May 27, 2025 • 53 mins
In this session, Jonathan will share practical insights, personal experiences, and biblical examples to enhance leadership skills for those serving on teams. This session promises valuable takeaways for anyone looking to grow in their leadership and teamwork.
Jonathan is the Lead Pastor of Rugby Elim with 30 years of ministry experience. He co-leads Revive Rugby, helping churches partner together in Rugby.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Brilliant. Thank you.
It's great to have a microphone,otherwise that wasn't going to
happen. But it's great to see you this
afternoon. And I just thinking to myself,
you know, when you go in somewhere and maybe you're
flying from an airport and you go to the departure lounge, I
realized that for this afternoon, for many people, this
is like the departure lounge. And you know, you've gone
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through passport, you've gone through security and then you
just kind of can relax and you can fall asleep.
Well, hopefully you will not fall asleep this afternoon, but
it is departure lounge. In a few hours time, we will be
leaving Harrogate and making ourway to different parts of the
nation and maybe the world as well.
(00:43):
And you know, I just want to saythank you so much for Elim Sound
and all the tech guys and they've done absolutely amazing
over the past few days. And you know, some of you are
feeling tired right now, but imagine how these guys must be
feeling this afternoon. So thank you so much.
And if you want to snooze, feel free to snooze.
(01:06):
That is absolutely fine. So it's been said already today,
I've been given the task, the opportunity of talking about
developing the dream team, developing the dream team.
When you think of a dream team, I'm not sure what you've
imagined. I don't know if anybody's
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looking at the screen right now and that says that looks like me
or maybe it looks like you on there.
But one of the things that I love about having the privilege
of pastoring a local church is being part of an incredible
team. It is such a privilege to be
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part of an incredible team. And for me, it really is all
about team. And as far as I'm concerned that
every person who calls the localchurch that I have the privilege
of pastoring the church that they say is their home, they are
potentially part of that team. Every single person on the
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straight lines that we have at Rugby Elam is that we believe
that God has called us to be a church for every nation and
every generation. And if you were to come to Rugby
you would see us living out of the reality of that.
And when I look out on a Sunday or different times as we gather
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together and I see these people from many different nations and
many different generations, I see every single person as part
of God's incredible team here onearth.
Sometimes people ask me the question, what is the size of
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your team? And sometimes I really struggle
to answer that question because for me, the team isn't simply
the people who are on the payroll.
It's not simply the people who serve on our church session as
elders. It's not simply the people who
are departmental leaders or maybe the people who serve on
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teams. But rather, I believe that the
the team is made-up of every single person who has caught the
vision. It's made-up of every person who
has not only caught the vision, but rather committed themselves
to not only see the vision become a reality in the local
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church, but rather to see the vision become the reality in our
world. And so often I heard this the
other day since I've been here, that if you build church, you
get church, you build Kingdom, and you get Kingdom.
And I believe that the desire ofGod is that we see above and
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beyond the four walls of our church buildings.
We see beyond what gathers may be on a Sunday, and that we'll
see that the desire of God is that we truly would be Kingdom
people who see the expansion of the Kingdom of God right across
our towns, our cities, our villages, our communities.
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And we are the people who God has called to do that.
So the church, the team is made-up of people who were
caught and committed themselves to the vision here on earth.
And that is why it's absolutely key that if we are going to both
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develop and deploy a dream team,we need to have a very clear
vision that I believe that people can sign up for.
A vision that enables them to have a clearview of how they can
play their individual part and making that vision become a
reality. And that's why they have always
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seen having served as a pastor of a church now for over 30
years. And in July this year, I know I
don't look old enough and something like yes, you do.
But in July this year, I would have been an eeling pastor for
31 years, not ordained for all that time, but as a ministering
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training. 31 years ago, I came into Ealing having been at
Ealing Bible College. It wasn't even Regents back
then, but Ealing Bible College. And for me, that as I've served
as a pastor for that amount of time, I've never really had a
big pay staff. I realise that today that so
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often in lots of churches that there are big pay staff teams.
And sometimes we look at those churches and we see our budget
and we're like, there's no way that we're ever going to be able
to have a team of that size. And yet the churches that I've
had the privilege of pastoring and even the church that I'm
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pastoring today that, you know, we do not have an incredible lot
of team on our paid staff. Just under five years ago now, I
went through a time of mourning.And the reason why I went
through a time of mourning that I felt deep within me was
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because I was leaving the team that I've been part of for 20
years. For 20 years, I'd been the
senior pastor or the lead pastor, whatever you want to
call it, I don't know. But I'd been the pastor of the
Ealing Life Church in King standing in North Birmingham,
and I'd pastored that church andwe'd done life there.
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We we'd grown up with our family, our daughters were born
there. And it was an incredible church
that I was a part of for some ofthose people.
We'd been together on team for over 2 decades.
Sarah Whittleston that many of you know, we served alongside
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each other for 10 years. And then I stepped out of that
situation, a situation that we'dmade so many memories as we
sought to fulfill the vision that God had given us.
For me that chapter was now overas I stepped into Pastor Rugby
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Elam, A church that had a very clear vision and mandates that
had been given by God. A vision that was to be the
church without walls, that was presence LED, mission minded and
Kingdom focused. It was a very clear vision that
had been given to the church, but that church had been gone
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through some really tough times for a number of years.
They've been battered and bruised by lots of different
fans. And it's almost like the the
final straw was when at the age of 34, their senior pastor,
Simon Whitley, died of cancer. And I journeyed with Simon
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through that and we'd try to help the church during that that
season. I didn't realize what my yes
would end up meaning. Sometimes we have to be careful
of what we say yes to. And it meant that eventually
when Simon died, that I felt that God called us to go to the
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church, even though the church was a smaller church at that
time. And I was like, it doesn't make
sense. But in the economy of God it
made total sense. I didn't get that on my notes
today. And maybe for some people in
this place, you need to hear that, that whilst it doesn't
make sense in the natural, in the economy of God, it makes all
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sense. So here I am now, pastoring the
church in Rugby. I want to say that the church
was in a difficult place. They'd hoped, they dreamed, they
prayed, they fasted. They had incredible faith that
Simon was going to live. Not only the church I had, and
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here I was stepping into a church that was broken and
battered. They were grieving.
And to be honest, at that point,I was grieving.
I don't, I've never said this publicly before, but I was
grieving and yes, I was grievingthe loss of Simon, but now I was
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grieving the loss of a church that I'd left behind, a team
that I'd left behind. And I love the people of rugby
and some of them guys are here today.
Thank you for supporting me rather than going for coffee.
But I loved stepping into that role.
But the same time I was grievingthe team that I'd left behind,
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but they didn't need me to put my grief onto them.
They had enough grief of their own.
And so I journeyed with that. I remember coming home one day
and saying to my wife, Sam, I said, oh, man, why?
I've had enough. I want to go back.
And my wife looked at me and said, it's your fault that we're
here. But that was my heart.
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It was tough. It was difficult, but I couldn't
express that. I think some people that were
probably a little bit closer to me knew a little bit of that.
But what the church team needed at that point was someone that
would love them through their pain and then eventually lead
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them. I've said to a few people, if
five years ago I'd done the APEStest, it would have come out
very different to what it is now.
Five years ago the church did not need an Apostolic
evangelistic leader. That's what I am now.
But five years ago it was shepherd in would have been
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right at the very top of the list because in that season
that's what they needed. And God spoke to me very clearly
and said you need to love and then lead.
I want to say today the Church is in a very different place.
We have an incredible team that is the biggest team that I've
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ever had the privilege of both developing and deploying at this
time in my ministry. As a staff team, we have a total
of 3 full time people on our payroll and we have three-part
time members of staff, so six people in total.
I think I've got it right. I'm on our on our payroll.
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Three of us are full time and free a part time.
And I want to make that clear today because you can look at as
some of you have seen what's happening rugby Elm now through
direction and different things and through our social media and
you can think, well, they must have a massive team.
We do not have a massive pay team.
And in one way I'm really glad that we don't.
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I'm really glad that we don't that when we see a job, we don't
automatically say, well who can we pay to do that job were very
different maybe to some of the things that go on.
Two years ago, I think it was that we hosted A volunteers
appreciation ball. We sent out 170 invitations to
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people that are currently serving in the life of rugby.
Elin on a Sunday morning, we gather at 9:30 AM and at 9:30 AM
we gather for all those people that are going to serve
throughout that day, be on our tech team or our hosting team,
our kids team, blah, blah, blah.Last Sunday, Sunday just gone,
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there were 60 people that were there at 9:30 AM in the morning.
