible for you to be less effective than if you
weren't to call yourself a team at all. So we're gonna dive into those dynamics
and, how does that happen and why does that happen? So,
with that, do we wanna maybe just hop into the first one there with the
(05:55):
working first one. So, I guess if you're if you're didn't have the
benefit of seeing that, it's basically the letter j.
Has kind of another curve at the top. Yeah. I guess. So we're
starting on the, you know, like, the point of the of the j before it
curves down. And that's a working group. So as Scott just pointed out, people
have they're not even really described as a team. Though
(06:18):
using the word team has become much more popular the last
twenty years. So they might they might actually,
you might end up thinking about something in your church. Like, you know what? We
call everybody a team, but they're not really. And it would be Yeah.
This has become very popular, actually. Like, oh, we don't we don't have committees. We
have teams. Well Like, alright. We've been proponents of that language.
(06:39):
Totally. Totally. To promote,
really, what we're describing today, better working relationships
between the members and working towards common goals in a
more organized fashion. And better work fair And
to be self critical a little bit, if if the particular group of
people you're talking about doesn't need to be a team, we maybe don't even need
(07:01):
to call it a team. It doesn't we don't need to call it a team.
We're doing the term team a disservice. We're doing the term team a disservice.
We're doing the group a disservice by calling them a team if that isn't
even the expectation. So, you know, working group is has a
particular function. It's usually sort of an ad hoc group. You know, we've
got this event that we're we're running, and
(07:23):
we need a group of people to come together to execute and plan
this event. Well, I mean, they they don't need to be a team. There's
no reason for that. They can just be a working group. They they're
individual contributors. They coordinate around
a common end point, but they're not a team. Like,
there's no, like, need for them to do life
(07:45):
together or there'd be mutual accountability or any of these other things that make a
team a team. They they just need to be an individual contributor to
the particular project. Yeah. So,
but the thing about this is it it might have potential. It might have
potential to move beyond that. I suppose it would depend on what their
common tasks and goals are, together and what the longevity
(08:07):
is gonna be of working together. But, yeah, I
guess sometimes there might be a case in which we just need to call it
a group where where we work together. We're not necessarily a
team. I mean, what we call an implementation team
many times is more like a working group. You know, they get together once a
month. Mhmm. They do their monthly implementation review. They're expected
(08:30):
to bring their task, their deliverable, what they were
supposed to work on to the to that group,
report on it and, you you know, kinda get their marching orders for the
next month. But then at the end of that twelve month cycle,
most of the time, that group disbands, and the work of
that group is reassigned to more permanent teams that
(08:53):
own own those areas and are iterating on those
projects over a longer period of time. So, I mean, I think it's okay. It's
just semantics to call it an implementation team isn't the end of the world. But
just recognizing that in function, it's more like a working group than it is an
actual team. Yeah. And we do promote accountability in
the implementation teams and the overall strategic
(09:15):
leadership team in our context. And so
that's good. We also promote,
of course, we're talking about church context. We promote prayer,
within the teams, and,
celebration of wins. So I think when you bring these
concepts into the church, we add some elements, especially in the way we
(09:37):
teach, we add some elements that perhaps could be more team promotion
than working group. But, you know, I think
the the leader of these teams and, and the
players can can make the difference in how they
relate to one another. But anyway, yeah, there we go. Alright, let's move on to
the next one, Scott, which is the low point on that J curve down at
(10:00):
the bottom of the pseudo team. Looks like a team
but isn't really one. I think this is an interesting thing and maybe
a bit of a punch in the gut for for
some groups that might be working together that it has the
appearance of collaboration without real unity or clear
direction. So this could have even been a working group was assembled
(10:22):
maybe by a manager, a leader,
but not really given good tools or direction.
And, you know, so perhaps that person that organized this for a
function, they're like, alright. I've put together a working group maybe, or
what they thought was gonna be a working group or a or a team,
but not given the tools or the instructions or the
(10:45):
vision. They might start working together, but
they're at the low point of of this description because they don't
really have what they need to begin functioning together as a team. So, you
know, it could be the fault of, again, somebody that's not on the team but
assembled it incorrectly or without, you know, good
foresight, or it could be, you know, the results of the team
(11:07):
leader or the even the people together. Like, what exactly are we doing
here? So I'm gonna make a bold statement, and, and
a, maybe a, a gross generalization
and suggest that, at least a plurality, if not
an outright majority of teams
in churches are pseudo teams. I would
(11:30):
agree. I think there's a lot for, for, for the following reasons. And
I'm talking about, and I'm talking about staff teams. I'm talking
about elder teams. I'm talking about deacon boards. I'm talking I
mean, volunteer teams. The things that it takes to re to make a real
team, which we'll talk about, I guess, in a minute, but, I mean, they don't
have cleared roles. What what is my
(11:52):
job? What is it that I do? The number of deacon boards that I encounter
that go, like, we I don't know what that means. I don't know what it
means to be a deacon here. I'm not sure what my job is. Elders too.
I feel that way. Staff too. Staff going like I mean, I got the
job description for when they hired me, but I haven't had an updated job
description in ten years. I don't know what my job is.
(12:12):
How can you hold people accountable to a standard that you haven't
defined? People do their
individual work, but this is why you have silos in ministry, because people go, well,
I'm just doing my thing. There's no real collaboration. There aren't
clear common goals. They aren't setting plans
together. They aren't holding one another accountable. In a
(12:35):
mutual accountability. It doesn't mean other people hold
me individually accountable for my responsibility. Mutual accountability
is when we all hold one another together accountable
for the group's performance. There's a team element or a
group component to it. When we rise, we rise together.
When we fail, we fail together. That's what mutual accountability
(12:57):
is, not just individual accountability. And I would contend to that when you're talking about
an elder team or a deacon team or a staff team, in most
churches, you don't see any of that. And so you don't have
collaboration. You don't have clearly defined roles. You don't have clear vision. You
don't have mutual accountability. All of those things are recipes
for what defines a pseudo team, and they are actually less effective
(13:20):
than if you were to just say, we're not even a team. Everybody just show
up, do your part, and leave, which is more like a working
group. So I guess my contention or maybe the heart behind why you'd wanna do
this episode in the first place, A.J., is my heart breaks for the fact
that it isn't just that, wow, we need to help
most churches just get to that last level from the real team to
(13:42):
the high performance team. It's that they're actually all the way down at the bottom
of their effectiveness. They could there are there are degrees
of greatness that they are missing out on, because
they're just so far away from all of the things that it takes to be
successful. Yeah. And there's so many reasons for it. I
mean, just lack of mission, clarity and mission, lack of
(14:05):
clarity and vision, lack of resources, lack of
just basic direction, lack of accountability. I mean, there's just so many
things that cause it to be there, and we just see
them over and over and over where we get burned out
volunteers. So yeah. Burned out staff.
