This week, we are thrilled to host a guest blog from friend and colleague, Rev. Charity Goodwin who is the Pastor at The Gathering in St. Louis.
Rev. Charity Goodwin is The Gathering’s Clayton Site Pastor in St. Louis, Mo. She’s an ordained Elder in the UMC, endorsed by the Missouri Annual Conference as a coach, trained with Coaching4Clergy as well as a facilitator of Brené Brown’s research and emotional intelligence. All of this she integrates to consult with churches and pastors toward a healthier culture in her business Speaking Life Leadership Coaching . She convenes the Pastors Doing a New Thing Facebook Group and does live teaching weekly.
Rev. Goodwin is also the author of GET UP: Unearthing Your Passion and Taking Brave Action in 50 Days. Her first ministry is with her sons Gabriel,11 and Levi, 9. She calls them her boyjoys.
A Holistic Approach to Building Teams
Too often ministry experts assume one size fits all. You know that’s rarely, if ever helpful. Furthermore, the teaching tends to highlight what one needs to do. As Wesleyans, we value the head (mindset), heart (heartset) and hands (skillset). This is also referred to as thinking, feeling, and doing. Taking an integrative approach to ministry and specifically team building is how the best teams form.
What does a holistic approach to build your team look like? Let’s explore the head, heart and hands of building your team.
Mindset
Thinking through ministry teams two questions come to mind: why teams and what are the benefits of ministry teams.
Jesus was team centric. He, along with having a diverse and unlikely 12-plus person team, (remember the women who are named throughout as well) shared power with them. In Luke 10 Jesus commissions 72 to serve on his behalf. While we read and preach this scripture, creating a 12-person team or mobilizing 70 folks to implement ministry was not a class.. And yet, the ministry of Jesus impacts lives today in part because of the team approach Jesus incarnated. Building teams is a faithful response to being like Jesus.
Heartset
To lead with heart, you have to be aware of what feelings you’re experiencing. In society we lack an emotional vocabulary causing it to be difficult to navigate emotions in a healthy way. Emotions are neutral and yet we’ve ascribed good and bad values to them. When we can embrace emotions and see them as signs in which to pay attention and information to be gleaned, our leadership and team development is artistic rather than cookie cutter. How do you view emotions in your leadership? Or if you’re like me I viewed emotions as weak and vulnerable – now I appreciate them in a wholistic way as part of being a human and even sacred.
Skillset
This is the part that most folks lean on heavily – the to do’s and tools.
Writing a description of the perceived key duties and expectations of the role for the team member. Articulating your role in relationship to the team member essentially, what can they expect from you. You’ll also want to track your invitations to teams using something like Google Sheets. Noting and tracking dates for the following touchpoint sequence such as initial 1-1, the ask, reply, and onboarding next steps (this can be an entirely new Sheet).
If any of this wholistic and team talk challenges or inspires you, I invite you this Friday, November 4 at 11 a.m. CST to a free training called The Best Ministry Teams Start Here. All the details are here for you to sign up. I’m committed to supporting you, my colleagues in ministry. May all that we do be for the sake of Christ and to make his presence known and experienced here on earth.