Now, I've got to tell you that some people are just slipping in
because the best times of worship at 9:30 AM, and it
should be that way because thesepeople are pumped up and they're
ready to go. But that just gives a little bit
of a glimpse of what is happening amongst us at this
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time. You know, one of the things that
I believe is that God has given us everything that we need to
do, what He's called us to do. And I sense since when I was
preparing for today, there were people who are going to need to
know that. And my prayer is that that we
sink into your hearts right now,that whatever God has called you
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to do, that God has given you everything that you need in
order to do it. That for some of you, you're
serving maybe as team leaders inlocal church.
God has given you everything that you need.
We need to stop looking at what we don't have and look at what
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we do have. Remember the five loaves and the
two fishes are more than enough in the hands of Jesus.
And the truth is that they are in our midst right now.
A member of pastor said many years ago, he said we we need we
need this funding. We need, we need all this money
and he said the good news is that we've got it.
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It's just in your pockets. One of the things that Lynette,
who we call our Rugby Eden missionary, who's in the
Philippines, he said this, if God gives you a vision, he gives
you the provision. And it's not just about finance,
it's about people, it's about resources, it's about vehicles,
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whatever that may look like. We just need to identify them
and call them out. I want to give some absolute key
points that I believe are essential when it comes to both
developing and deploying the Dream Team.
Some of you will recognise some of these points and that's OK
because there's nothing new under the sun.
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And the first one is character. One of the things that I've
learnt over the years is that wecan never, ever underestimate
the importance of character. Character is the most
fundamental thing that we need to be on the lookout when it
comes to developing our Dream Team.
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We can make the mistake, and I want to tell you, at times I've
made the mistake thinking that the thing that is so important
is charisma, it's capability. But the truth is character
Trump's those things all of the time.
The thing, let me tell you though, that the thing that
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needs to underpin charisma and capability, and it's good to
have those things, so it must beunderpinned by character.
Without a godly character, everyvery eventually a person will
collapse and may well bring downthe team with them.
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And sometimes that is a small team.
But the truth is that we can look back into the history of
Elim and The Sims of God, where I was brought up in.
I can't believe I got that out there, but churches have been
brought down because somebody didn't have the character to
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carry their charisma and capability.
Character is so important. Someone that I often think of in
the Old Testament, a person thatin many ways that I can relate
to, but not in always, praise God, is David.
Many people would have thought that David would have been the
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last person for God to choose tobe king over Israel.
And yet what did God say unto the prophet Samuel as he came to
anoint one of Jesse's sons as king?
He said man looks at the outwardappearance, but God looks at the
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heart. David's had a heart, and God saw
the way in which David's character had been developed
whilst he was out in the field faithfully looking after his
father's sheep. But maybe somebody needs to know
today that God has seen your faithfulness.
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What everybody else has overlooked, God hasn't
overlooked. He's seen how you faithfully
served him in the backside of a desert, somewhere in the
wilderness, and you thought thatno one else is noticing me right
now. Listen, there's somebody, we
heard it last night, who sees you and his name is Jesus, and
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he sees your faithfulness. And actually, it was in that
place that God was developing David to be the man that God
could use in some incredible andpowerful ways.
God very often develops the character within us in the
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secret place, in the place that other people do not see.
Second one is calling. I really do believe that every
single person who's been born again by the Spirit of God has a
calling on their life. We are all called to be part of
God's dream team here on earth and to bring about the colours
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of God, to bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth.
And whilst it's true that we're not all called to do the same or
be the same, thank God for that.Who was it somebody said
yesterday? Can you imagine like 1000 more
Mark pews? I love Mark Pew by the way.
The truth is, Can you imagine another 1000 Jonathan Skeletons?
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The team in rugby are like please no.
Some of them are really glad because on Sunday I start a
three month sabbatical and they're looking forward to the
peace and quiet. It's my first sabbatical in 31
years by the way. It's not so I do all the time.
Whilst it's true that we are alluniquely different.
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That we're not all called to do the same.
Each of us has a unique calling on our lives.
And I believe that one of the things that God calls us all to
do, it's not just for the peoplewho aren't in the room right now
because they're in the business session, but it's for every
single one of us who find ourselves in some place of
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leadership, in some place of, ofinfluence is I believe that God
wants us to recognize calling torecognize and call it out.
Because I want to tell you that many years ago when I was
growing up in, in my dad's church, that my dad pastors in
terms of God church, that somebody saw something in me
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that I didn't see myself. And they called it out of my
life and gave me an opportunity to begin to develop that and,
and begin to hone it, as it were.
And I don't think I'd be standing here today if somebody
hadn't done that. And when you go back to your
church, when you go back to the ministry that God has called you
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to be part of, I really want to encourage you to open your eyes
to the people around about you right now and to see the people
who the call of God is upon their lives.
And, and sometimes you may not know what that calling is, but
there's just a sense within you that the call of God is on that
person. I won't mention her name, but
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there's a, there's a person round our, our church plan.
A year ago, we, we planted a church in a place called
Daventry, a town where there's not much, much spiritual life.
And we, we planted a church and there's a, there's a young lady
there right now. And I don't know her very well,
but I want to tell you the call of God is all over her life.
And I recognise it. I'm speaking to her right now
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about it. And I don't know what it's going
to be, but I'll tell you what I want to do is I just want to
encourage the call of God that is upon her life.
Because what does encouragement do?
It builds courage in people. It builds courage.
And sometimes we're a bit afraidof saying too much to somebody
because we don't want to give them a big head.
Listen, most of the time that's nothing going to happen.
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We don't need to bring people down.
We need to build people up and we do that by recognising the
call of God that is on people's lives for this particular
reason, for particular task. And we say, you know what, you
can do this. I remember years ago in
Birmingham there was a lady thatended up heading up a really
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strong ministry. I'm not going to give any more
ideas on that. But she sat in the congregation
for years hearing somebody standon the platform saying, we need
somebody to do this ministry. And she sat there and she never
responded because she didn't think that she was good enough
to do it. But there came a day when
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somebody tapped her on the shoulder and said, you know
what? Come and watch.
Come and journey with me. And as she did that, she went
above and beyond what was being asked for from the platform.
Move on. The 3rd is chemistry.
One of the things that I've found is that you can recognise
someone whose character is exceptional.
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You can no doubt realise that they're called, but for one
reason or another, the chemistryis just not there.
In other words, this is something that just doesn't fit.
And it doesn't mean that you're right and they are wrong or the
other way around. This doesn't fit.
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You know, one of the things thatI do often in in Rugby and in
Diamond Tree is when people comefor the first time, I say it's
great to see you today. If this is where God wants you
to be, great. If not, find it sooner rather
than later because we're not called to be the church for
everyone. We are just a congregation that
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makes up the Church of the living God.
Be in Rugby or Diamond Tree or beyond in the future, we are not
it and the truth is that there'ssome people that for whatever
reason they're not going to fit.There's not going to be
chemistry that is beef around usand at times are trying to make
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people fit but it doesn't work if there's no chemistry.
I can honestly say that the teamthat I have the privilege of
leading now has some incredible chemistry.
I don't turn up at church session meetings going Oh no,
I've got to meet with them guys tonight.
I don't rock up on a Monday morning going, Oh no, we're
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going to have to meet as a staffteam.
They may feel like that, but I don't.
I don't turn up at a lifeboat leaders place going, Oh no, this
is not great. And one of the things sorry,
over the past five years, this chemistry has definitely grown
as we intentionally sought to love, honour, serve, encourage,
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be gentle, have a laugh and cheer one another on.
Remember the first time that we did a Volunteers Appreciation
Ball and I'd never forget it because anybody who knew me from
Birmingham days knew that I never went on the dance floor.
I, I bop around lots in church, but I don't put me on the dance
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floor. It's just not who I am.
But on our first volunteer appreciation ball, we had this
free course meal that we, we splashed out on all of our
volunteers. And that night we had a live
band that came down from Birmingham to serve us.
And the dance floor opened up and I hit the dance floor.
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I've never seen people dance so much in all my life.
And some of them are here today and they're nodding because they
they remember it so well becausewe lifted the lid and we said
this is a place where we are going to love one another.
This is a place where we're justgoing to celebrate one another.
We're not going to compare any long.
We're not going to. We're going to cheer one another
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on. And this is a place where we can
do life together. Something began to change and I
felt today that God just gave methese, these hatreds.
All right, honour. We need to honour one another.