Yep. Who wants to become a deacon? I don't even know what that means. I
(14:26):
mean, it's it just it breaks my heart. It's it's one of the things that
motivates why I do, why I wanna
be part of this team at the Melfors Group because I really think we we
help teams turn around. And,
so yeah. So a pseudo team, I'm gonna make the case. It's a
generalization, and I don't wanna offend anybody, but that the majority
(14:47):
or at least a plurality of church teams are actually pseudo
teams and not real teams. Yeah. I think that's something that needed to be
said. The third one, the third team that we're talking about is a potential team
that could be growing into co into collaboration together. This is kind of a
temporary state, and you're not gonna permanently be a potential team.
You're either going to move up into a real team,
(15:10):
or you're gonna fall back into one of the we've already talked
about. But a potential team, you know, I mean, it it's that
upon launch. You don't become a potential team, you know,
three years into working together. It's this is something new, most likely, most
scenarios. Something new has been launched, and it at least has been
fed the elements that could allow it to become a real team, such as some
(15:32):
of the the deficiencies I just mentioned. You know? It's been given, perhaps,
the vision for the future. They already they do know what their what the
overall mission is, and perhaps they've even been
resourced with what they need. And
and then it it kind of it gets kicked off, you know. And where is
it going to go? Well, it's gonna go up if if they really
(15:54):
solidify in unity around what we're doing together, and maybe
everybody finds their, you know, more niche y piece in it,
or it's gonna fall back down into something
else or lesser, because they just they never really
come together and, identify how they're gonna work
together. Yeah. That that all of that is right. I I think, you
(16:17):
know, when you when you're
starting something new or or when the team changes, you know, you have two
new elders joining your board. You may, for a season, kind of
dip down to to potential team because there's just not enough we
haven't had a chance to onboard people, and the dynamics change when you when you
add new people. Same thing with the staff. If you, you know,
(16:38):
increase the size of the staff or you add a new staff person, it it
does create an environment where the team maybe dips
slightly in performance for for a short period of time, but you can bounce back
from that very quickly if you do all the things that you need to do.
You know? They have a clear job description. They know what their role is. We're
holding everyone's holding one another accountable. The team itself is being held accountable for
(16:59):
results, etcetera. You can you can jump right back up into real
team or or flounder down into that pseudo team,
very quickly. That being said, you
know, one of the things that is so important, especially if you wanna make that
ultimate jump to high performance team, is that when you're in that
potential team phase, be sure that you spend
(17:21):
unstructured time together. So you'll hear talk about
team building exercises and this kind of thing, which for the
most part, I think is bogus. Most people
hate. Yeah. Most people hate it.
The own maybe the most valuable thing about a team building exercise
is the unity and the relational interaction that comes from
(17:43):
people hating the team activity.
The bonding that comes over resenting the fact that you're doing
trust falls or whatever. But there is real value in
unstructured time together. This is especially true when you're talking about an
elder team or a staff team. That's why retreats
(18:03):
are good. You don't always meet in the boardroom. You
know? Go get in a van and have to
drive two and a half hours down the road to Gatlinburg, you know,
and and do your meeting in a in a cabin for for a
weekend, or something like that. Because you you're creating these
opportunities for these relationships to grow where we start to to
(18:25):
build care for one another and understanding of understanding people's
personalities, understanding their strengths. If we're gonna hold one another accountable, we have to
know one another in order to do that. So, if you if
your team never has unstructured time together, every time that
you're interacting, it's around an agenda,
then you are increasing the likelihood that you don't move
(18:48):
from potential team to real team, that you that you fall down into that
pseudo team state. Yeah. Yep. That's an important piece. Alright.
So let's let's move on up. We're we're we've launched a team. It
has potential. It's got the the kind of the the seeds that it needs to
grow, and we move up into our fourth team, and that's a real team.
And I kind of like the sub name for this, authentic
(19:10):
unity in purpose. And so, this
potential team with understanding of, you know, what their
goals are going to be have begun to develop,
a level of relationship and trust with each other, and have
really solidified and unified around this common
purpose and goal. Another characteristic of this, I
(19:32):
think, is the understanding of each other's
strengths. And and, I guess, you
have to say weaknesses is the other side of that coin. Not that anybody probably
is severely deficient anywhere, but that we're finding,
complimentary, strength weakness synergy sort of,
(19:52):
where people can kinda fit into their their role or their lane on the
team Mhmm. Knowing I this is an area I'm really good
at, and I'm allowed to operate in it. It's useful for
the team. I enjoy that. And I know
having that maybe kind of that emotional intelligence of knowing what
I'm this part that I'm playing also is helpful because somebody's not quite
(20:15):
there. And that's okay because I recognize where their strength is.
So these are some of the some of the elements of of getting into real
team situation. Yeah. I mean, just think all the things that we've talked
about so far that you would want in a team, those key
elements that you've got. Clear responsibility,
good communication, mutual
(20:37):
accountability, unified purpose and and
goals. All of those kind of key
elements that make a team a team are all present, and
nobody's perfect. So you you you have bad days and good days and whatnot, but
everybody's there. Everybody's doing it. Everybody's,
has a good faith intention of of
(20:58):
fulfilling their role on the team.
And and that's what makes a real team a real team is is that
genuine effort, that authentic unity and purpose. You
know, as the subtitle says, that we there's there's a the
elements are there, and everyone is participating is is
the difference. So that that might make you think, well, then
(21:20):
what is that not a high it sounds like a high performance team. Like, what
all of the elements for teamwork are there, and everybody is, you know,
enthusiastically collaborating and there's unity, what
what then is the difference between a real team and a high performance
team? So maybe let's explore that. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe, you know, Scott, you
and I kinda had an example, before we hit record, and,
(21:43):
maybe a real team in the church, you might consider your worship
band your team. A lot of times, you find that coming
together, a real team coming together. I think music is just a
really it's a really good analogy for a team anyway. You know? I mean,
the different the different players, the different parts to come up
and produce this common thing, this piece of
(22:05):
music, and, you know, that it can't it can't be done by one person.
I guess it can by a guy on a synth. Yeah. Someone is doing it.
Someone sitting at a computer desk, I guess. Yeah. The old school guy with the
harmonica and the bass drum on his back, and he's playing the guitar. So,
yeah. I guess you could be a a solo team. But,
I mean, you know, seriously, a band is a great example,
(22:28):
of of teamwork together, achieving a common goal together,
and then this nuanced piece that elevates up to this high performance
team. We I think the
key element here begins to be real relationship.
