Teams

My launching trip to Northern LA and Little Rock, AR came on the heels of the Organic Church Conference. It really caused me to question the way we are putting teams together within our organization. Neil Cole talked a lot about the way the gifts of Ephesians 4:11 (apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher) work together with the emphasis being on the gifts working together. I feel like we value some gifts more than others within our organization. We have some amazing shepherds and a reputation of discipling people well. I think this has led us to really value the shepherd/teacher giftings and not seek to develop the apostle/prophet giftings.

I wonder what it would like if we could start to create teams where those giftings work together. Before I went to the conference I was very adamant that we needed more apostles. I honestly was a little down on all the shepherds in our ministry. Now that I have been thinking about how the mix could work together and really got to experience my gifting (the apostolic - I want to start, find the connections, push people out, I don't want to maintain or grow things), I see how freeing it is to be able to operate in your gifting. What if we were able to create teams that had a combination of the gifts and released people to do what they were made to do rather than asking everyone to do a similar job? I think we'd release a powerful force on the campuses around the world.