We need to give honour, give honour where honour is due.
That so often we said to people,we, we can't honour you because
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one day you get to heaven and and then you'll be honoured, but
not here on earth. We'll keep you humble.
I want to say I believe in a culture of honour, that we don't
need to wait for somebody to dieand then say good things about
their lives. I love that this week there's
been some honour that's been flowing around our conference.
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Come on. We need to build a place of
honour. We need a a chemistry where
honour flows in such an amazing way.
We need humility as well. We need humility.
It's hard to talk about that because like feel like, well,
you're not very humble and I if you talk about it, but there's
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some things that I deliberately choose to do because Jesus
Christ came not to be served, but to serve.
I did something this morning. I better not talk about it
because like you'll be like, Oh,you show off.
But I just did something this morning and I didn't think about
it. I just did it and one of our
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teams was like, you can't do that.
I said yes, I can, just because it's who I am.
And I want to build that into our team right now because
there's some chemistry that flows out of a place of
humanity, place where we're honest with one another, a place
where we live holy lives, a place where humour is important
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to our team. Our chemistry forms our culture.
We really do believe that. As the Apostle Paul said,
rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.
Over the past few years, I can remember numerous occasions
where we've shed some moments ofgreat triumphs, trials, and shed
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some tears together. Some of those tears have been
tears of joy, but some of them have been tears of sadness.
If I want to set the culture, I have to lead that in the
position that God's placed me in, assuming like, well, I'm not
the senior pastor, but you stillset the culture in whatever
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you're leading right now. I went through a tough time back
end of last year and I met with our elders one night and I'd
held it in for a long time. And that night I opened up
myself to them. And I'm not ashamed to say that
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I wept on that night and we wepttogether.
I can talk to you about Easter Sunday this year when we
celebrated together and we celebrated the goodness of God.
You know, I want to introduce someone today who I have the
privilege of serving alongside, been part of rugby team for much
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longer than I have. I want to say that this man that
I'm going to introduce to you isa man of character.
He is an incredible man of character.
He's a man who's called by God. He is a man where there is
chemistry that not just flows between us, but in our team, in
the church. And I'm so glad to have this man
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on team. He's not on our paid team, but
what a gift he is not only to Rugby Elim and Damentry Rugby
Elim because we can't call it. Well, anyway, we'll sort that
out. But God's Kingdom and Kevin's
going to come and he's going to speak about two more essential
aspects. But can you give him a massive
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round of applause? Thanks Kevin.
Thank you, John. I love the fact that the whole
illustration around our team is picked around the minions and
nothing to the fact my name is Kevin.
I have a brother called David, Ihave a brother called Stuart.
So David, Kevin, Stuart. And when I was sort of goofing
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around the the the minions, I realized that actually all the
minions have names. And the reality is that maybe we
come to conferences like this and maybe we just think that we
are just one of the minions. But the reality is that each
person has a name, a name that God has given them.
And we've heard throughout this whole week that in not only that
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name, that we have been given a grace gift, a gift to contribute
to the work of Jesus Christ. So we're not just minions in the
masses. We are actually those that are
called by name. So maybe that is quite a
prophetic use of the minions this afternoon.
I just want to add a little bit into chemistry with John because
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we often ask ourselves differentquestions when we're talking
about team and bringing people on.
And maybe one question that we would ask about somebody coming
into our team or to serve in whatever way is can we walk with
that person in Amos, In Amos three, it says can two walk
together unless they agree? You see the reality, it's not
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just about a theological sort ofagreement, but being in heart
relationship with one another. Walking in unity with one
another is not uniformity. We love the fact that on our
team we have all the grace giftsdemonstrated, not just at a
leadership level but throughout the entire church.
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We need to celebrate the the fact that we have different
people on team, but we do need to be able to walk with one
another. And John picked up on the
reality that in rugby we've developed a culture behind our
vision and we were very deliberate in our vision
statement, which is about being presence led and Kingdom focused
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and mission minded. But we also wanted to identify
what sort of people we want to be as well that supports that
vision. We want to be people that are
led by Jesus. We want to be people of honour.
We want to be hosts and not guests.
We want to anticipate the supernatural, so our chemistry,
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amongst others, is formed by theculture that we're developing
through the church. John often said, you know, we
don't have to holiday with everybody within our church, but
we do have to walk with everybody that we want to be
part of our team. We don't just need to walk with
them, but we want to eat with them, to pray together and to
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build relational trust with one another as we build our teams.
The next aspect we're going to just talk about is competence.
And again. When we look at the whole aspect
of confidence, maybe we just askourselves the question, can they
do the job that we're asking them to do?
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It seems a very obvious question.
In Exodus 31, God didn't just call Bazilao to build the
Tabernacle. He filled him with skills,
ability and knowledge because God values excellence.
So to have a value of competencein what we're asking people do
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is a godly characteristic. You know, in some churches or in
in church life, sometimes we overemphasize the willingness of
somebody to do something and we proceed that may be over
actually their competence to actually fulfil it.
And sometimes we're just so desperate for somebody to fill a
gap will literally take anybody.But we need to harness maybe
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that willingness to be engaged alongside some practical help in
building their competence, building their ability, building
their skills and their giftings in order.
They can fulfil that in a fruitful way.
If we don't build their competence then the reality is
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probably 9 out of 10s times it will either end with an issue
either with them burning out or the ministry itself suffering in
some way. So it is about our hearts
desire, but we also need to equip people for the tasks and
the jobs and the roles and the ministries we're wanting people
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to do. Building a team is being
intentional about equipping and releasing and some thinking
rugby Ealing we're we're building up those reservoirs of
competency within our teams, being deliberate in giving
people experience and opportunity, which means at
times taking risk on some people.
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But we do that. You know, when Nehemiah was
called to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he didn't just pick
the people that he liked. He picked and chose those who
are capable of the task. And what an eclectic view of
skills and giftings that he brought to rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem. You know, a practical thing we
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can do is help people grow in their gifts.
And this whole week has been fantastic and is identifying
those gifts, but help people grow in their gifts, give
feedback, tell them where they've done really well, tell
them maybe where they can maybe improve a little, maybe where
they could just have dug a little bit deeper or whatever it
would be. But speak to people, give them
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people, give them feedback, build their confidence, but
match people with the tasks thatwe're asking them to do.
You know, recently in rugby we ran a course called Shape, which
identified our unique shape as aindividual, but also our
giftings within the church and we ran historically.
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And we're going to relaunch again in September an emerging
leaders program where we want toinvest in those new leaders that
we see within our church and we will vest in them because we see
them as being our emerging leaders.
The reality is a team you can rarely get somebody with all of
the competence you need straightaway.
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But you do need to. Commit to develop them in order
to get them to that place that you want them to be, John has
already said. But I remember when Duncan Clark
came to Rugby Elim before John joined us and when Simon was our
pastor and he said exactly what John has said.
Christ has given you everything you need.
And in that moment we probably looked around as a church and
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were as leaders thinking, boy, we're missing some things.
How has Christ given us everything we needed?
But as we look back over the past five years, we've seen God
send us everything we need. And if he doesn't send it to
you, what we've recognized is that actually we can grow it
ourselves. So we identify those within the
church who are we going to invest in in order we can grow
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them into the leaders we want them to be.
You know, the body of Christ is made-up of many parts, but we
need to make sure it functions well and we need to place some,
some, some weight on the competence of those that are
fulfilling ministries. Capacity.
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Again, a question that we might ask when we come to this subject
of capacity is that can they grow with a vision of the
Church? Do they have a?
Capacity for now, which is important, but actually do they
have a capacity to grow as the church grows and the vision
grows of the church? In Luke 16 verse 10, it says
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whoever is faithful with little will also be faithful with much.
And you know, capacity is about much more than current skill.
It's about potential growth and resilience.
Capacity grows with experience. Occasionally you might find
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somebody with the right level ofcapacity for what you're asking
them to do, but the reality is we only need to nurture and
develop our own capacity. You know, alongside being a
pastor at Rugby E Lim and being one of their MI TS, I work full
time. I'm a managing director of
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marine civil engineering contracting business that works
all over the United Kingdom on one of the lay leaders, as it
were of the church. And you know, the reality is
without the, the lay leaders, the volunteers within our
church, we would not be able to fulfil the, the mission and the
vision that God has given Rugby Elim You know, I was looking
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through the Bible of, of, of examples of sort of people who
are engaged in lay leadership or, or contributing.
And the Bible is just full of people.