And in the church context, spiritual maturity with one
another, and across the team, most
(22:50):
likely. In the, in the example of of a
band, we see this a lot in churches that, you know, the worship team really
ends up kinda becoming if the church has, like, life groups, home groups, that kind
of thing, small group ministry. The worship team kinda ends up forming
into their own life group together. And they're
spending time, you know, outside of rehearsals and
(23:12):
and, worship services. They're spending time together.
They're caring about one another, praying for one another, knowing each other's struggles
in, quote, unquote, real life. And so this is
this is kind of the differentiator then. When you reach a high performance team
level, you are focused on goals together, you understand each other
well, and you care about each other enough
(23:34):
to want each other to succeed in your place on the
team. So I don't know if that's if that's
have we given yet, Scott, you can jump in here and probably add greater
detail, the differentiation up to high performance team
from real team. Yeah. It almost I think it almost sounds
like, like it's fake.
(23:56):
Like, oh, it's cute. Oh, the the real
difference is if you like each other. Just love one another.
But it's it's born out in research. I have multiple books on a
shelf that's that say the same thing, that the biggest
difference between, an effective team and a high
performance team is the degree to which the people on that
(24:17):
team like each other, and are willing to sacrifice
for one another. I mean, you can have a perfectly effective team where everybody
is coming in and doing their job, doing it effectively, collaborating,
communicating well, you know, but there isn't an a
brotherly affection, you know, for for one
another where you where you would step outside and go above and
(24:40):
beyond whatever your your responsibility is to the
team in order to save someone else's bacon. You know?
And that is the difference. And I can't tell you the number of of elder
teams I've worked with, staff teams I've worked with, and you walk in the room
and you can just feel it. That even though there's results, the church
is growing, you know, there were we've got
(25:03):
nickels and noses. Those stats are all good. More participation
in volunteers, more participation when at life group level.
All of that. But you walk into the room and you can feel it. This
is a competent team, but this is not a group that loves each other.
And that's the difference. And it it's not rocket science. I mean, on the one
hand, it does feel a little bit like it's sort of Pollyanna and like, oh,
(25:24):
if you just loved each other, it would be it would be better. But think
this one through. If if I only care about or
if the the limits of my participation in the team are my
responsibility, that has a cap on
it versus if I go, well, no. I also have a duty and an
obligation to A.J. when he's struggling. I I need to
(25:46):
take care of my own things, but also how can I help A.J.? How can
I go beyond my own responsibility to to help him when
he's in a crunch or for us to spend extra time together?
Time's up. You know? But, you know, we're in a crisis. There's a crisis. And
the degree to which the team is willing to sacrifice for one another is
the is that extra increase in performance and truly high
(26:09):
performance. So every study that's ever been done on this
topic consistently shows that when you find a high
performance team, you find a team that is
doing far beyond what would be expected of them to do for one
another because they love one another, because they trust it's a high trust
environment, and and they're they there's genuine
(26:31):
affection and care, which I think is maybe it's you know, the Bible is not
a business book, but Jesus talks about this incessantly. And and you
see it all throughout the New Testament, this call for that
agape love, that brotherly love, that mutual
affection. You know, I guess philios
is the brotherly love. But, that that sacrificial
(26:54):
love for one another, they the Lord talks about it so
much, and the New Testament authors talk about it so much, because they saw
how important it is to actually being able to build the kingdom.
Real kingdom impact comes from not just doing your
job, but truly caring for one another. Now you had
made a point before we hit record, A.J., I wanted you to chat about this
(27:15):
for a second. You had asked, well, what if there is good camaraderie
and brotherly affection? Are they automatically a high performance team? And I think the
answer to that is no because you also have to have good
communication and mutual accountability and clear clear, lines
of responsibility. You you need all the other teamwork things too.
But when you layer on top of that that love for one another, it
(27:39):
that's the key difference. Sorry. You were gonna say something. No. That yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, no. I was just thinking more, you know, about kind of, like, leadership lessons
from Jesus. You know, sending out the 12
and and the 72, you know, were at least in pairs,
when, you know, peep you can be a solo operator.
But, you know, there's Actually, that doesn't say when he sends out the 12 that
(28:01):
he sent them out in pairs. Oh, does it not? Yeah. Ain't that interesting? I
have always assumed that, but it's not explicitly Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, maybe that's a
wrong assumption. It is in the 72, though. So one, I think it's a
reasonable assumption. I'm not trying to Maybe a reasonable assumption.
Yeah. And of course and there's practical there was practical reasons too. I mean, there's
safety aspects. There's all kinds of reasons to not just go by yourself, but
(28:22):
that was gonna be an environment in which there's a lot of walking. There's
a lot, you know, in between doing miracles in towns,
you know, there was a lot of relationship building, likely. And
so, yeah, I think there's something to that.
And, of course, you know, Paul Paul had people that he was doing ministry.
Upper room discourse. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Where Jesus is like, hey. Love one
(28:45):
another. I sorry. Not to I don't I don't wanna go down
this rabbit trail. But I do think it's interesting that in the culture, no
one disagrees that Christians should be defined by love. I'm
not disagreeing with that at all. But what's interesting is all of those
these these instructions about love in the new testament are
primarily aimed at love
(29:07):
for one another inside
the body. That's the instruction. Jesus's prayer is that they would
love one another. I I
don't mean to say that Jesus doesn't want us to love of course he
does. But his prayer is explicitly for the the fact that they would
love one another. And you see this
(29:30):
all throughout the New Testament. It's love for one another that is
that is then intended to be so contagious to the outside world that they would
see how much that Christians care for one another that they would want to be
a part of that. And Yeah. I mean, that's I mean, that's
the essence of John 17. So at the end of chapter 17
is unity. I mean, he's not he's using the word unity there, not necessarily love,
(29:53):
but, but I think, yeah, this
unified church has a has a visual
reflection to the world outside, and that reflection is supposed to be
Christ. Yeah. No. He says he says in that same discourse
that this he commands them to love one another, and
that that same whole prayer about unity flows from that same
(30:15):
instruction that there would be that they would love one another. So I guess the
point I'm making is I I see a lot of teams that
don't in churches that don't they don't really love one another, if I'm being honest.
They certainly don't like each other. They might they might, on some level,
love love one another. They feel some duty, but it's not
genuine affection. They got, like, the Christian obligated
(30:37):
love. Yeah. I'm gonna love you. Fake it till you make it.
Yeah. There's some value to faking it till you make it. Sometimes there is. Yeah.
