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| TRUST is a must in TEAM LEADERSHIP |
Good teams trust one another. Good teams trust their leader, too. Imagine a football team where the quarterback couldn’t trust his wide receivers to catch balls thrown his way
You can’t build a team without trust. It’s crucial. I can’t overstate how important trust is in developing your staff team.
Philippians 2:19-20 says, “I want to be encouraged by news about you. So I hope the Lord Jesus will soon let me send Timothy to you. I don’t have anyone else who cares about you as much as he does.” (CEV)
Paul trusted Timothy. Trust is the emotional glue that binds a team together and produces confidence. If your team doesn’t trust you and if they don’t trust one another, you won’t achieve your aim.
High-achieving churches have a high level of trust among the staff. It means the lead pastor trusts the staff, the staff trusts the pastor and the staff trusts one another. To build trust you’ve got to not only trust your staff to get the job done but also trust them to do the job in the way they think is best.
So how do you create that kind of trust in your team?
- Be consistent. People must learn to trust one another. The Bible says, “A faithful man is hard to find.” The more a staff spends time together and works together, the more they know how one another responds to challenges. That kind of consistency builds trust.
- Stand with your staff when they take heat. I’ve told the pastors on my staff that if they’re ever accused of something publicly, I’ll defend them before I even know the issue. I don’t accept criticism when I first hear it. I defend my staff member first in front of other people, and then I’ll check out the accusation, if needed. That builds trust among my staff.
- Delegate.The proof of trust is delegation. Whenever you tell a staff member, “You do what you think is best,” you tell that person you trust him or her. I learned this lesson in my first staff position. The pastor called me in after I’d just been hired as youth pastor. The very first thing he said to me was, “I wouldn’t have invited you to be a part of this staff if I didn’t trust you. The very fact that I trust you means you are free to do whatever it takes to get the job done. I will back you 100 percent.”I would have charged hell with a squirt gun for that guy because he had that kind of trust of me. Within a year, we had baptized more than a hundred teenagers all because we tried things that had never been done before.
Does your team trust one another? Do they trust you? Be consistent, stand with your team and delegate. You’ll never build a high-impact ministry team without trust.
It seems like teams are everywhere. And churches that have a recognized team based ministries are becoming more the standard than the exception. Why is that? What’s going on?
There are definitely many dynamics involved in the team based ministry environment, but I’ve noticed a common thread.
Top thread: People have a strong internal desire people have to experience genuine community (work, home, hobbies, etc..).
People are seeing the need for a genuine face to face community that’s somewhat missing in our information age culture.
Bottom line truth: There are a lot of broken lives and a lot of dysfunction in traditional relationships. There are more and more of individuals attempting to masquerade through life as they holdfast to media's illusion of a healthily relationship.
People are grasping the idea of community and some are attempting to bring the New Testament community back into the church.
But what does that even mean? "To bring the New Testament community back into the church."
As churches, organizations, and companies grow to a point where it was impossible to know everyone, people began to feel disconnected. That’s often when someone suggests the implementation of smaller teams or in church we give small groups a try.
People begin to realize that relational ministry makes a difference. And that kind of ministry is more than just showing up on Sunday morning or doing nursery duty. Isn't that the foundation Jesus set for us to build on?
"37'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' 38 This is the first and most important command.39 And the second command is like the first: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'" -Matthew 22:37-39 CEV
As individuals uncover the richness of and the great need for genuine relationships we take baby steps toward coming inline with how God designed things. Building a community that is genuinely growing isn’t always an easy process. Even if it is difficult, following Christ is the most incredible thing we can do in life, and Christ often uses others to transform my life. The deeper I get into it, the more I have to rely on Him.
Trust is CULTIVATED over time and is a must in any form of TEAM LEADERSHIP.
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