We think of Philip and Stephen, two of the original deacons that
were called Philip the Great Evangelist, Stephen the very
first martyr, Apollos, who was alearned man who spoke and
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preached the name of Jesus. Aquila and Priscilla, tent
makers, businessmen, but yet they equipped and supported Paul
in Hawley's ministry. We were challenged from this
stage yesterday about the capacity, about growing new
leaders. The reality is as we look at our
congregation, we have hundreds if not thousands of leaders
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within the Ealing movement readyto be equipped and released into
all that they have. The reality is they may just
come with the title of lay, not maybe paid staff.
But if we can release that potential, then I can certainly
see us going and planting 1000 churches, as Mark has said,
across our nation. But the reality is everybody's
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capacity is different. And I often get people ask me
how on earth can you do or that you do, Kevin, you work 60 hour
week in industry and then you'rebusy in church and then you're
there on a Sunday. The reality is my capacity has
grown over 25 years of church leadership. 25 years ago I'd
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have a capacity to do nothing. But the reality is God has been
gracious to me and I've learnt and I've served on on eldership
for 25 years before going down the MIT route.
My capacity has grown because I've nurtured it and I've
developed it over those decades.Some people will burn out fast,
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others are steady and you know they, they want the stretch and
the opportunity. But as we build capability, we
will build capacity because experience is the bedrock of
capacity because you've got thatexperience to draw from.
When you experiences or issues come your way, you know, of all
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the dynamics, I feel that capacity is the one where we
need to be most self aware. At least that's my experience
and to a degree I'm still learning this.
But I do try and protect my capacity, being disciplined and
only doing what I believe God has called me to do.
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In church life, it is so easy toget drawn into every aspect,
especially if you've got a heartto serve.
You want to get involved in everything.
The reality is you get involved with everything.
You're going to burn out to protect your capacity by
actually doing what God has called you to do.
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And we need to tune our capacitylevels because we've got to
balance our home life, our work life, our church life.
Things will come in our life where we need to divert our
energy and resources. And I'm so blessed that John is
so empathetic and sympathetic toeverybody's time demands.
There'll be seasons. When I say to John, John, I just
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can't quite press into this as much as I might have been able
to do six weeks ago because I'vegot this going on at work.
And he understands there's othertimes to say, John Miracle, I'm
OK at work for the next six weeks.
I can push in a little bit further.
What do you want me to do? But having a an understanding of
each other's capacity. And that rolls out across in our
entire congregation. We have people in our
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congregation that have no capacity, but yet they have a
heart to serve. In season and in time their
capacity will grow and we need to be able not to rule them out,
but actually encourage them and develop them into something for
the future. Now, the apostle Paul saw
something in Timothy. He mentored him, he brought him
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along, he gave him responsibility.
Timothy may not have seen to be a natural leader, but his
capacity grew through Paul's leadership.
So just to. Recap the three questions that I
would maybe ask in regards to chemistry.
Can we walk with that person? Incompetence?
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Can they do the task, the job that we're asking them to do?
And if we're looking at capacity, can they grow with a
vision that we have to fulfil the mission of Christ in rugby?
Thank you very much. Thanks, Kevin.
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In a few minutes, we may just open it up just for a few
questions. And we just feel like we might
just need to open up to the ministry of the Spirit as well.
But as we come to a close, just the last C is constellation.
You know, I want to say today that dream teams are not made-up
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of superstars, but they're made of of constellation of stars.
You know, if you were to go out this evening, especially for
those who live in the countryside and hopefully it's a
clear night, you look up and yousee one star.
That can be quite amazing to seeone bright star.
But let me tell you, a constellation of stars that are
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joined together form a recognisable picture in the sky
might be like an object, it may be like an animal, it may be
like a person. One star on his own cannot do
that, but a constellation of stars can do that.
In Philippines chapter 2, verse 15, Paul says that we ought to
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shine light stars in the sky. And there's nothing better, I
believe, than doing this together.
And in doing that together, I truly believe that we form a
beautiful picture of Jesus together, that we form the body
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of Christ here on earth. And the truth is that as the
apostle Paul made it very clear in his teachings, we all need
each other. It's been come across time and
time again this week. We need all of the graces.
Thank God as Kevin said today that on our on our team today on
our, our staff team and a pastor, a pastor team and that
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is made-up of two of us that arepaid and we got a whole lot of
pastors that are credential ministers who are not paid.
But we have the grace giftings between us.
Not one part of the body is moreimportant than the other and in
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order to be a fully functional team, we need to make space and
room for everyone to play their part on the team and in so doing
make Jesus known. You know, a couple of months ago
now, and I love the fact that this has come out so many
different times during our conference that we got 100.
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Sorry. 1000 piece jigsaw made. 1000 piece jigsaw made If
anything looks good in rugby, it's down to this guy sat down
here, Pete who's on our team andI said to Pi said I want 1000
piece Jigsaw said to me. You know you can get one made,
don't you? Unique to us and we did.
(47:28):
We got this jigsaw made of 1000 pieces and it's a flag on a
particular St. that we're hopingto buy a building on that was
prophetically picture was taken 12 months ago.
It wasn't on our agenda. And we had this thousand piece,
a jigsaw made. And then one Sunday, as we were
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going for the shape course that Kevin mentioned, one Sunday, I
asked that every single person in the life of our church come
forward and take their piece of the puzzle.
It was for people from every nation and every generation.
I know you guys on the wings. Yeah.
Come and join us because we'll, I think what we're going to do
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because the time Kevin and I will stay around.
You got any questions? Come and speak to us.
But at that, at that point, whenpeople were coming down through
the aisles, I got really emotional.
I know I'm an emotional person, but people that aren't emotional
were getting emotional as we sawpeople coming and taking their
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piece of the jigsaw. And it was something prophetic.
And I don't mind saying this today because I feel that God
has given me like a future vision that why couldn't we be a
Church of 1000 people? We're nowhere near there yet,
but it was a bit of a prophetic word, I believe.
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And there's people who take in their piece that every single
piece is so unique, different shape, different size.
And one piece on its own, as we've heard this week, is just
one little piece. But together we make a beautiful
picture of God's Kingdom here onearth.
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That for some of those people that come and got their peace,
they don't serve on our teams. And you know what, as far as I'm
concerned, that's OK because forsome of those people, they're
serving on the team. And I've heard this said this
week, and I understand why we say it, but we talk about Team
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Elam. I want to say we are team
church, that we make up the Church of the living God.
And for some of those people that come and got their peace, I
know that some of them are serving as scout leaders.
Celebrate those people. Some of them are going tomorrow
morning and they're going to thehospital.
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And they're not simply serving the NHS, they're serving King
Jesus. They're part of the dream team.
And I'm so glad that these guys have said they've got one song
in them. I know what song we're going to
sing, but can we stand together?Because I feel like even though
this has been a, a teaching seminar, I guess that I had a
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sense that God just dropped somethings that we've spoken out
today. And then maybe some people in
even as Kevin was talking about capacity, he like, I don't, I
just don't feel like I've got the capacity.
But you know, as Kevin said today that if you're looking
ahead, you haven't got it now, but you will have it in the
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future. But for some of you like God, I
just want you to stretch me in order that my capacity would be
able to increase. I know that sounds weird, but
you just feel like you need to be stretched a little bit for
greater capacity. There's some people here today
and you've been looking at the the responsibility that you have
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in your life. We just can't do this.
We haven't got what we need and yet God has spoken to you today
and said to you, you've got everything that you need, you
just need to go and find it. The disciples didn't realise
there's a little boy who had five loaves and two fishes.
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And for some of you, today you're going to go home and your
eyes are going to be opened in anew, fresh way.
You're going to see people like you've never seen them before.
So if God has spoken to you in these moments, maybe you just
want to open your heart up to God and maybe just open your
hands to him and says, God, I want to see what you see.
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I don't know. I just even sense to me right
now that God may be just giving you an image of somebody that
you need to go and tap on the shoulder and say, you know what?
I believe that God's called you.Can we walk together?
I love what Kevin said. Can we walk together?
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Father, thank you that we have apart to play in your team, in
your church here on earth. God, I just pray for all of us
today. Lord, you know those who've
spoken to specifically, even in the midst of a seminar, I just
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pray, Father God, that they would just respond to you, King
Jesus. Now we're going to sing this
song together. Now, this wasn't planned, but
there may be people here today and you just want, you know, my
Kevin and myself, we've got someother team members around here
today. We'd love the opportunity to
pray with you if that's what youneed.
If you don't, that's absolutely fine.
