Welcome to “Tuesday Morning”—while you are still remembering with awe the Winter Olympics.

 

Ken Paul Dupont, staff writer for the Boston Globe, called the final hockey game of the Olympics, “One large gold medal for Canada. One giant leap for hockey.” It was all of that. Millions of spectators around the world—many of whom have never donned a pair of hockey skates—watched with focused attention as 22-year-old Sidney Crosby of the Canadian team “swept home a Jarome Iginla relay to defeat Team USA, 3-2, with 7:40 gone in overtime.”

 

I was one of those spectators—albeit from afar. It was an incredible gold medal match—“the game’s shiniest moment of the new age”—according to Dupont. Here is how he described it: “Cutting to the net from the left wing boards, yelling for a pass as if he were carving up backyard ice in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, Crosby smacked a 10-foot shot through goalie Ryan Miller’s pads to clinch Canada’s eighth Olympic hockey gold medal. Save for a smattering of heartbroken Yanks, the sellout crowd of some 18,000 in Canada Hockey Place erupted in a thunderous roar as Crosby tossed away stick and gloves, skated into a corner, and was mobbed by teammates in a crowning moment of national pride, passion, and frenzy.”

 

It was an amazing game. Falling behind, 0-2 by the end of the second period, Team USA fought back brilliantly, especially in the closing minute of the third period—sans their goalie in net—and with seconds left, tied the score, 2-2. Into overtime—playing 4 on 4 rather than 5 on 5—the teams were dead even with less than 12 minutes remaining. Forty-six players were in uniform for both teams—almost all of them representing National Hockey League teams. Professionals all.

 

Team USA, definitive underdogs at the beginning of the two-week tournament, had defeated Canada 5-3 in a qualifier on February 21 and had not trailed in any of their games prior to the gold-medal game. One interesting note to the game: Sidney Crosby hadn't scored a goal in either of the two games prior to the final!

 

What made the difference? Team work. It was a team win. That is the subject of this week’s “Tuesday Morning”—“Team(s)…Work.” It is attached below. Continue reading whenever you are ready to get your spiritual juices flowing.

 

Tom Barnard

A Senior Observer

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Team(s)…Work

Tom Barnard

 

id you notice the title for this week’s Tuesday Morning? There are two themes, actually. One is “Team Work.” Most of us know what that means. “Unity of Purpose; Diversity of Gifts” is how Herman J. Sweet described the phrase in his 1963 book, The Multiple Staff in the Local Church. It was a cutting-edge book in the 1960s. The basic principles Sweet embraced then still work today.

 

The second theme is “Team(s) Work.” Perhaps you would agree with a marginal note here: Teams that don’t, won’t! How many professional sports teams can you name that are loaded with talent but won’t lay aside individual egos for the sake of team success? How many corporations are frustrated by the lack of commitment of persons from bottom to top in the organization? Such corporations struggle until they discover the secret of team work—unity of purpose; diversity of gifts. Team(s) Work is the message.

 

The late Elton Trueblood understood this principle long before today’s mega-church pastors were even born. He said,

 

“If the average church should suddenly take seriously the notion that every lay member—man or woman—is really a minister of Christ, we could have something like a revolution in a very short time.”

 

It could be a “tea party” of a different kind. Again: Unity of Purpose; Diversity of Gifts. Beeson Institute and Beacon Hill Press collaborated in publishing a helpful book on this subject in 2000. It was simply entitled, Building Teams in Ministry, edited by Dr. Dale Galloway, founder of the New Hope Community Church in Portland, Oregon. He and his co-authors focused on how to grow a church through lay leaders and lay ministries. Ten years later, churches that follow the principles outlined in this book are winners. Others are asking, “Why not us?” Check the stats. The principles work because the teams work.

 

Galloway states that building a dream team requires that you develop “a single heartbeat staff.” (There it is again: unity of purpose; diversity of gifts.) Galloway quotes the late Paul “Bear” Bryant, one of the coaching legends of college football, who said,

 

“I’m just a plow-hand from Arkansas, but I’ve learned how to hold a team together. You

have to lift up some, calm others down until you find you have got one heartbeat together.”

 

One heartbeat together! Galloway observes, “Developing ‘one heartbeat’ may be the most important part of growing an effective church staff. Too many staffs are not a team. Rather, they are isolated individual-ists or position specialists. They may fulfill specific assignments and do their work well, but they are not committed with one heart to the whole mission of the church.”

 

I submit that this principle not only works in churches, but in enterprises of all kinds involving more than one individual. My friend, Renda Brumbeloe, is a retired senior pilot from United Air Lines. In “Monday Musings” Renda tells the story of a flight he commanded from Chicago O’Hare to Miami. It was a clear day in Chicago, but two lines of active weather were ahead. When he turned on the radar and hit the test button, the “radar fail” indication light came on. His radar was dead. He consulted with his crew. They agreed that it wasn’t safe to continue without it. Though it was sunny and clear in Chicago, trouble lay ahead. The captain returned to O’Hare for technical help. It was the right decision for everyone on board.

 

Renda said, “It was a team decision…made in accordance with the flight manual. It is called ‘flight discipline.’ You see, we do not fly solo.”

 

Neither do I. Neither do you. Mutual accountability is a foundation of team work. Few of us can afford to “fly solo” in our ministry—lay or clergy. There are too many folk whose lives are at risk. The “flight manual” sets the parameters, but the person in the pilot’s seat makes the final decision. The wise leader evaluates, shares, consults, listens, and then makes the decision. All successful team leaders do this