missio

Track: Post-Launch

Speaker: Darrin Patrick
Topic: Think Team

• If you don’t have a team, church planting will kill you. Unfortunately, having the wrong team will kill us as well.
• The first thing wrong in the world (aside from Monday [look it up]) was Adam not having a team.
• Think about your team.
• There’s nothing like a team, but team is overrated. The greatest resource (aside from the Spirit) in the church is the lead pastor.
• Everyone imitates the lead pastor. Team is overrated if the lead pastor is not Biblically qualified, appropriately gifted and divinely motivated. The voice of God has to drown out all other voices.
• The follower of Christ is simultaneously just and sinful. That’s who we are.
• What’s fueling our leadership? The main problem in the Christian life: we don’t preach the Gospel to ourselves.
• The lead pastor/elder has to be qualified according to 1 Timothy 3. The character of the leader is the same as the character of the team. The team derives its character from the lead elder. An elder literally “oversees” the church.
  • Above Reproach: A junk drawer term for everything that doesn’t fit the other categories.
  • Husband of one wife: A one-woman man, devoted with eyes/heart/sex-life. It’s too tempting for someone else.
  • Sober-Minded: Temperate. Period.
  • Self-Controlled: You are you, and no-one else.
  • Respectable: Life is stable and not chaotic.
  • Hospitable: You love strangers. You know lost people. You have friends and relationships outside of the church. Most church planters don’t know lost people.
  • Able to teach: You must be able to bring it. Good teachers attract great leaders. Not everyone can be rock-star communicators. Just preach.
  • Not a Drunkard: Not addicted to anything. Meditation produces maturity.
  • Not Violent but Gentle: The key to ministry is to have thick skin and a soft heart. Gentle means to not always have your way. You occasionally have to yield to others.
  • Not quarrelsome: Stop arguing. Don’t be the devil’s advocate.
  • Not a lover of money: Don’t be tempted by it.
  • Manage your household: If you can’t lead your home, you can’t lead the church. Great pastors can still be terrible husbands and terrible fathers.
  • Not a recent convert: Be careful if new/young: get older people to mentor.
  • Reputable to outsiders:If your church disappeared, would anyone care? The church doesn’t need any more Bible teachers/lazy pastors/ego-driven pastors. The church needs more suffering pastors who say “imitate me”, as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 4.
• The team is also underrated.
• Jesus chose a team. Mark 3.
  • Jesus was on the mountain: He was with His Father. Nothing replaces time with God.
  • Do you have a good gut? We need to listen to our wives. They are smarter, more discerning, and usually more godly. When do we get stupid? Where does our discernment drop? In what situations? Are we wowed by theology? By talent? By age difference? By ethnicity?
  • Build with who you have. There are people who are scaffolding: they help build for a time, but then are removed. Find people you like. Find people who are fruitful. Who do we desire to be on our team? We’re looking for elders and deacons. Familiarize yourself with the personality tests. Study Myers-Briggs. Study DISC. Have interns. Have accountability. Have systems and structures. Have a culture of community.
  • We want to believe the best about one another, and wade through the worst.
  • Hire slowly, fire quickly.
  • Make celebration normal.
  • Give people freedom to fail.
  • Remember the team members have lives.
  • No one will ever care about the church more than you.
  • Ministry is not about getting stuff done. It’s about getting people done.
    
  • People see through being used for ministry. We have to use ministry for people.
• Bottom Line: Create an environment where people can make it. But that doesn’t mean they will make it.