Growing Leaders Session 7 began with an activity where participants thought about the groups they are part of and what metaphor best suits their group. Car, Animal, Chocolate Bar were the categories chosen, and participants thought about what type of car, animal and chocolate bar would be most appropriate for their particular group.
Some of the metaphors were:
Car
- Range Rover sport
- Old Bus
- Battered Lada
- Something that's difficult to get started.
Animal
- Camel
- Cow
- Tazmanian Devil
- catterpillar
- Octopus
Chocolate Bar
- Revels
- Galaxy Caramel
- Quality Street
- With Fruit and Nuts
Alison followed on to talk about how teams work together to achieve three purposes – to meet the needs of the task, the needs of the individual and the needs of the group. She used illustrations from the Growing Leaders leadership team (Rob, Alison, Emma and Steve) to demonstrate some of these points and how the different strenghts of these individuals work together to make a team that kind of works.
The participants then split into groups of their own ministry areas to talk about how their teams are working to achieve these goals. The ministry areas represented included:
- Youth
- Whole Church
- International
- Worship
- Evangelism / Alpha
- Synergy (20s and 30s)
Some reflections from this group included:
- It's easy to focus so much on one of the areas (like the needs of the group) to the detriment of the other two areas.
- We need to learn the skills of being able to challenge individuals.
- How do you cope with different individuals having different visions within the group?
- Often we think it's all about us as individuals, when actually it's all about God – the team can help lift the burden.
- Using people's individual strengths – play to those that get them done.
We continued to look at the leader's role, with people looking at how leader's develop the individual; ensure the group achieves the task; build and maintain the unity of the group. We proceeded to study John 17:20-26 where Jesus teaches about his heart for community and people work well together.
Question: If only have a few hours left, what would you say to them about their working together.
- Pray for them
- Stay focused
- Keep encouraging / Well done
- Talk and listen to each other
- Remember the impact you have on each other's lives.
Jesus, with 24 hours to live talked (in John 17:20-26) about his passion for unity – holding shared belief; passing on the glory of the Father, to Jesus, to his disciples and so on; ministry of Jesus; presence of Jesus through the Spirit. The purpose of this unity is mission.
Steve followed by talking about the 5 dysfunctions of a team and the participants reflected on these negatives and how they might affect each group.
Effective teams:
- Trust on another;
- Engage in healthy conflict;
- Commit to decisions, plans and vision;
- Are accountable to each other;
- Achieve collective results.
The session finished with prayer and reflection.