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The departure land, the plane isgoing to leave in and however
long it's going to leave. But if you want to respond, feel
free to do that. We'd love that.
Thank you team.
Brilliant. Thank you.
It's great to have a microphone,otherwise that wasn't going to
happen. But it's great to see you this
afternoon. And I just thinking to myself,
you know, when you go in somewhere and maybe you're
flying from an airport and you go to the departure lounge, I
realized that for this afternoon, for many people, this
is like the departure lounge. And you know, you've gone
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through passport, you've gone through security and then you
just kind of can relax and you can fall asleep.
Well, hopefully you will not fall asleep this afternoon, but
it is departure lounge. In a few hours time, we will be
leaving Harrogate and making ourway to different parts of the
nation and maybe the world as well.
(00:43):
And you know, I just want to saythank you so much for Elim Sound
and all the tech guys and they've done absolutely amazing
over the past few days. And you know, some of you are
feeling tired right now, but imagine how these guys must be
feeling this afternoon. So thank you so much.
And if you want to snooze, feel free to snooze.
(01:06):
That is absolutely fine. So it's been said already today,
I've been given the task, the opportunity of talking about
developing the dream team, developing the dream team.
When you think of a dream team, I'm not sure what you've
imagined. I don't know if anybody's
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looking at the screen right now and that says that looks like me
or maybe it looks like you on there.
But one of the things that I love about having the privilege
of pastoring a local church is being part of an incredible
team. It is such a privilege to be
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part of an incredible team. And for me, it really is all
about team. And as far as I'm concerned that
every person who calls the localchurch that I have the privilege
of pastoring the church that they say is their home, they are
potentially part of that team. Every single person on the
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straight lines that we have at Rugby Elam is that we believe
that God has called us to be a church for every nation and
every generation. And if you were to come to Rugby
you would see us living out of the reality of that.
And when I look out on a Sunday or different times as we gather
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together and I see these people from many different nations and
many different generations, I see every single person as part
of God's incredible team here onearth.
Sometimes people ask me the question, what is the size of
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your team? And sometimes I really struggle
to answer that question because for me, the team isn't simply
the people who are on the payroll.
It's not simply the people who serve on our church session as
elders. It's not simply the people who
are departmental leaders or maybe the people who serve on
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teams. But rather, I believe that the
the team is made-up of every single person who has caught the
vision. It's made-up of every person who
has not only caught the vision, but rather committed themselves
to not only see the vision become a reality in the local
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church, but rather to see the vision become the reality in our
world. And so often I heard this the
other day since I've been here, that if you build church, you
get church, you build Kingdom, and you get Kingdom.
And I believe that the desire ofGod is that we see above and
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beyond the four walls of our church buildings.
We see beyond what gathers may be on a Sunday, and that we'll
see that the desire of God is that we truly would be Kingdom
people who see the expansion of the Kingdom of God right across
our towns, our cities, our villages, our communities.
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And we are the people who God has called to do that.
So the church, the team is made-up of people who were
caught and committed themselves to the vision here on earth.
And that is why it's absolutely key that if we are going to both
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develop and deploy a dream team,we need to have a very clear
vision that I believe that people can sign up for.
A vision that enables them to have a clearview of how they can
play their individual part and making that vision become a
reality. And that's why they have always
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seen having served as a pastor of a church now for over 30
years. And in July this year, I know I
don't look old enough and something like yes, you do.
But in July this year, I would have been an eeling pastor for
31 years, not ordained for all that time, but as a ministering
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training. 31 years ago, I came into Ealing having been at
Ealing Bible College. It wasn't even Regents back
then, but Ealing Bible College. And for me, that as I've served
as a pastor for that amount of time, I've never really had a
big pay staff. I realise that today that so
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often in lots of churches that there are big pay staff teams.
And sometimes we look at those churches and we see our budget
and we're like, there's no way that we're ever going to be able
to have a team of that size. And yet the churches that I've
had the privilege of pastoring and even the church that I'm
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pastoring today that, you know, we do not have an incredible lot
of team on our paid staff. Just under five years ago now, I
went through a time of mourning.And the reason why I went
through a time of mourning that I felt deep within me was
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because I was leaving the team that I've been part of for 20
years. For 20 years, I'd been the
senior pastor or the lead pastor, whatever you want to
call it, I don't know. But I'd been the pastor of the
Ealing Life Church in King standing in North Birmingham,
and I'd pastored that church andwe'd done life there.
(07:00):
We we'd grown up with our family, our daughters were born
there. And it was an incredible church
that I was a part of for some ofthose people.
We'd been together on team for over 2 decades.
Sarah Whittleston that many of you know, we served alongside
(07:20):
each other for 10 years. And then I stepped out of that
situation, a situation that we'dmade so many memories as we
sought to fulfill the vision that God had given us.
For me that chapter was now overas I stepped into Pastor Rugby
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Elam, A church that had a very clear vision and mandates that
had been given by God. A vision that was to be the
church without walls, that was presence LED, mission minded and
Kingdom focused. It was a very clear vision that
had been given to the church, but that church had been gone
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through some really tough times for a number of years.
They've been battered and bruised by lots of different
fans. And it's almost like the the
final straw was when at the age of 34, their senior pastor,
Simon Whitley, died of cancer. And I journeyed with Simon
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through that and we'd try to help the church during that that
season. I didn't realize what my yes
would end up meaning. Sometimes we have to be careful
of what we say yes to. And it meant that eventually
when Simon died, that I felt that God called us to go to the
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church, even though the church was a smaller church at that
time. And I was like, it doesn't make
sense. But in the economy of God it
made total sense. I didn't get that on my notes
today. And maybe for some people in
this place, you need to hear that, that whilst it doesn't
make sense in the natural, in the economy of God, it makes all
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sense. So here I am now, pastoring the
church in Rugby. I want to say that the church
was in a difficult place. They'd hoped, they dreamed, they
prayed, they fasted. They had incredible faith that
Simon was going to live. Not only the church I had, and
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here I was stepping into a church that was broken and
battered. They were grieving.
And to be honest, at that point,I was grieving.
I don't, I've never said this publicly before, but I was
grieving and yes, I was grievingthe loss of Simon, but now I was
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grieving the loss of a church that I'd left behind, a team
that I'd left behind. And I love the people of rugby
and some of them guys are here today.
Thank you for supporting me rather than going for coffee.
But I loved stepping into that role.
But the same time I was grievingthe team that I'd left behind,
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but they didn't need me to put my grief onto them.
They had enough grief of their own.
And so I journeyed with that. I remember coming home one day
and saying to my wife, Sam, I said, oh, man, why?
I've had enough. I want to go back.
And my wife looked at me and said, it's your fault that we're
here. But that was my heart.
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It was tough. It was difficult, but I couldn't
express that. I think some people that were
probably a little bit closer to me knew a little bit of that.
But what the church team needed at that point was someone that
would love them through their pain and then eventually lead
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them. I've said to a few people, if
five years ago I'd done the APEStest, it would have come out
very different to what it is now.
Five years ago the church did not need an Apostolic
evangelistic leader. That's what I am now.
But five years ago it was shepherd in would have been
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right at the very top of the list because in that season
that's what they needed. And God spoke to me very clearly
and said you need to love and then lead.
I want to say today the Church is in a very different place.
We have an incredible team that is the biggest team that I've
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ever had the privilege of both developing and deploying at this
time in my ministry. As a staff team, we have a total
of 3 full time people on our payroll and we have three-part
time members of staff, so six people in total.
I think I've got it right. I'm on our on our payroll.
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Three of us are full time and free a part time.
And I want to make that clear today because you can look at as
some of you have seen what's happening rugby Elm now through
direction and different things and through our social media and
you can think, well, they must have a massive team.
We do not have a massive pay team.
And in one way I'm really glad that we don't.
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I'm really glad that we don't that when we see a job, we don't
automatically say, well who can we pay to do that job were very
different maybe to some of the things that go on.
Two years ago, I think it was that we hosted A volunteers
appreciation ball. We sent out 170 invitations to
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people that are currently serving in the life of rugby.
Elin on a Sunday morning, we gather at 9:30 AM and at 9:30 AM
we gather for all those people that are going to serve
throughout that day, be on our tech team or our hosting team,
our kids team, blah, blah, blah.Last Sunday, Sunday just gone,
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there were 60 people that were there at 9:30 AM in the morning.
