Teaming with Strangers

Monday, 23rd October marks our second-ever Team Leaders Gathering. Our theme is Team Building.

We will start with the premise that positive team experiences are not common. There are many kinds of challenges to volunteer team building. There is mangled communication, duplication of effort, missed opportunities and even finger pointing. Volunteers lack availability, are free at different times or their coaches don’t release them. Volunteers who have availability may not serve with excellence. Some send substitutes, come late for duty or leave early from meetings. They feel your thing takes them away from their ‘real ministry’.

Then we serve across the church with people from various services, people-groups and life stations. This is lateral rather than vertical ministry. We touched on 'Lateral Leadership' at our first-ever Team Leaders Gathering on 14th March this year. Here's a photo of that event.

How do we team with lateral volunteers? It's almost like teaming with strangers. It's much easier to work alone. It's more straightforward to serve in a homogeneous grouping. But God in His wisdom puts us in diverse teams to accomplish the Great Commission. No more lone rangers!

So what can you expect tomorrow night? You can look forward to positive interaction. Because you need contact with peers to generate synergy and share encouragement. Isolation slows momentum.

You can look forward to a team building message by me. There will also be a slide show, a team quiz and a surprise element. It's going to be the eve of a holiday so I sure hope it's going to be a lot of fun. Till then...