Teamwork

Last night, I was honored to speak at our youth service because our youth pastor was in Houston for a minister's meeting. His planned speaker was out of town for the week leading up to the service so he was unable to prepare. It left Derek without a speaker for the night. He asked me on Tuesday morning if I could do it. I ribbed him for a little bit about it. I always knew that if it needed to be done I would step up and get it done. That is part of being on a team. Doing stuff like that is part of being a pastor.

Teamwork is a part of life. As a kid, you play sports and learn this. You learn phrases like, their is no I in the word team. You are told the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. In school, they give you projects to work on with other kid's in your classes. You are expected to play well with others. I see a problem with many people today though in ministry and in other fields, teamwork is hard to achieve.

One, people have self esteem issues. People will either think to highly of themselves to stop what they are doing and reach out to others. They get to big and to busy to let worry about others. Some people have self esteem issues the other way and they worry so much that others will hate their ideas. They worry that being compared to someone else they will look bad. People also forget about teamwork because of business. Everyone gets so busy doing their own thing that stopping and combining ideas and effort is almost impossible for many. It is sad because so much more stuff can be accomplished when we work together.

I can honestly tell you the things that have been most rewarding in my job life or ministry have been things that I have been able to work on with friends as a team. Working on overnighters with other kid's pastors, Upward basketball in Cleburne, finishing a room with our youth pastor, and countless other things that I can not take credit for as this was Darrell's thing. I know many of those things would never have happened if others had not said, "hey, I want to be a part". It is silly to take off and try to do anything on your own because you are limited by yourself. When you work as a team, your capacity to do more grows by leaps and bounds.

Today, take a few moments and look at the things in life you want to accomplish. Are you so worried about doing them by yourself that you are going to miss out on being successful? Or are you in a spot that you can ask a friend or be a friend and help? If you help someone or become a part of a team then you will always do so much more.

What Happened?

Yesterday, I went to Barnes & Noble on my day off. I walked around looking at random books in christian inspiration, biographies, history, and leadership. I love reading people who are in business or other fields about leadership and then trying to apply them to our life in the church. I enjoy history and biographies because I think there is so much we can learn from choices made by leaders. So, as I am going through I run across a book by Deepak Chopra called "Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment". Knowing a little bit about Chopra, I was curious as to what he was saying about Jesus because it isn't like he is a Christian. He has been know for his new age beliefs for years. This book he wrote was Chopra's take on what happened to Jesus from the years of 12 to 30. I think it is interesting how many people have come with different theories about those years in Jesus life.

Christopher Moore wrote a very funny, very irreverent book about those years in Jesus life. It had Jesus going all over the world doing different things and learning things in order to prepare himself for the ministry. But yet again, another author that would probably not describe himself as a Christian writing about the "untold years" of Jesus life.

I find it interesting, people that don't consider themselves Christ followers pondering the life of Jesus. As a kid's pastor, I know I have wondered what Jesus was like as a child and a teen. All we really have from the Bible is, "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." from Luke 2:52. Okay, but what kind of sense of humor did Jesus have? Did Jesus play practical jokes? How was Jesus at in school? Did Jesus ever sleep in after a night of studying? Was he ever late for synagogue school? What kid like stuff did Jesus do that gets pinned only on "bad" kids? I think it is fun to consider what Jesus was like. I also think it is important that we think about Jesus as a kid. I think it is important because we spend time thinking about Jesus and it makes it easier to apply it to our lives. I just think it is good to think about Jesus. Read about who he was as an adult and consider the people that influenced him as a youth.

Spend some time considering Jesus. Spend some time considering who he was and how that should shape your decisions in life.