The Team Concept

The Team Concept
David W. Ching
Sunday's Message - August 28, 2011

What do Baseball, Football, Soccer, hockey, softball, and basketball to name a few sports have in common? They have the team concept down pat. It is a shame that the church cannot learn again from what it once taught. Team is not something you can do alone. Team is plural. Team takes a lot of blood, sweat, tears, joys, failures, victories, faith, and soul to accomplish.

1.) The Team was given a God-Sized Mission:
In Jesus’ time the team concept was radical and visionary. Jesus was challenging a small group of ordinary people to change the world and bring them to Him. I wonder sometimes if the disciples talked to one another about this vision. I wonder if they asked each other, “Do Jesus know who we are? Nobody has ever won the entire world in anything!”

After Judas turned on Jesus there were only 11 disciples left at the time they were given the Great Commission. With this commission in mind they were given support. Matthew 28:18-20 tells us, “18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (NIV). Jesus empowered them and promised to be with them to the very end of the age. The 11 disciples empowered by the One created invincibility in them and the world has never been the same. That held true for them as well as Christians today.

Christ gives us (the Body of Christ) a mission so great that it requires our best, all-out effort with wholehearted dependence on Him. This is the same mission the 11 brought through the ages that we must now move forward with. The leaders today as the disciples in Jesus’ time must develop and mature spiritually as His empowerment works through us.

2.) The Team will Face Conflict:
With this task, as with any task given us by the Lord; we must expect conflict to arise. The Gospel of Christ by its nature will create conflicts; because it is always calling people to change. Change more times than not causes resistance and that resistance produces conflicts.

The gospel replaces the old person with the new and the old person struggles to move back in. The gospel replaces sin with salvation and that sin looks to gain its spot back. The gospel replaces today’s status quo and replaces it with a transformed life and the status quo doesn’t like it. The gospel brings those things out of the darkness and replaces it with light and the darkness fears for its existence. The gospel replaces broken people with wholeness and the brokenness tries to hinder this wholeness. Such radical and drastic change will not be accepted by some and that is something you can take to the bank. Therefore, we must make sure conflict is rooted in the gospel. Conflict created by the demands of the gospel should be accepted, welcomed, and resolved in a creative and useful manner and not allowed to be destructive to the Team.

Calvin Coolidge once stated, “Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, in 9 out of 10 cases, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.”

3.) The Team Concept must be in a Loving Fellowship with One Another:
Most issues in the life of the church revolve around human relations. To get His disciples ready for His coming departure Jesus showed them how to love each other and love Him better. Jesus taught the disciples that love is the main ingredient in every aspect and function of the church. It is love that connects people to God and to each other. If you want your church to be effective in a world gone mad; love is that motivating force that gets the job done. Love treats others the way we want to be treated and attracts people to Christ. The basic distinctive of the New Testament church is love.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22: 37-40, NIV).

Jesus’ love for us on Calvary chisels away harshness; graciously gives forgiveness; heals broken relationships; creates community, fellowship and unity; and lights the fires of our witness of Christ.

In our society today, the church needs to be the church it was created to be in its beginning. There is a cry from the wilderness of life for community, fellowship and unity. There is a cry for the Team to function as a Team. Our society today needs to reintroduce into their lives, words like: relationships, family, belonging, unity, teamwork, acceptance, home, community, fellowship and communion. For the church to be effective in the community and world around them; it must reintroduce these words through the actions they bring into the everyday language. The church must love those things that the Lord loves and that means it must love everyone without exception or exclusion. We must accept the love of Christ as our guide to how we live. We must love God, His Word, His people and His world.

God’s Word clearly, affirming, and reassuringly tells us in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (NIV).

Love can build a bridge, but the lack of it can burn that bridge down faster than it was built” (DWChing 2010). Are you building bridges for the team to travel on or are you burning them down as fast as they are built? Think about that as you go through this week and ask God to make the changes in you that need to be made to help the team function properly. Have a blessed week!