Shannan painted faces. Emma ran the Bubble blowing station. Stevo hung out with teens doing bike tricks. Nick was a clown while Jessica, Emily, and Trevor walked with him through the neighborhood gathering up children. Yes, gathering children for an afternoon in the park for Kids’ Klub in inner-city Philadelphia. What a privilege it was to experience a team run ministry focused on reaching children for Christ!

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others...
Romans 12: 3-5

Through working in ministry over the past decade in various capacities I have learned the value of teamwork. Let’s look at several different angles on team ministry and how it brings health and a more holistic ministry to life. The key element of teamwork is leadership. Leadership is what brings a team together and allows it to function. Leadership is the fuel that puts the team “machine” in motion. However, though leadership is very important, without a team the various parts (the nuts and bolts), the ministry is dysfunctional. A leader cannot lead without his or her team. A quarterback is just a skinny guy with helmet and pads that can’t do anything unless there are linemen and guards to protect him and help him get the ball down to the end zone. Therefore, the leader’s efforts must be focused on giving the team direction.

Recruiting, then, is imperative to any leader’s success in ministry. This in itself requires Christ-like maturity. The Bible says that humility is a key component to who Jesus is (Philippians 2). When a leader recruits another to be a part of the team and to take on specific tasks it requires that particular leader to admit he/she needs help and will let go of the credit and glory for doing the specific hands-on ministry that person was recruited to do. A leader needs the wisdom to allow others to come in and take ownership and make the ministry their own at the expense of their own glory seeking or kudos. Recruiting is something that can either be unpleasant or seen as exciting. Exciting because team members are your automatic disciples. This is an opportunity to impact the adult/young adult lives in your congregation for the Kingdom! Recruiting people from your church and mobilizing them for mission with teens, children, seniors, etc... is exciting! This is the same thing Jesus did some 2000 years ago in the region of the sea of Galilee! This is an open door to impact lives exponentially!

Recruiting is a never-ending process. It becomes natural for you, as a leader, to do and empower your team members to do throughout the lifetime of the your ministry. Another essential “lifeblood” element of team ministry is Communication. Communication is the glue that will keep a team focused in the right direction. Communication is the element the team needs to get them to the appropriate meetings and ministry events. Communication is the equipping element the team needs to share the Gospel and disciple the crowd. This element is a “rubber meets the road” tool of the leader. It is an administrative skill that must be mastered or delegated in order to oil the ministry team machine. I have dropped the ball in this area at times. C’mon, be honest, haven’t you ever thought these things? “Everyone should be able to just know what is needed.” Or “You’re a Christian you should know how to present the Gospel and disciple people.” Or “Everyone should just remember that we have monthly meetings.” Perhaps these things “should be”, but often times they are not. Sometimes we as leaders must be the reminders, the memories, for our team. Unless we communicate and do it consistently, clearly, and repetitively the direction will be lost for our teams in ministry which will be losses that the Kingdom of God does not have to face if we are faithful to good communication (Romans 12:8).

Tim and I have become great friends over the past two years. He encourages, listens, challenges, supports, and revitalizes me. Tim is a supportive leader to me as Timothy was to Paul or Joshua to Moses. Not that I am in the same category as Paul or Moses...don’t get me wrong, but as the Pastor and leader of our teen ministry, The Refuge, I oversee Tim who takes on a very prominent role. He can run the ministry by himself. This relationship and his skills have developed over the time we have known each other. We don’t just do ‘ministry stuff’ together. We hang out together. Our families spend time together. We pray together. He sees the nitty gritty of my life and I experience the same in his. We spend time in Fellowship. This is also true for our entire ministry team. We often do things together. We have potluck dinners. We go out to eat. We go to training seminars. We talk on the phone. We support and pray for one another. This element of our team is what glues us together. Unity happens as time is spent together. In the last two months our team has been more effective than ever for God’s Kingdom which I attribute to God’s Spirit working through our unified team. God honors unity (Acts 2: 42-47)


If a ministry team is a microcosm of the body of Christ and each member has a specific set of gifts, talents, interests, and personality traits, then it is only right for each member to function at his/her highest level by giving him/her opportunities to run in areas of ‘expertise.’ Delegation is not laziness. It is not a lack of vision nor a lack of ability. Delegation is a skill set that a leader must learn. Delegation when done right can be the most empowering tool in the leader’s shed. Empowering a team member to do something in which their strengths lie is Kingdom work. Tim had a vision, a passion, and the organizational skills to put together an outreach to some of the teens here in Sussex. The outreach was designed to reach the teens who are a little bit left of center. Those who like rebellion and resent ‘cultural religion.’ They want real. They want hardcore. Therefore, the outreach was designed in the form of a concert. Different Punk and Hardcore bands were brought together for a show and two hundred teens showed up. The fruit has been real. Sheila has always envisioned a canteen in our youth room. She makes it happen every Wednesday night. She is known as the ‘canteen lady’ and is the closest confidant some of our teens have all while Sheila works selling candy and pop. Dani runs our small group ministry. Jeannie runs our drama ministry. Matt runs our outreach ministry. Rob leads the praise band. The list goes on and not all are adults. Often times my role as leader is to take a back seat to those on the ministry team. My ministry is to empower others. My goal is to reach teens for Christ. That doesn’t mean I have to have the ‘glory’ of doing it all myself...it means humility which often translates into more fruit for the glory of Christ.