When it comes to love. Right? Like, I'm going to do the loving thing. Yeah.
Whether I feel it or not. Well, it's intentionality. I mean, I suppose there's an
element of maturity there. I know what I'm supposed to. I know I'm supposed to
care for that person. I don't right now, but I really wanna try.
(30:59):
Yeah. I I think that lots of times, now we're
really digressing and I we need to land this airplane. But a lot of
times, there's just a failure of curiosity about one another, which leads to why
they don't like each other. I mean, you're if you see someone that you don't
like, you're you might just not be curious enough about them. That's a good
point. Yeah. Like, tell me more about you. The the more you get to know
(31:20):
somebody, the the odds of you liking them increase dramatically. You make all
kinds of assumptions about what someone is like. Not every person has to be your
favorite person. I'm I'm not I'm not suggesting that. Even on even on a high
performance team, you're not gonna be equally close to everybody. That's fine. But
if you don't like someone, that is a problem. Yeah. There's always
that guy that is constantly telling you about himself, and you're like,
(31:42):
I definitely don't like you now because you only tell me about yourself, and I
know way too much. So Are you talking about me again,
A.J.?
Alright. Well, I think we have You didn't deny that. Okay.
You you didn't try courtesy laughed at that. Okay. What's
(32:03):
your thoughts? Yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, we've got
we've got these these, five different types of teams that may
be functioning in in your church. And so, yeah, I think
this is worth examining. I think so. You, you know, whatever
level of leadership you may be in in your church, I think, it would be
a good exercise to consider consider these things.
(32:26):
If you don't even have, like, a list, like, who are all of our teams
even? That that needs to be looked at.
And, yeah. So especially if you're leading, you know, a staff
team, and it could be a mixture of maybe paid and volunteer people,
Have maybe take some observation time in the next few weeks
or month or so, and just consider this. This doesn't need to
(32:49):
be something that you bring to staff meeting, you know, next week. Like, I listen
to this podcast. Let's talk this talk about this. And this might be one take
a take a minute and observe the people, that that you're working
with, the people that are working, you know, underneath you or above you,
and around you. And look at the dynamics of these, and
then consider where do these maybe fit, and then
(33:11):
begin to maybe pull together some others around you to, have
some some plans on how can we improve the overall
performance and love within our teams to, to move
up up that j curve into that high performance level. Yeah.
Really good. Really well said. Just so we'll close
by reminding you to check out the Healthy Churches Toolkit.
(33:34):
There are there are resources in there that will give
you excuses to have conversations that maybe need to be had.
That is a real benefit. Go go through a training, and we have discussion
questions in the in those workshop, videos and etcetera.
So, take advantage of that. So So go to
healthychurchesToolkit.com. Sign up for free for seven days and see all the good
(33:55):
stuff that's in there. Also wanna remind you that today's article
is in the description below. So whether you are watching on
YouTube or listening on your favorite favorite podcast
platform, that link is down there. So please be sure you click that
link and check out that article. Yeah. If you're on soon. Yeah.
If you're on YouTube, there's an 84% chance you have not
(34:17):
subscribed to this channel. So do that. Go click subscribe.
Yeah. And and the bell because, we love having you. Love to
love to bring you into the team, Scott. Yeah. You know, I yeah.
We may mention this a few times. I hate it when people say on YouTube
videos, hey. Subscribe and hit that notification bell. It helps
us. In what way? And I you know, because people don't ever really
(34:40):
explain that. So I I'm not gonna take ten minutes and do that. But I
just wanna briefly say, it really does make a difference, and YouTube
kinda makes a big deal about it. So we're we're new to this. We've we've
hit new levels. We're we're hardly, like, blowing up on YouTube. But
the the more success you have, they start telling you more things like,
hey. You might wanna consider this. And one of the things that YouTube has prompted
(35:01):
us has said, hey. Only a certain percentage of your subscribers
are have hit that notification bell. Yep. And only a
certain number of your viewers are subscribers. And and so they they
reward that when people take those actions. So that's why we're asking
you to do it because YouTube is telling us to ask you to do it.
Yeah. And by reward, we mean they're actually we'll show our content to more
(35:23):
to more to more pastors. Yeah. So so if you like what you're
seeing, help us out. Alright. Thank you. There we go. Well, hey. Thanks for joining
us this week on the Church Revitalization Podcast. If you're subscribed, you'll
know we'll be back again next week. See you then.
Five types of teams today on the Church Revitalization Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Church Revitalization Podcast
brought to you by the Malphurs group team, where each week we
tackle important, actionable topics to help churches thrive.
And now here's your hosts, Scott Ball and A.J.
Mathieu.
(00:23):
Welcome to the Church Revitalization podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm
joined by my friend and cohost, A.J. Mathieu. Good day.
Alright. Today, we're talking about teamwork teamwork. And,
so cards on the table. Are you are
you a a kind of guy that likes books, A.J.?
Well, I know that you should. From the book. That depends on the
(00:46):
book. Yeah. Yeah. I like this one. This one is called
The Wisdom of Teams. I'm holding it up if you're watching the
the video version by Katzenbach and Smith. It is a business
book. It is about creating a high performance organization. This
version that I have, it's like a third edition, I
think, and it first came out in '93. The current
(01:09):
the version I'm holding up here is from 02/2003.
And as of 02/2003, A.J., it had sold 350,000
copies. So, it's a good one. So if you, if
you're interested in team building books,
might I commend you to read this one? And one of
the the things that he they talk about in this book that I found
(01:32):
really helpful and in fact, when I do trainings with
elder teams, I I share a chart from the
from the book that I'll we'll try our best to include it in the
article today as well if we can. There are
these you said five types of teams, and that's
true. But if you wanna think of it, it's almost like five levels of team.
(01:54):
You know, like, five, five levels. There there are different kinds of
teams. Levels. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And
so, if you this is this is very helpful
concepts. If you have a volunteer team that you're leading, if you have
a board that you're leading, if you have a staff that you're leading, these
concepts translate in all of those environments. And what
(02:17):
I'd love for you to do as you listen to this episode is try to
figure out which of these five,
types of team is your team right now. It
doesn't have to stay that way. It's often not static. You can kinda move between
this, these levels of effectiveness. But what are
you right now, and what would it take for you to become just to cheat
(02:38):
and look ahead, you know, to become a high performance team, which is sort of
the pinnacle of excellence? What do you what needs to change about
your team in order to to get to that fifth type
that we'll talk about today. So that's the scope of today's episode. We're
gonna we're gonna run you through these five different types of teams.