Now, I've got to tell you that some people are just slipping in
because the best times of worship at 9:30 AM, and it
should be that way because thesepeople are pumped up and they're
ready to go. But that just gives a little bit
of a glimpse of what is happening amongst us at this
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time. You know, one of the things that
I believe is that God has given us everything that we need to
do, what He's called us to do. And I sense since when I was
preparing for today, there were people who are going to need to
know that. And my prayer is that that we
sink into your hearts right now,that whatever God has called you
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to do, that God has given you everything that you need in
order to do it. That for some of you, you're
serving maybe as team leaders inlocal church.
God has given you everything that you need.
We need to stop looking at what we don't have and look at what
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we do have. Remember the five loaves and the
two fishes are more than enough in the hands of Jesus.
And the truth is that they are in our midst right now.
A member of pastor said many years ago, he said we we need we
need this funding. We need, we need all this money
and he said the good news is that we've got it.
(15:04):
It's just in your pockets. One of the things that Lynette,
who we call our Rugby Eden missionary, who's in the
Philippines, he said this, if God gives you a vision, he gives
you the provision. And it's not just about finance,
it's about people, it's about resources, it's about vehicles,
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whatever that may look like. We just need to identify them
and call them out. I want to give some absolute key
points that I believe are essential when it comes to both
developing and deploying the Dream Team.
Some of you will recognise some of these points and that's OK
because there's nothing new under the sun.
(15:46):
And the first one is character. One of the things that I've
learnt over the years is that wecan never, ever underestimate
the importance of character. Character is the most
fundamental thing that we need to be on the lookout when it
comes to developing our Dream Team.
(16:07):
We can make the mistake, and I want to tell you, at times I've
made the mistake thinking that the thing that is so important
is charisma, it's capability. But the truth is character
Trump's those things all of the time.
The thing, let me tell you though, that the thing that
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needs to underpin charisma and capability, and it's good to
have those things, so it must beunderpinned by character.
Without a godly character, everyvery eventually a person will
collapse and may well bring downthe team with them.
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And sometimes that is a small team.
But the truth is that we can look back into the history of
Elim and The Sims of God, where I was brought up in.
I can't believe I got that out there, but churches have been
brought down because somebody didn't have the character to
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carry their charisma and capability.
Character is so important. Someone that I often think of in
the Old Testament, a person thatin many ways that I can relate
to, but not in always, praise God, is David.
Many people would have thought that David would have been the
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last person for God to choose tobe king over Israel.
And yet what did God say unto the prophet Samuel as he came to
anoint one of Jesse's sons as king?
He said man looks at the outwardappearance, but God looks at the
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heart. David's had a heart, and God saw
the way in which David's character had been developed
whilst he was out in the field faithfully looking after his
father's sheep. But maybe somebody needs to know
today that God has seen your faithfulness.
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What everybody else has overlooked, God hasn't
overlooked. He's seen how you faithfully
served him in the backside of a desert, somewhere in the
wilderness, and you thought thatno one else is noticing me right
now. Listen, there's somebody, we
heard it last night, who sees you and his name is Jesus, and
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he sees your faithfulness. And actually, it was in that
place that God was developing David to be the man that God
could use in some incredible andpowerful ways.
God very often develops the character within us in the
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secret place, in the place that other people do not see.
Second one is calling. I really do believe that every
single person who's been born again by the Spirit of God has a
calling on their life. We are all called to be part of
God's dream team here on earth and to bring about the colours
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of God, to bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth.
And whilst it's true that we're not all called to do the same or
be the same, thank God for that.Who was it somebody said
yesterday? Can you imagine like 1000 more
Mark pews? I love Mark Pew by the way.
The truth is, Can you imagine another 1000 Jonathan Skeletons?
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The team in rugby are like please no.
Some of them are really glad because on Sunday I start a
three month sabbatical and they're looking forward to the
peace and quiet. It's my first sabbatical in 31
years by the way. It's not so I do all the time.
Whilst it's true that we are alluniquely different.
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That we're not all called to do the same.
Each of us has a unique calling on our lives.
And I believe that one of the things that God calls us all to
do, it's not just for the peoplewho aren't in the room right now
because they're in the business session, but it's for every
single one of us who find ourselves in some place of
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leadership, in some place of, ofinfluence is I believe that God
wants us to recognize calling torecognize and call it out.
Because I want to tell you that many years ago when I was
growing up in, in my dad's church, that my dad pastors in
terms of God church, that somebody saw something in me
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that I didn't see myself. And they called it out of my
life and gave me an opportunity to begin to develop that and,
and begin to hone it, as it were.
And I don't think I'd be standing here today if somebody
hadn't done that. And when you go back to your
church, when you go back to the ministry that God has called you
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to be part of, I really want to encourage you to open your eyes
to the people around about you right now and to see the people
who the call of God is upon their lives.
And, and sometimes you may not know what that calling is, but
there's just a sense within you that the call of God is on that
person. I won't mention her name, but
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there's a, there's a person round our, our church plan.
A year ago, we, we planted a church in a place called
Daventry, a town where there's not much, much spiritual life.
And we, we planted a church and there's a, there's a young lady
there right now. And I don't know her very well,
but I want to tell you the call of God is all over her life.
And I recognise it. I'm speaking to her right now
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about it. And I don't know what it's going
to be, but I'll tell you what I want to do is I just want to
encourage the call of God that is upon her life.
Because what does encouragement do?
It builds courage in people. It builds courage.
And sometimes we're a bit afraidof saying too much to somebody
because we don't want to give them a big head.
Listen, most of the time that's nothing going to happen.
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We don't need to bring people down.
We need to build people up and we do that by recognising the
call of God that is on people's lives for this particular
reason, for particular task. And we say, you know what, you
can do this. I remember years ago in
Birmingham there was a lady thatended up heading up a really
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strong ministry. I'm not going to give any more
ideas on that. But she sat in the congregation
for years hearing somebody standon the platform saying, we need
somebody to do this ministry. And she sat there and she never
responded because she didn't think that she was good enough
to do it. But there came a day when
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somebody tapped her on the shoulder and said, you know
what? Come and watch.
Come and journey with me. And as she did that, she went
above and beyond what was being asked for from the platform.
Move on. The 3rd is chemistry.
One of the things that I've found is that you can recognise
someone whose character is exceptional.
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You can no doubt realise that they're called, but for one
reason or another, the chemistryis just not there.
In other words, this is something that just doesn't fit.
And it doesn't mean that you're right and they are wrong or the
other way around. This doesn't fit.
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You know, one of the things thatI do often in in Rugby and in
Diamond Tree is when people comefor the first time, I say it's
great to see you today. If this is where God wants you
to be, great. If not, find it sooner rather
than later because we're not called to be the church for
everyone. We are just a congregation that
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makes up the Church of the living God.
Be in Rugby or Diamond Tree or beyond in the future, we are not
it and the truth is that there'ssome people that for whatever
reason they're not going to fit.There's not going to be
chemistry that is beef around usand at times are trying to make
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people fit but it doesn't work if there's no chemistry.
I can honestly say that the teamthat I have the privilege of
leading now has some incredible chemistry.
I don't turn up at church session meetings going Oh no,
I've got to meet with them guys tonight.
I don't rock up on a Monday morning going, Oh no, we're
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going to have to meet as a staffteam.
They may feel like that, but I don't.
I don't turn up at a lifeboat leaders place going, Oh no, this
is not great. And one of the things sorry,
over the past five years, this chemistry has definitely grown
as we intentionally sought to love, honour, serve, encourage,
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be gentle, have a laugh and cheer one another on.
Remember the first time that we did a Volunteers Appreciation
Ball and I'd never forget it because anybody who knew me from
Birmingham days knew that I never went on the dance floor.
I, I bop around lots in church, but I don't put me on the dance
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floor. It's just not who I am.
But on our first volunteer appreciation ball, we had this
free course meal that we, we splashed out on all of our
volunteers. And that night we had a live
band that came down from Birmingham to serve us.
And the dance floor opened up and I hit the dance floor.
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I've never seen people dance so much in all my life.
And some of them are here today and they're nodding because they
they remember it so well becausewe lifted the lid and we said
this is a place where we are going to love one another.
This is a place where we're justgoing to celebrate one another.
We're not going to compare any long.
We're not going to. We're going to cheer one another
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on. And this is a place where we can
do life together. Something began to change and I
felt today that God just gave methese, these hatreds.
All right, honour. We need to honour one another.
We need to give honour, give honour where honour is due.
That so often we said to people,we, we can't honour you because
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one day you get to heaven and and then you'll be honoured, but
not here on earth. We'll keep you humble.
