Better Together: Marks of a Healthy Team, in Church and Life

Key takeaways

• Nobody leads alone. Heron pointed to Jesus, who kept a team around him, as the reason he builds ministry with other people.
• Unity leaves room for disagreement. Chandler said the goal may be to stay connected in love while still working out how to serve together.
• Health has several parts. Chandler described body, mind, relationships and spiritual life as four areas that shape one another.
• Spiritual discipline comes first. Heron and Sammy both put time with God at the base of every team a person builds.
• Start small in the Bible. Heron recommended five minutes a day, and Chandler reminded listeners that God is gentle with every season.
• A team can be one person. Andy encouraged introverted and younger listeners to lean on the one friend or family member they already have.

Why the room matters

This episode of Beyond the Letter had Sammy sitting in as guest host for Adam Mesa. He was joined by pastor Heron and by his wife Chandler, who was on the show for the first time. Chandler is working toward her hours to become a licensed therapist. Andy joined near the end.

The conversation began with a pastors' gathering in Miami at Voo Church, hosted by Rich Wilkerson Jr. and his wife Dawn Cherie. Sammy said about 150 churches were represented. He compared it with the gathering their own church hosted, which drew about a hundred pastors from around sixty churches.

Heron's biggest takeaway was simple: he was not by himself. He could look to his right and left and see people paddling the same way toward God's kingdom. He said he learned early to include others in his ministry, and he asked a pointed question. As Heron put it, "if I follow Jesus, how come I'm not being like Jesus?" Jesus had the twelve, and within them a closer three.

Heron said that when he helped launch Jesus Club about eleven years ago, his first step was to find people who loved God and loved people. He found two who were all in at the start, and he said he could not have built it alone.

Sammy added the saying that if you want to go fast, go alone, and if you want to go far, go together. He described the weekly preaching group at their church, where eight to ten people, some on Zoom, each bring their own expertise to message preparation. He also recalled Rich Wilkerson going around the room and asking where everyone was from. A pastor from Ireland said they did not have anything like this back home and wanted to learn. Pastors who are ten or twenty years ahead, Sammy said, now feel approachable.

Unity without uniformity

Chandler had attended a different event during the conference. She recalled a preacher who said disunity is going out of style, and she connected it to the body of Christ, where one person may be a hand and another a pinky toe that steadies the whole body. She also told of a professor at an Ivy League school who asked her and Sammy to pray for him. He felt a pull to work with other denominations and churches, which is unheard of in his own.

For Chandler, the skill behind that kind of teamwork is staying connected to someone when you disagree. She said agreement may not even be the goal. In her words, "I can stay connected to you in relationship and love you." From there, she said, you can ask what kind of collaboration you are called to do together. Sammy and Heron agreed with the phrase that unity is not uniformity.

Heron added that churches in their area share resources and vendors, though he noted that some others do not share at all.

Health that includes the whole person

Sammy asked what marks a healthy team. Chandler answered from her counseling training, which uses a biopsychosocial approach, and then added a fourth part: the spiritual.

Biology covers sleep, nutrition, exercise and possible deficiencies. She said leaders need to lead themselves well before they lead others, and she singled out people who get six hours of sleep and assume they are fine. Psychology covers how you talk to yourself. She asked whether you sound like a bully or like a friend, and she invited listeners to ask the Holy Spirit to speak into the places where they are hard on themselves.

Sociology covers your environment and your history. She suggested asking how you learned to survive as a child, whether by fighting back or by pleasing people, and whether you still carry that posture into adult life. It also covers whether you are isolated now. At a first session, she said, she asks when someone last saw a doctor, because physical causes can sit behind panic or heart palpitations.

Everyone is building a team

Sammy pointed out that everyone leads some kind of team. A stay-at-home parent has kids, a cook at a restaurant has coworkers, and leadership can come from the top, the middle or the bottom. He asked whether we leave rooms better or drain them. He also noted that the people on any team arrive with a childhood and burdens we cannot see.

That brought Sammy to a verse about discipline.

But refuse profane and old wives’ fables. Exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise has some value, but godliness has value in all things, having the promise of the life which is now and of that which is to come.

(1 Timothy 4:7-8, WEB)

Heron said spiritual discipline is the foundation. If you want to build a team, he said, make room for prayer and Bible reading in it. He also named the physical side. He said he tries to meal prep and work out, and he shared that his wife recently told him he had been focusing too much on himself and needed to focus on the family.

Sammy described his own season, a thirty-day plan to read the whole Bible. He added a rule for anyone who misses a day: do not be a bully to yourself, be a buddy.

Starting in the Bible

Asked where a person should begin, Heron said to start with God's Word and to value quality over quantity. "Five minutes a day is better than two hours a week," he said, because it builds a habit. He added that treating the Bible like a drive-through leads to a drive-through life.

Chandler said that reading can feel boring, and she compared it to meals: not every one is your favorite, but plain food still does your body good. She said the Bible Project helped her see the context of each book and the gospel running through the Old Testament. Sammy offered a formula, content plus context equals meaning. He noted that the Bible was not written to us but is written for us, and he pointed to Hebrews 4:12, which calls it living and active. He suggested keeping a journal. In John 4, for example, you might notice that the woman at the well left her water bucket and then ask why.

Chandler also spoke about her own season as a mom of two young children, finishing grad school with no family nearby. She tried a thirty-day reading plan and could not keep up. She said she then felt the Lord tell her he is gentle with her heart. In her words, "I want you to have my heart more than my performance." She also mentioned a verse in Isaiah about God being gentle with those who have young children, and she offered it to any mom who is barely surviving.

A team can start with one person

Andy, who joined as the Gen Z voice, said he was homeschooled and introverted, and that his team early on was his brothers and one close cousin. They saw each other's struggles and joys, and later, over coffee, they encouraged each other and named each other's weaknesses. He said he only realized afterward that they had built a team.

His advice was that a team does not need to be big. It can be one friend, a parent or a sibling. He also said you and God are the first team you work on. He told listeners to start small and trust God to widen their reach.

Culture is carried

Sammy closed with a session he heard at the gathering, where a speaker defined culture as what we do and why we do it. Sammy compared it to walking off a plane into humidity, which you notice without anyone telling you. He said the speaker described three levels. At the first you can see the culture, at the second you are aware of it and can teach it, and at the highest level you will defend it, which is where leadership happens. He also repeated the speaker's line: "he who controls the language controls the culture."

Sammy asked what culture a team carries, whether it is a workplace, a family or a single friendship, and what jokes and language it uses. Whatever the culture is, he said, that is what it will value and make room for.

What this means for you

You are already on a team, whether it is a household, a shift or a group of friends. The conversation suggests a few places to start: stay connected to someone you disagree with, take care of your body and mind, and give God a few minutes every day.

You might also ask whose life you are in and who has a place in yours. If the answer is one person, that is a team you can build on.