Be thinking about where is your team right now, and be thinking about various
(03:00):
teams. You could your staff team might be in one setting. Your elder team
might be somewhere else. The volunteer teams might be somewhere else
entirely as well. So you can think about all of those contexts. Yep. I think
the I think the real value here is the granularity of
five types. Because a lot of our default thought
is, like, okay. There's a group of people supposed to be working together to do
(03:22):
something. Are they effective or not? It's almost it's kinda like we have two types
of teams. So we've got those that end up producing what they need to and
those that don't. And so I I do like I
like these five, and I think our viewers, listeners
will, be able to dig in more to this because they're gonna be thinking
then, like, oh. And there's there there's kind of there's some unique
(03:44):
elements happening between the perhaps not high performing team and
those that are ours. Yeah. This is gonna be a great episode. Hey. Before we
dive into the first type of team, just wanna, briefly
remind those of you listening and watching, to go to
healthychurchesToolkit.com and sign up. There's there are great
resources in there to help you become a higher performing
(04:05):
team. So, there's elder training in there. There's leadership pipeline design
training in there, and as well as, a lot of
resources in the resource library that are geared towards
helping teams get better at being a healthy team. So,
go to healthychurchesToolkit.com. Sign up for a seven day
free trial. Check out the resources in there, and, it's a good supplement
(04:28):
to what we're talking about today in the podcast. Let me I'm going to put
I'm going to, like, literally show the page of the book. So if you're watching
on YouTube, you'll get the benefit of seeing this, but I'll describe it for those
of you who are not watching on YouTube and you're listening in the
car. So there are these five types of teams, and we'll we'll talk through each
of them. It starts with a a working
(04:49):
group, the working group, and, and that has
a low to moderate
effectiveness level. The second type of team
actually goes down in effectiveness, and this is
a pseudo team, which we'll talk about what what are the markers of
that? The third type of team is a potential team, and it is it is
(05:11):
rated as about the same level of effectiveness as a
working group, as the kind of people who don't even call themselves a team.
Then you have a real team, which is a a, relatively speaking, pretty high
performing group of folks, and then the high performance team.
And we'll talk about what differentiates the two. How do you go from being a
real team to a high performance team? And so it's it's this interesting sort
(05:34):
of chart that shows
that when you when you move from a working group to a
team, it is actually possible for you to be less effective than if you
weren't to call yourself a team at all. So we're gonna dive into those dynamics
and, how does that happen and why does that happen? So,
with that, do we wanna maybe just hop into the first one there with the
(05:55):
working first one. So, I guess if you're if you're didn't have the
benefit of seeing that, it's basically the letter j.
Has kind of another curve at the top. Yeah. I guess. So we're
starting on the, you know, like, the point of the of the j before it
curves down. And that's a working group. So as Scott just pointed out, people
have they're not even really described as a team. Though
(06:18):
using the word team has become much more popular the last
twenty years. So they might they might actually,
you might end up thinking about something in your church. Like, you know what? We
call everybody a team, but they're not really. And it would be Yeah.
This has become very popular, actually. Like, oh, we don't we don't have committees. We
have teams. Well Like, alright. We've been proponents of that language.
(06:39):
Totally. Totally. To promote,
really, what we're describing today, better working relationships
between the members and working towards common goals in a
more organized fashion. And better work fair And
to be self critical a little bit, if if the particular group of
people you're talking about doesn't need to be a team, we maybe don't even need
(07:01):
to call it a team. It doesn't we don't need to call it a team.
We're doing the term team a disservice. We're doing the term team a disservice.
We're doing the group a disservice by calling them a team if that isn't
even the expectation. So, you know, working group is has a
particular function. It's usually sort of an ad hoc group. You know, we've
got this event that we're we're running, and
(07:23):
we need a group of people to come together to execute and plan
this event. Well, I mean, they they don't need to be a team. There's
no reason for that. They can just be a working group. They they're
individual contributors. They coordinate around
a common end point, but they're not a team. Like,
there's no, like, need for them to do life
(07:45):
together or there'd be mutual accountability or any of these other things that make a
team a team. They they just need to be an individual contributor to
the particular project. Yeah. So,
but the thing about this is it it might have potential. It might have
potential to move beyond that. I suppose it would depend on what their
common tasks and goals are, together and what the longevity
(08:07):
is gonna be of working together. But, yeah, I
guess sometimes there might be a case in which we just need to call it
a group where where we work together. We're not necessarily a
team. I mean, what we call an implementation team
many times is more like a working group. You know, they get together once a
month. Mhmm. They do their monthly implementation review. They're expected
(08:30):
to bring their task, their deliverable, what they were
supposed to work on to the to that group,
report on it and, you you know, kinda get their marching orders for the
next month. But then at the end of that twelve month cycle,
most of the time, that group disbands, and the work of
that group is reassigned to more permanent teams that
(08:53):
own own those areas and are iterating on those
projects over a longer period of time. So, I mean, I think it's okay. It's
just semantics to call it an implementation team isn't the end of the world. But
just recognizing that in function, it's more like a working group than it is an
actual team. Yeah. And we do promote accountability in
the implementation teams and the overall strategic
(09:15):
leadership team in our context. And so
that's good. We also promote,
of course, we're talking about church context. We promote prayer,
within the teams, and,
celebration of wins. So I think when you bring these
concepts into the church, we add some elements, especially in the way we
(09:37):
teach, we add some elements that perhaps could be more team promotion
than working group. But, you know, I think
the the leader of these teams and, and the
players can can make the difference in how they
relate to one another. But anyway, yeah, there we go. Alright, let's move on to
the next one, Scott, which is the low point on that J curve down at
(10:00):
the bottom of the pseudo team. Looks like a team
but isn't really one. I think this is an interesting thing and maybe
a bit of a punch in the gut for for
some groups that might be working together that it has the
appearance of collaboration without real unity or clear
direction. So this could have even been a working group was assembled
(10:22):
maybe by a manager, a leader,
but not really given good tools or direction.
And, you know, so perhaps that person that organized this for a
function, they're like, alright. I've put together a working group maybe, or
what they thought was gonna be a working group or a or a team,
but not given the tools or the instructions or the
(10:45):
vision. They might start working together, but
they're at the low point of of this description because they don't
really have what they need to begin functioning together as a team. So, you
know, it could be the fault of, again, somebody that's not on the team but
assembled it incorrectly or without, you know, good
foresight, or it could be, you know, the results of the team
(11:07):
leader or the even the people together. Like, what exactly are we doing
here? So I'm gonna make a bold statement, and, and
a, maybe a, a gross generalization
and suggest that, at least a plurality, if not
an outright majority of teams
in churches are pseudo teams. I would
(11:30):
agree. I think there's a lot for, for, for the following reasons. And
I'm talking about, and I'm talking about staff teams. I'm talking
about elder teams. I'm talking about deacon boards. I'm talking I
mean, volunteer teams. The things that it takes to re to make a real
team, which we'll talk about, I guess, in a minute, but, I mean, they don't
have cleared roles. What what is my
(11:52):
job? What is it that I do? The number of deacon boards that I encounter
that go, like, we I don't know what that means. I don't know what it
means to be a deacon here. I'm not sure what my job is. Elders too.
