Teams That Multiply Disciples
Teams exist to make disciples. Disciples don’t exist to serve teams.
A Thought Experiment
As a leadership team, we conducted a thought experiment a number of years ago: What if anyone in our church was taken out of our context, perhaps with a couple of friends, and placed in a distant land? If we left them alone for 20 years, what would happen?
Our prayer and longing is that we could return to find a vibrant church community of new believers, very much like what happened between Acts 8 and Acts 11, when the believers arrived in Antioch and spontaneously started reaching out to the Gentiles.
The question served as a kind of test. Do our people have the character and competencies necessary for that outcome? In other words, is our church functioning as a kind of church planter bootcamp? Everything we do should support and enable the multiplication of disciples who can multiply disciples.
Rethinking Our Teams
This perspective caused a complete re-evaluation of our many teams and ministries. We have a wide variety of teams, from those supporting gatherings such as tech, music, and kids’ ministry to inner-city and campus ministries, operations, creative teams, and many others. At last count, our church had 76 teams.
It became clear that these teams tended to develop their own inertia, often disconnected from the core objective of training disciples who make disciples. So we recalibrated our teams around a simple principle:
Teams exist to make disciples. Disciples don’t exist to serve teams.
We do need more teams, because teams are a vital part of making disciples. What we don’t need is more people to simply fill roles. This reframes the common poverty mentality many churches have about teams and replaces it with an abundance mentality, one where the focus shifts from task completion to disciple-making.
Teams in Their Right Place
It’s important to note that teamwork is not the primary location of disciple-making. That happens in Simple Churches, life-on-life discipleship, Scripture study and in shared rhythms. But teams are a tremendously helpful tool in at least three ways.
1. Teams Train Character
When serving on a team, our strengths and weaknesses inevitably intersect with those of others. Teams create a powerful context for developing patience, endurance, self-control, and self-awareness.
For team leaders, members can sometimes be frustrating or disappointing. But reframed in the disciple-making context, those frustrations are not obstacles—they are opportunities to develop someone’s character through honest conversations and encouragement.
2. Teams Develop Competencies
Disciples need basic competencies to be effective in multiplying disciples. These include practical skills like running a meeting, planning an event, or scheduling. Teams also provide a context to grow in emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, communication, cultural awareness, and more.
These competencies cannot remain limited to church professionals. Everyone needs opportunities to cultivate them if we are to see multiplication.
3. Teams Grow Friendships
Perhaps the most valuable fruit of serving on a team is the friendships that emerge. This is true for me personally—I met my wife while serving on a church team!
The New Testament shows us that disciples cultivated deep, lifelong friendships as they served together. These relationships should not be seen as a happy by-product, but as an essential objective.
Final Thought
Our teams are not about accomplishing tasks. They are about making disciples, disciples with resilient character, practical competencies, and life-giving friendships.
Together, those disciples can pray, dream, and work toward changing the world for Jesus.