I want to say I believe in a culture of honour, that we don't
need to wait for somebody to dieand then say good things about
their lives. I love that this week there's
been some honour that's been flowing around our conference.
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Come on. We need to build a place of
honour. We need a a chemistry where
honour flows in such an amazing way.
We need humility as well. We need humility.
It's hard to talk about that because like feel like, well,
you're not very humble and I if you talk about it, but there's
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some things that I deliberately choose to do because Jesus
Christ came not to be served, but to serve.
I did something this morning. I better not talk about it
because like you'll be like, Oh,you show off.
But I just did something this morning and I didn't think about
it. I just did it and one of our
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teams was like, you can't do that.
I said yes, I can, just because it's who I am.
And I want to build that into our team right now because
there's some chemistry that flows out of a place of
humanity, place where we're honest with one another, a place
where we live holy lives, a place where humour is important
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to our team. Our chemistry forms our culture.
We really do believe that. As the Apostle Paul said,
rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.
Over the past few years, I can remember numerous occasions
where we've shed some moments ofgreat triumphs, trials, and shed
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some tears together. Some of those tears have been
tears of joy, but some of them have been tears of sadness.
If I want to set the culture, I have to lead that in the
position that God's placed me in, assuming like, well, I'm not
the senior pastor, but you stillset the culture in whatever
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you're leading right now. I went through a tough time back
end of last year and I met with our elders one night and I'd
held it in for a long time. And that night I opened up
myself to them. And I'm not ashamed to say that
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I wept on that night and we wepttogether.
I can talk to you about Easter Sunday this year when we
celebrated together and we celebrated the goodness of God.
You know, I want to introduce someone today who I have the
privilege of serving alongside, been part of rugby team for much
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longer than I have. I want to say that this man that
I'm going to introduce to you isa man of character.
He is an incredible man of character.
He's a man who's called by God. He is a man where there is
chemistry that not just flows between us, but in our team, in
the church. And I'm so glad to have this man
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on team. He's not on our paid team, but
what a gift he is not only to Rugby Elim and Damentry Rugby
Elim because we can't call it. Well, anyway, we'll sort that
out. But God's Kingdom and Kevin's
going to come and he's going to speak about two more essential
aspects. But can you give him a massive
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round of applause? Thanks Kevin.
Thank you, John. I love the fact that the whole
illustration around our team is picked around the minions and
nothing to the fact my name is Kevin.
I have a brother called David, Ihave a brother called Stuart.
So David, Kevin, Stuart. And when I was sort of goofing
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around the the the minions, I realized that actually all the
minions have names. And the reality is that maybe we
come to conferences like this and maybe we just think that we
are just one of the minions. But the reality is that each
person has a name, a name that God has given them.
And we've heard throughout this whole week that in not only that
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name, that we have been given a grace gift, a gift to contribute
to the work of Jesus Christ. So we're not just minions in the
masses. We are actually those that are
called by name. So maybe that is quite a
prophetic use of the minions this afternoon.
I just want to add a little bit into chemistry with John because
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we often ask ourselves differentquestions when we're talking
about team and bringing people on.
And maybe one question that we would ask about somebody coming
into our team or to serve in whatever way is can we walk with
that person in Amos, In Amos three, it says can two walk
together unless they agree? You see the reality, it's not
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just about a theological sort ofagreement, but being in heart
relationship with one another. Walking in unity with one
another is not uniformity. We love the fact that on our
team we have all the grace giftsdemonstrated, not just at a
leadership level but throughout the entire church.
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We need to celebrate the the fact that we have different
people on team, but we do need to be able to walk with one
another. And John picked up on the
reality that in rugby we've developed a culture behind our
vision and we were very deliberate in our vision
statement, which is about being presence led and Kingdom focused
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and mission minded. But we also wanted to identify
what sort of people we want to be as well that supports that
vision. We want to be people that are
led by Jesus. We want to be people of honour.
We want to be hosts and not guests.
We want to anticipate the supernatural, so our chemistry,
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amongst others, is formed by theculture that we're developing
through the church. John often said, you know, we
don't have to holiday with everybody within our church, but
we do have to walk with everybody that we want to be
part of our team. We don't just need to walk with
them, but we want to eat with them, to pray together and to
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build relational trust with one another as we build our teams.
The next aspect we're going to just talk about is competence.
And again. When we look at the whole aspect
of confidence, maybe we just askourselves the question, can they
do the job that we're asking them to do?
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It seems a very obvious question.
In Exodus 31, God didn't just call Bazilao to build the
Tabernacle. He filled him with skills,
ability and knowledge because God values excellence.
So to have a value of competencein what we're asking people do
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is a godly characteristic. You know, in some churches or in
in church life, sometimes we overemphasize the willingness of
somebody to do something and we proceed that may be over
actually their competence to actually fulfil it.
And sometimes we're just so desperate for somebody to fill a
gap will literally take anybody.But we need to harness maybe
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that willingness to be engaged alongside some practical help in
building their competence, building their ability, building
their skills and their giftings in order.
They can fulfil that in a fruitful way.
If we don't build their competence then the reality is
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probably 9 out of 10s times it will either end with an issue
either with them burning out or the ministry itself suffering in
some way. So it is about our hearts
desire, but we also need to equip people for the tasks and
the jobs and the roles and the ministries we're wanting people
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to do. Building a team is being
intentional about equipping and releasing and some thinking
rugby Ealing we're we're building up those reservoirs of
competency within our teams, being deliberate in giving
people experience and opportunity, which means at
times taking risk on some people.
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But we do that. You know, when Nehemiah was
called to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, he didn't just pick
the people that he liked. He picked and chose those who
are capable of the task. And what an eclectic view of
skills and giftings that he brought to rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem. You know, a practical thing we
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can do is help people grow in their gifts.
And this whole week has been fantastic and is identifying
those gifts, but help people grow in their gifts, give
feedback, tell them where they've done really well, tell
them maybe where they can maybe improve a little, maybe where
they could just have dug a little bit deeper or whatever it
would be. But speak to people, give them
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people, give them feedback, build their confidence, but
match people with the tasks thatwe're asking them to do.
You know, recently in rugby we ran a course called Shape, which
identified our unique shape as aindividual, but also our
giftings within the church and we ran historically.
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And we're going to relaunch again in September an emerging
leaders program where we want toinvest in those new leaders that
we see within our church and we will vest in them because we see
them as being our emerging leaders.
The reality is a team you can rarely get somebody with all of
the competence you need straightaway.
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But you do need to. Commit to develop them in order
to get them to that place that you want them to be, John has
already said. But I remember when Duncan Clark
came to Rugby Elim before John joined us and when Simon was our
pastor and he said exactly what John has said.
Christ has given you everything you need.
And in that moment we probably looked around as a church and
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were as leaders thinking, boy, we're missing some things.
How has Christ given us everything we needed?
But as we look back over the past five years, we've seen God
send us everything we need. And if he doesn't send it to
you, what we've recognized is that actually we can grow it
ourselves. So we identify those within the
church who are we going to invest in in order we can grow
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them into the leaders we want them to be.
You know, the body of Christ is made-up of many parts, but we
need to make sure it functions well and we need to place some,
some, some weight on the competence of those that are
fulfilling ministries. Capacity.
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Again, a question that we might ask when we come to this subject
of capacity is that can they grow with a vision of the
Church? Do they have a?
Capacity for now, which is important, but actually do they
have a capacity to grow as the church grows and the vision
grows of the church? In Luke 16 verse 10, it says
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whoever is faithful with little will also be faithful with much.
And you know, capacity is about much more than current skill.
It's about potential growth and resilience.
Capacity grows with experience. Occasionally you might find
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somebody with the right level ofcapacity for what you're asking
them to do, but the reality is we only need to nurture and
develop our own capacity. You know, alongside being a
pastor at Rugby E Lim and being one of their MI TS, I work full
time. I'm a managing director of
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marine civil engineering contracting business that works
all over the United Kingdom on one of the lay leaders, as it
were of the church. And you know, the reality is
without the, the lay leaders, the volunteers within our
church, we would not be able to fulfil the, the mission and the
vision that God has given Rugby Elim You know, I was looking
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through the Bible of, of, of examples of sort of people who
are engaged in lay leadership or, or contributing.
And the Bible is just full of people.