I feel that way. Staff too. Staff going like I mean, I got the
job description for when they hired me, but I haven't had an updated job
description in ten years. I don't know what my job is.
(12:12):
How can you hold people accountable to a standard that you haven't
defined? People do their
individual work, but this is why you have silos in ministry, because people go, well,
I'm just doing my thing. There's no real collaboration. There aren't
clear common goals. They aren't setting plans
together. They aren't holding one another accountable. In a
(12:35):
mutual accountability. It doesn't mean other people hold
me individually accountable for my responsibility. Mutual accountability
is when we all hold one another together accountable
for the group's performance. There's a team element or a
group component to it. When we rise, we rise together.
When we fail, we fail together. That's what mutual accountability
(12:57):
is, not just individual accountability. And I would contend to that when you're talking about
an elder team or a deacon team or a staff team, in most
churches, you don't see any of that. And so you don't have
collaboration. You don't have clearly defined roles. You don't have clear vision. You
don't have mutual accountability. All of those things are recipes
for what defines a pseudo team, and they are actually less effective
(13:20):
than if you were to just say, we're not even a team. Everybody just show
up, do your part, and leave, which is more like a working
group. So I guess my contention or maybe the heart behind why you'd wanna do
this episode in the first place, A.J., is my heart breaks for the fact
that it isn't just that, wow, we need to help
most churches just get to that last level from the real team to
(13:42):
the high performance team. It's that they're actually all the way down at the bottom
of their effectiveness. They could there are there are degrees
of greatness that they are missing out on, because
they're just so far away from all of the things that it takes to be
successful. Yeah. And there's so many reasons for it. I
mean, just lack of mission, clarity and mission, lack of
(14:05):
clarity and vision, lack of resources, lack of
just basic direction, lack of accountability. I mean, there's just so many
things that cause it to be there, and we just see
them over and over and over where we get burned out
volunteers. So yeah. Burned out staff.
Yep. Who wants to become a deacon? I don't even know what that means. I
(14:26):
mean, it's it just it breaks my heart. It's it's one of the things that
motivates why I do, why I wanna
be part of this team at the Melfors Group because I really think we we
help teams turn around. And,
so yeah. So a pseudo team, I'm gonna make the case. It's a
generalization, and I don't wanna offend anybody, but that the majority
(14:47):
or at least a plurality of church teams are actually pseudo
teams and not real teams. Yeah. I think that's something that needed to be
said. The third one, the third team that we're talking about is a potential team
that could be growing into co into collaboration together. This is kind of a
temporary state, and you're not gonna permanently be a potential team.
You're either going to move up into a real team,
(15:10):
or you're gonna fall back into one of the we've already talked
about. But a potential team, you know, I mean, it it's that
upon launch. You don't become a potential team, you know,
three years into working together. It's this is something new, most likely, most
scenarios. Something new has been launched, and it at least has been
fed the elements that could allow it to become a real team, such as some
(15:32):
of the the deficiencies I just mentioned. You know? It's been given, perhaps,
the vision for the future. They already they do know what their what the
overall mission is, and perhaps they've even been
resourced with what they need. And
and then it it kind of it gets kicked off, you know. And where is
it going to go? Well, it's gonna go up if if they really
(15:54):
solidify in unity around what we're doing together, and maybe
everybody finds their, you know, more niche y piece in it,
or it's gonna fall back down into something
else or lesser, because they just they never really
come together and, identify how they're gonna work
together. Yeah. That that all of that is right. I I think, you
(16:17):
know, when you when you're
starting something new or or when the team changes, you know, you have two
new elders joining your board. You may, for a season, kind of
dip down to to potential team because there's just not enough we
haven't had a chance to onboard people, and the dynamics change when you when you
add new people. Same thing with the staff. If you, you know,
(16:38):
increase the size of the staff or you add a new staff person, it it
does create an environment where the team maybe dips
slightly in performance for for a short period of time, but you can bounce back
from that very quickly if you do all the things that you need to do.
You know? They have a clear job description. They know what their role is. We're
holding everyone's holding one another accountable. The team itself is being held accountable for
(16:59):
results, etcetera. You can you can jump right back up into real
team or or flounder down into that pseudo team,
very quickly. That being said, you
know, one of the things that is so important, especially if you wanna make that
ultimate jump to high performance team, is that when you're in that
potential team phase, be sure that you spend
(17:21):
unstructured time together. So you'll hear talk about
team building exercises and this kind of thing, which for the
most part, I think is bogus. Most people
hate. Yeah. Most people hate it.
The own maybe the most valuable thing about a team building exercise
is the unity and the relational interaction that comes from
(17:43):
people hating the team activity.
The bonding that comes over resenting the fact that you're doing
trust falls or whatever. But there is real value in
unstructured time together. This is especially true when you're talking about an
elder team or a staff team. That's why retreats
(18:03):
are good. You don't always meet in the boardroom. You
know? Go get in a van and have to
drive two and a half hours down the road to Gatlinburg, you know,
and and do your meeting in a in a cabin for for a
weekend, or something like that. Because you you're creating these
opportunities for these relationships to grow where we start to to
(18:25):
build care for one another and understanding of understanding people's
personalities, understanding their strengths. If we're gonna hold one another accountable, we have to
know one another in order to do that. So, if you if
your team never has unstructured time together, every time that
you're interacting, it's around an agenda,
then you are increasing the likelihood that you don't move
(18:48):
from potential team to real team, that you that you fall down into that
pseudo team state. Yeah. Yep. That's an important piece. Alright.
So let's let's move on up. We're we're we've launched a team. It
has potential. It's got the the kind of the the seeds that it needs to
grow, and we move up into our fourth team, and that's a real team.
