DYNAMIC

Joelene and I went around to the homes of all our staff pastors last night and delivered some Christmas gifts to them. It's a fun night for the two of us - second year we've done it this way now - rather than just seeing them at church and passing a gift off.

Last weekend, we all went Christmas caroling together and ended up at the homes of people who were unchurched. We talk about being 'missional' all the time, but I fear we pastors might talk the talk but not walk the walk as much as we should -- so we hit some homes of people we knew weren't church people. We found this out because we asked some folks from our church who in their neighborhood fit that category. So it was intentional on our part.

I love being with our team. It takes time to build a great team dynamic and we've brought several new people on just in the past 3 or 4 years. It feels good to have the entire team in place now and we can continue the fun of team-building with them.

I've been reading that in order to build a great team you have to be willing to:

- Fight together. I love this point. It reminds me of the activity we did as a team about 3 weeks ago. We went around the table and told what the very best thing each person brought to the team, in our opinion. THEN ... we did it AGAIN and told what each person brought to the team that dragged us down. Tough words to hear.

- Be loyal to the death. This doesn't mean we don't challenge one another and 'get in your face' occasionally ... but disloyalty to one another? Never. That's why I've had people come up to me to ask me why I defend my staff team the way I do. Because that's what teams do. Then we close the door and ask some difficult questions of each other. But disloyalty. Definitely not.

- Be transparent. I think this has to be modeled from the top down, so it's something I've tried to put into practice with the team in various ways.

- Care for each other. This is why I love going around to their homes a few days before Christmas. You get to see them in their own caves - dressed down and relaxed - enjoying the fam - and there's a different warmth at the front door of your own home. A team that is 'all business all the time' will eventually disintegrate. A ministry team must become a family. One of our staff pastors approached us with some 'heat under the collar' one day because he had heard there was a potential illness in one of our families and it was very upsetting to him that prayer had not been asked of the team for that - that it had been kept under the covers. Lesson learned about caring.

- Have fun together. I will confess that our KFA team laughs ... a lot. Sometimes I think it's TOO much. I won't even go into this one further. Suffice to say, we have fun together.

Just want you to know you have a great team at KFA working for you and for God.

And be blessed.