We think of Philip and Stephen, two of the original deacons that
were called Philip the Great Evangelist, Stephen the very
first martyr, Apollos, who was alearned man who spoke and
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preached the name of Jesus. Aquila and Priscilla, tent
makers, businessmen, but yet they equipped and supported Paul
in Hawley's ministry. We were challenged from this
stage yesterday about the capacity, about growing new
leaders. The reality is as we look at our
congregation, we have hundreds if not thousands of leaders
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within the Ealing movement readyto be equipped and released into
all that they have. The reality is they may just
come with the title of lay, not maybe paid staff.
But if we can release that potential, then I can certainly
see us going and planting 1000 churches, as Mark has said,
across our nation. But the reality is everybody's
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capacity is different. And I often get people ask me
how on earth can you do or that you do, Kevin, you work 60 hour
week in industry and then you'rebusy in church and then you're
there on a Sunday. The reality is my capacity has
grown over 25 years of church leadership. 25 years ago I'd
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have a capacity to do nothing. But the reality is God has been
gracious to me and I've learnt and I've served on on eldership
for 25 years before going down the MIT route.
My capacity has grown because I've nurtured it and I've
developed it over those decades.Some people will burn out fast,
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others are steady and you know they, they want the stretch and
the opportunity. But as we build capability, we
will build capacity because experience is the bedrock of
capacity because you've got thatexperience to draw from.
When you experiences or issues come your way, you know, of all
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the dynamics, I feel that capacity is the one where we
need to be most self aware. At least that's my experience
and to a degree I'm still learning this.
But I do try and protect my capacity, being disciplined and
only doing what I believe God has called me to do.
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In church life, it is so easy toget drawn into every aspect,
especially if you've got a heartto serve.
You want to get involved in everything.
The reality is you get involved with everything.
You're going to burn out to protect your capacity by
actually doing what God has called you to do.
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And we need to tune our capacitylevels because we've got to
balance our home life, our work life, our church life.
Things will come in our life where we need to divert our
energy and resources. And I'm so blessed that John is
so empathetic and sympathetic toeverybody's time demands.
There'll be seasons. When I say to John, John, I just
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can't quite press into this as much as I might have been able
to do six weeks ago because I'vegot this going on at work.
And he understands there's othertimes to say, John Miracle, I'm
OK at work for the next six weeks.
I can push in a little bit further.
What do you want me to do? But having a an understanding of
each other's capacity. And that rolls out across in our
entire congregation. We have people in our
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congregation that have no capacity, but yet they have a
heart to serve. In season and in time their
capacity will grow and we need to be able not to rule them out,
but actually encourage them and develop them into something for
the future. Now, the apostle Paul saw
something in Timothy. He mentored him, he brought him
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along, he gave him responsibility.
Timothy may not have seen to be a natural leader, but his
capacity grew through Paul's leadership.
So just to. Recap the three questions that I
would maybe ask in regards to chemistry.
Can we walk with that person? Incompetence?
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Can they do the task, the job that we're asking them to do?
And if we're looking at capacity, can they grow with a
vision that we have to fulfil the mission of Christ in rugby?
Thank you very much. Thanks, Kevin.
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In a few minutes, we may just open it up just for a few
questions. And we just feel like we might
just need to open up to the ministry of the Spirit as well.
But as we come to a close, just the last C is constellation.
You know, I want to say today that dream teams are not made-up
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of superstars, but they're made of of constellation of stars.
You know, if you were to go out this evening, especially for
those who live in the countryside and hopefully it's a
clear night, you look up and yousee one star.
That can be quite amazing to seeone bright star.
But let me tell you, a constellation of stars that are
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joined together form a recognisable picture in the sky
might be like an object, it may be like an animal, it may be
like a person. One star on his own cannot do
that, but a constellation of stars can do that.
In Philippines chapter 2, verse 15, Paul says that we ought to
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shine light stars in the sky. And there's nothing better, I
believe, than doing this together.
And in doing that together, I truly believe that we form a
beautiful picture of Jesus together, that we form the body
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of Christ here on earth. And the truth is that as the
apostle Paul made it very clear in his teachings, we all need
each other. It's been come across time and
time again this week. We need all of the graces.
Thank God as Kevin said today that on our on our team today on
our, our staff team and a pastor, a pastor team and that
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is made-up of two of us that arepaid and we got a whole lot of
pastors that are credential ministers who are not paid.
But we have the grace giftings between us.
Not one part of the body is moreimportant than the other and in
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order to be a fully functional team, we need to make space and
room for everyone to play their part on the team and in so doing
make Jesus known. You know, a couple of months ago
now, and I love the fact that this has come out so many
different times during our conference that we got 100.
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Sorry. 1000 piece jigsaw made. 1000 piece jigsaw made If
anything looks good in rugby, it's down to this guy sat down
here, Pete who's on our team andI said to Pi said I want 1000
piece Jigsaw said to me. You know you can get one made,
don't you? Unique to us and we did.
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We got this jigsaw made of 1000 pieces and it's a flag on a
particular St. that we're hopingto buy a building on that was
prophetically picture was taken 12 months ago.
It wasn't on our agenda. And we had this thousand piece,
a jigsaw made. And then one Sunday, as we were
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going for the shape course that Kevin mentioned, one Sunday, I
asked that every single person in the life of our church come
forward and take their piece of the puzzle.
It was for people from every nation and every generation.
I know you guys on the wings. Yeah.
Come and join us because we'll, I think what we're going to do
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because the time Kevin and I will stay around.
You got any questions? Come and speak to us.
But at that, at that point, whenpeople were coming down through
the aisles, I got really emotional.
I know I'm an emotional person, but people that aren't emotional
were getting emotional as we sawpeople coming and taking their
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piece of the jigsaw. And it was something prophetic.
And I don't mind saying this today because I feel that God
has given me like a future vision that why couldn't we be a
Church of 1000 people? We're nowhere near there yet,
but it was a bit of a prophetic word, I believe.
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And there's people who take in their piece that every single
piece is so unique, different shape, different size.
And one piece on its own, as we've heard this week, is just
one little piece. But together we make a beautiful
picture of God's Kingdom here onearth.
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That for some of those people that come and got their peace,
they don't serve on our teams. And you know what, as far as I'm
concerned, that's OK because forsome of those people, they're
serving on the team. And I've heard this said this
week, and I understand why we say it, but we talk about Team
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Elam. I want to say we are team
church, that we make up the Church of the living God.
And for some of those people that come and got their peace, I
know that some of them are serving as scout leaders.
Celebrate those people. Some of them are going tomorrow
morning and they're going to thehospital.
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And they're not simply serving the NHS, they're serving King
Jesus. They're part of the dream team.
And I'm so glad that these guys have said they've got one song
in them. I know what song we're going to
sing, but can we stand together?Because I feel like even though
this has been a, a teaching seminar, I guess that I had a
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sense that God just dropped somethings that we've spoken out
today. And then maybe some people in
even as Kevin was talking about capacity, he like, I don't, I
just don't feel like I've got the capacity.
But you know, as Kevin said today that if you're looking
ahead, you haven't got it now, but you will have it in the
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future. But for some of you like God, I
just want you to stretch me in order that my capacity would be
able to increase. I know that sounds weird, but
you just feel like you need to be stretched a little bit for
greater capacity. There's some people here today
and you've been looking at the the responsibility that you have
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in your life. We just can't do this.
We haven't got what we need and yet God has spoken to you today
and said to you, you've got everything that you need, you
just need to go and find it. The disciples didn't realise
there's a little boy who had five loaves and two fishes.
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And for some of you, today you're going to go home and your
eyes are going to be opened in anew, fresh way.
You're going to see people like you've never seen them before.
So if God has spoken to you in these moments, maybe you just
want to open your heart up to God and maybe just open your
hands to him and says, God, I want to see what you see.
(52:00):
I don't know. I just even sense to me right
now that God may be just giving you an image of somebody that
you need to go and tap on the shoulder and say, you know what?
I believe that God's called you.Can we walk together?
I love what Kevin said. Can we walk together?
(52:23):
Father, thank you that we have apart to play in your team, in
your church here on earth. God, I just pray for all of us
today. Lord, you know those who've
spoken to specifically, even in the midst of a seminar, I just
(52:46):
pray, Father God, that they would just respond to you, King
Jesus. Now we're going to sing this
song together. Now, this wasn't planned, but
there may be people here today and you just want, you know, my
Kevin and myself, we've got someother team members around here
today. We'd love the opportunity to
pray with you if that's what youneed.
If you don't, that's absolutely fine.
(53:07):
The departure land, the plane isgoing to leave in and however
long it's going to leave. But if you want to respond, feel
free to do that. We'd love that.
Thank you team.
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