And I kind of like the sub name for this, authentic
(19:10):
unity in purpose. And so, this
potential team with understanding of, you know, what their
goals are going to be have begun to develop,
a level of relationship and trust with each other, and have
really solidified and unified around this common
purpose and goal. Another characteristic of this, I
(19:32):
think, is the understanding of each other's
strengths. And and, I guess, you
have to say weaknesses is the other side of that coin. Not that anybody probably
is severely deficient anywhere, but that we're finding,
complimentary, strength weakness synergy sort of,
(19:52):
where people can kinda fit into their their role or their lane on the
team Mhmm. Knowing I this is an area I'm really good
at, and I'm allowed to operate in it. It's useful for
the team. I enjoy that. And I know
having that maybe kind of that emotional intelligence of knowing what
I'm this part that I'm playing also is helpful because somebody's not quite
(20:15):
there. And that's okay because I recognize where their strength is.
So these are some of the some of the elements of of getting into real
team situation. Yeah. I mean, just think all the things that we've talked
about so far that you would want in a team, those key
elements that you've got. Clear responsibility,
good communication, mutual
(20:37):
accountability, unified purpose and and
goals. All of those kind of key
elements that make a team a team are all present, and
nobody's perfect. So you you you have bad days and good days and whatnot, but
everybody's there. Everybody's doing it. Everybody's,
has a good faith intention of of
(20:58):
fulfilling their role on the team.
And and that's what makes a real team a real team is is that
genuine effort, that authentic unity and purpose. You
know, as the subtitle says, that we there's there's a the
elements are there, and everyone is participating is is
the difference. So that that might make you think, well, then
(21:20):
what is that not a high it sounds like a high performance team. Like, what
all of the elements for teamwork are there, and everybody is, you know,
enthusiastically collaborating and there's unity, what
what then is the difference between a real team and a high performance
team? So maybe let's explore that. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe, you know, Scott, you
and I kinda had an example, before we hit record, and,
(21:43):
maybe a real team in the church, you might consider your worship
band your team. A lot of times, you find that coming
together, a real team coming together. I think music is just a
really it's a really good analogy for a team anyway. You know? I mean,
the different the different players, the different parts to come up
and produce this common thing, this piece of
(22:05):
music, and, you know, that it can't it can't be done by one person.
I guess it can by a guy on a synth. Yeah. Someone is doing it.
Someone sitting at a computer desk, I guess. Yeah. The old school guy with the
harmonica and the bass drum on his back, and he's playing the guitar. So,
yeah. I guess you could be a a solo team. But,
I mean, you know, seriously, a band is a great example,
(22:28):
of of teamwork together, achieving a common goal together,
and then this nuanced piece that elevates up to this high performance
team. We I think the
key element here begins to be real relationship.
And in the church context, spiritual maturity with one
another, and across the team, most
(22:50):
likely. In the, in the example of of a
band, we see this a lot in churches that, you know, the worship team really
ends up kinda becoming if the church has, like, life groups, home groups, that kind
of thing, small group ministry. The worship team kinda ends up forming
into their own life group together. And they're
spending time, you know, outside of rehearsals and
(23:12):
and, worship services. They're spending time together.
They're caring about one another, praying for one another, knowing each other's struggles
in, quote, unquote, real life. And so this is
this is kind of the differentiator then. When you reach a high performance team
level, you are focused on goals together, you understand each other
well, and you care about each other enough
(23:34):
to want each other to succeed in your place on the
team. So I don't know if that's if that's
have we given yet, Scott, you can jump in here and probably add greater
detail, the differentiation up to high performance team
from real team. Yeah. It almost I think it almost sounds
like, like it's fake.
(23:56):
Like, oh, it's cute. Oh, the the real
difference is if you like each other. Just love one another.
But it's it's born out in research. I have multiple books on a
shelf that's that say the same thing, that the biggest
difference between, an effective team and a high
performance team is the degree to which the people on that
(24:17):
team like each other, and are willing to sacrifice
for one another. I mean, you can have a perfectly effective team where everybody
is coming in and doing their job, doing it effectively, collaborating,
communicating well, you know, but there isn't an a
brotherly affection, you know, for for one
another where you where you would step outside and go above and
(24:40):
beyond whatever your your responsibility is to the
team in order to save someone else's bacon. You know?
And that is the difference. And I can't tell you the number of of elder
teams I've worked with, staff teams I've worked with, and you walk in the room
and you can just feel it. That even though there's results, the church
is growing, you know, there were we've got
(25:03):
nickels and noses. Those stats are all good. More participation
in volunteers, more participation when at life group level.
All of that. But you walk into the room and you can feel it. This
is a competent team, but this is not a group that loves each other.
And that's the difference. And it it's not rocket science. I mean, on the one
hand, it does feel a little bit like it's sort of Pollyanna and like, oh,
(25:24):
if you just loved each other, it would be it would be better. But think
this one through. If if I only care about or
if the the limits of my participation in the team are my
responsibility, that has a cap on
it versus if I go, well, no. I also have a duty and an
obligation to A.J. when he's struggling. I I need to
(25:46):
take care of my own things, but also how can I help A.J.? How can
I go beyond my own responsibility to to help him when
he's in a crunch or for us to spend extra time together?
Time's up. You know? But, you know, we're in a crisis. There's a crisis. And
the degree to which the team is willing to sacrifice for one another is
the is that extra increase in performance and truly high
(26:09):
performance. So every study that's ever been done on this
topic consistently shows that when you find a high
performance team, you find a team that is
doing far beyond what would be expected of them to do for one
another because they love one another, because they trust it's a high trust
environment, and and they're they there's genuine
(26:31):
affection and care, which I think is maybe it's you know, the Bible is not
a business book, but Jesus talks about this incessantly. And and you
see it all throughout the New Testament, this call for that
agape love, that brotherly love, that mutual
affection. You know, I guess philios
is the brotherly love. But, that that sacrificial
(26:54):
love for one another, they the Lord talks about it so
much, and the New Testament authors talk about it so much, because they saw
how important it is to actually being able to build the kingdom.
Real kingdom impact comes from not just doing your
job, but truly caring for one another. Now you had
made a point before we hit record, A.J., I wanted you to chat about this
(27:15):
for a second. You had asked, well, what if there is good camaraderie
and brotherly affection? Are they automatically a high performance team? And I think the
answer to that is no because you also have to have good
communication and mutual accountability and clear clear, lines
of responsibility. You you need all the other teamwork things too.
But when you layer on top of that that love for one another, it
(27:39):
that's the key difference. Sorry. You were gonna say something. No. That yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, no. I was just thinking more, you know, about kind of, like, leadership lessons
from Jesus. You know, sending out the 12
and and the 72, you know, were at least in pairs,
when, you know, peep you can be a solo operator.
But, you know, there's Actually, that doesn't say when he sends out the 12 that
(28:01):
he sent them out in pairs. Oh, does it not? Yeah. Ain't that interesting? I
have always assumed that, but it's not explicitly Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, maybe that's a
wrong assumption. It is in the 72, though. So one, I think it's a
reasonable assumption. I'm not trying to Maybe a reasonable assumption.
