The Dynamics of Team Ministry

Team ministry is God's plan and team is the ideal model for most the effective ministry. It also has great benefit to both the participants and the church or ministry where the team operates. God desires that His church be a place of equipping and multiplication of ministry. If a church wants to be all that it is supposed to be, it will be a place of equipping, training, impartation, activation and deployment. And team ministry is one very effective context to accomplish this.

Benefits Of Team Ministry To Team Trainees

No one is fully equipped to survive by themselves, much less thrive. Our own weaknesses, blind spots, limited capabilities and lack of experience underscore just how much we need one another. The team environment is a wonderful way to train and equip people. Trainees can come to understand their current capabilities and recognize their limitations in a team environment. They can be stretched in new areas of responsibility and function, and at the same time they have a safe place to learn from their mistakes. Mistakes will be made, but their effects will be minimized when the trainee stays under proper oversight. This type of environment causes team members to develop faster in their ministry skills. Team ministry provides a safe and objective place for people to grow in ministry experience. It is also a vehicle for equipping, mentoring, and impartation. It is a place for someone to discover their potential.

As a part of a team, members can glean wisdom by learning from the anointing, counsel and style of the senior team leader. The team environment gives members a change to work with more mature, seasoned spiritual leaders. A team member can learn from the abilities and experience of the senior members of the team.

Mentoring

The common term for this dynamic today is "mentor." Jesus participated in mentoring. Jesus made disciples, and told His disciples to make disciples, etc., etc. Paul told Timothy: "And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2;2) Mentoring is defined as training and tutelage of another. There are various specific aspects of mentoring that depend on the kind of mentoring that is being done.

The following is an overview of various kinds of mentor relationships, grouped into four categories. They don't all pertain directly to the type of mentoring found in team ministry, but I have placed them here for clarification. Each of these categories varies in effectiveness depending on the depth of: openness, trust, commitment, accountability and responsibility, and commitment to personal growth.

INTENSIVE MENTORING:

Intensive mentoring is direct and specific to an area of growth. It includes Disciplers, Spiritual Guides and Coaches.

Discipler

A discipler teaches and enables a mentoree in the basics of following Christ.

Spiritual guide

A mature follower of Jesus who can help a younger believer into further maturity in the things of God.

Coach

One who provides motivation and imparts skills and application to meet a specific task or challenge. A coach offers specialized training in a particular area. This is a relational process in which a mentor, who knows how to do something well, imparts those skills to a mentoree who wants to learn them.

Occasional mentoring is a resource for the believer to glean from when needed. The two primary forms of this are Counselor and Teacher.

Counselor

One who provides timely advice on an occasional basis regarding self, circumstances, relationships or ministry. This could include encouragement, acting as a sounding board, major evaluation, providing an impartial perspective, giving specific advice, resource linking, providing major guidance, etc.

Teacher

One who imparts knowledge and understanding on a particular subject.

Passive mentoring is where one provides training to others without having a direction relationship with them. The most common example is role models. A roll model can be a historical figure from the past or someone from the present. The person's life and ministry is used as an example to indirectly impart skills, principles and values that empower another person. For example that which can be derived from the body of writings of a well known minister or leader.

Co-Mentors are peer relationships, based on the truth that we can learn from those around us. Co-Mentors include acquaintances, friends and co-laborers. These peer mentor relationships provide mutual benefit from openness, trust, commitment, accountability and responsibility.

Mentoring In A Team Environment

focus in this lesson is on the category that could be considered that of a "spiritual guide" or "coach." That is more descriptive of the kind of mentoring that occurs in the context of team ministry.

The progressive process of direct mentoring can also be described in this manner:

1. I do it, you watch,
2. We do it together,
3. You do it, I watch,
4. You do it alone, with appropriate accountability

Impartation

An important dynamic in the process of mentoring is the concept of impartation. Impartation is the bestowing unto another that which you, yourself, possess. This implies that you cannot give away that you do not have. Impartation happens on several levels and in several ways. I will cover three of this in this lesson: teaching, association and authorization.

TEACHING:

Teaching is often considered simply the impartation of knowledge and information. Information is important, of course. Jesus was a great teacher and He used His teaching ability to impart much into His disciples. We must not neglect the value of teaching. Anointed teaching, however, can go quite beyond the realm of simply impartation of information. One man put it this way: "more information will not help when an 'unveiling' is what is needed." Anointed teaching is that which has with it an element of revelation.

Teaching, however, is not the only method of impartation.

ASSOCIATION:

Association is an important part of impartation that often is not even considered. The impartation that occurs through association has more to do with "catching" the same spirit, attitudes and anointings that reside on another. Scripture contains examples of impartation through association. For instance, Jesus called the disciples so that they could be "with Him" (Mark 3:14). The book of Acts describes how Peter and the apostles were instrumental in the birth of the church. Acts 4:13 comments on how it was apparent that they have been with Jesus. It says, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).

An example of the impartation of the Spirit by association is also seen in the story of Saul, the first King of Israel. Samuel told him there would be a change when he came among the company of prophets and that he would himself prophesy.

The story is told in 1 Samuel 10, where Samuel told Saul: "And it will happen, when you have come there to the city, that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with a stringed instrument, a tambourine, a flute, and a harp before them; and they will be prophesying. Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man" (1 Sam 10:5-6). "When they came there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him; then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them" (1 Sam 10:10).

We also see this dynamic from the story of Elijah and Elisha. Elisha was with Elijah and served Elijah's ministry for 17 years. And from there, he inherited a double portion of Elijah's anointing. In his case he literally "caught" Elijah's mantel.

AUTHORIZATION:

A third, and important dynamic regarding impartation is in the power of "authorization." Authorization is the empowerment that happens from one who has legitimate authority and grants that authority to another. The one who has the power, or operates in a realm of revelation or authority, grants another to operate in the same realm. This same kind of impartation occurs during ordination.

One example of this is in the story of the apostle Paul and his trainee Timothy. Timothy had apparently had this sort of impartation from Paul, as discovered later in Paul's letters to Timothy. Paul wrote: "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership" (1 Tim 4:14). Later he wrote: "Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim 1:6-7). Timothy had received an impartation from Paul, but then Paul also told him not to impart it to others indiscriminately. It is in this context that the scripture applies which says "Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people's sins" (1 Tim 5:22).

These areas of impartation, though somewhat intangible, never-the-less are very real, and are benefits that can be obtained from a willingness to be a participant in team ministry.