Yeah. And of course and there's practical there was practical reasons too. I mean, there's
safety aspects. There's all kinds of reasons to not just go by yourself, but
(28:22):
that was gonna be an environment in which there's a lot of walking. There's
a lot, you know, in between doing miracles in towns,
you know, there was a lot of relationship building, likely. And
so, yeah, I think there's something to that.
And, of course, you know, Paul Paul had people that he was doing ministry.
Upper room discourse. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Where Jesus is like, hey. Love one
(28:45):
another. I sorry. Not to I don't I don't wanna go down
this rabbit trail. But I do think it's interesting that in the culture, no
one disagrees that Christians should be defined by love. I'm
not disagreeing with that at all. But what's interesting is all of those
these these instructions about love in the new testament are
primarily aimed at love
(29:07):
for one another inside
the body. That's the instruction. Jesus's prayer is that they would
love one another. I I
don't mean to say that Jesus doesn't want us to love of course he
does. But his prayer is explicitly for the the fact that they would
love one another. And you see this
(29:30):
all throughout the New Testament. It's love for one another that is
that is then intended to be so contagious to the outside world that they would
see how much that Christians care for one another that they would want to be
a part of that. And Yeah. I mean, that's I mean, that's
the essence of John 17. So at the end of chapter 17
is unity. I mean, he's not he's using the word unity there, not necessarily love,
(29:53):
but, but I think, yeah, this
unified church has a has a visual
reflection to the world outside, and that reflection is supposed to be
Christ. Yeah. No. He says he says in that same discourse
that this he commands them to love one another, and
that that same whole prayer about unity flows from that same
(30:15):
instruction that there would be that they would love one another. So I guess the
point I'm making is I I see a lot of teams that
don't in churches that don't they don't really love one another, if I'm being honest.
They certainly don't like each other. They might they might, on some level,
love love one another. They feel some duty, but it's not
genuine affection. They got, like, the Christian obligated
(30:37):
love. Yeah. I'm gonna love you. Fake it till you make it.
Yeah. There's some value to faking it till you make it. Sometimes there is. Yeah.
When it comes to love. Right? Like, I'm going to do the loving thing. Yeah.
Whether I feel it or not. Well, it's intentionality. I mean, I suppose there's an
element of maturity there. I know what I'm supposed to. I know I'm supposed to
care for that person. I don't right now, but I really wanna try.
(30:59):
Yeah. I I think that lots of times, now we're
really digressing and I we need to land this airplane. But a lot of
times, there's just a failure of curiosity about one another, which leads to why
they don't like each other. I mean, you're if you see someone that you don't
like, you're you might just not be curious enough about them. That's a good
point. Yeah. Like, tell me more about you. The the more you get to know
(31:20):
somebody, the the odds of you liking them increase dramatically. You make all
kinds of assumptions about what someone is like. Not every person has to be your
favorite person. I'm I'm not I'm not suggesting that. Even on even on a high
performance team, you're not gonna be equally close to everybody. That's fine. But
if you don't like someone, that is a problem. Yeah. There's always
that guy that is constantly telling you about himself, and you're like,
(31:42):
I definitely don't like you now because you only tell me about yourself, and I
know way too much. So Are you talking about me again,
A.J.?
Alright. Well, I think we have You didn't deny that. Okay.
You you didn't try courtesy laughed at that. Okay. What's
(32:03):
your thoughts? Yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, we've got
we've got these these, five different types of teams that may
be functioning in in your church. And so, yeah, I think
this is worth examining. I think so. You, you know, whatever
level of leadership you may be in in your church, I think, it would be
a good exercise to consider consider these things.
(32:26):
If you don't even have, like, a list, like, who are all of our teams
even? That that needs to be looked at.
And, yeah. So especially if you're leading, you know, a staff
team, and it could be a mixture of maybe paid and volunteer people,
Have maybe take some observation time in the next few weeks
or month or so, and just consider this. This doesn't need to
(32:49):
be something that you bring to staff meeting, you know, next week. Like, I listen
to this podcast. Let's talk this talk about this. And this might be one take
a take a minute and observe the people, that that you're working
with, the people that are working, you know, underneath you or above you,
and around you. And look at the dynamics of these, and
then consider where do these maybe fit, and then
(33:11):
begin to maybe pull together some others around you to, have
some some plans on how can we improve the overall
performance and love within our teams to, to move
up up that j curve into that high performance level. Yeah.
Really good. Really well said. Just so we'll close
by reminding you to check out the Healthy Churches Toolkit.
(33:34):
There are there are resources in there that will give
you excuses to have conversations that maybe need to be had.
That is a real benefit. Go go through a training, and we have discussion
questions in the in those workshop, videos and etcetera.
So, take advantage of that. So So go to
healthychurchesToolkit.com. Sign up for free for seven days and see all the good
(33:55):
stuff that's in there. Also wanna remind you that today's article
is in the description below. So whether you are watching on
YouTube or listening on your favorite favorite podcast
platform, that link is down there. So please be sure you click that
link and check out that article. Yeah. If you're on soon. Yeah.
If you're on YouTube, there's an 84% chance you have not
(34:17):
subscribed to this channel. So do that. Go click subscribe.
Yeah. And and the bell because, we love having you. Love to
love to bring you into the team, Scott. Yeah. You know, I yeah.
We may mention this a few times. I hate it when people say on YouTube
videos, hey. Subscribe and hit that notification bell. It helps
us. In what way? And I you know, because people don't ever really
(34:40):
explain that. So I I'm not gonna take ten minutes and do that. But I
just wanna briefly say, it really does make a difference, and YouTube
kinda makes a big deal about it. So we're we're new to this. We've we've
hit new levels. We're we're hardly, like, blowing up on YouTube. But
the the more success you have, they start telling you more things like,
hey. You might wanna consider this. And one of the things that YouTube has prompted
(35:01):
us has said, hey. Only a certain percentage of your subscribers
are have hit that notification bell. Yep. And only a
certain number of your viewers are subscribers. And and so they they
reward that when people take those actions. So that's why we're asking
you to do it because YouTube is telling us to ask you to do it.
Yeah. And by reward, we mean they're actually we'll show our content to more
(35:23):
to more to more pastors. Yeah. So so if you like what you're
seeing, help us out. Alright. Thank you. There we go. Well, hey. Thanks for joining
us this week on the Church Revitalization Podcast. If you're subscribed, you'll
know we'll be back again next week. See you then.
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