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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on Facebook then available in video on our website <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">http://www.thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
David Moore on Ministry teams: Are they worth the pain?
How to best structure ministry teams in your church? And how to equip your team leaders for joyful service?
Team leaders do the bulk of their ministry in between events not at events.
How can someone become a more fruitful team leader?
Why all conversations with your team fit into four categories - and how most team leaders get this wrong.
David Moore is the executive pastor of Hunter Bible Church in Newcastle, New South Wales.
He has written a new book, The Team Leader’s Handbook, which will be widely read by churches and ministry teams all around.
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Assistant Minister role at Village Church Annandale, Sydney
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are they worth the pain? We're talking ministry teams and dave moore says, yes, it is the pastor's heart. My name is dominic. Still thanks for joining us. Dave moore has a new book out the team leaders handbook. Team leaders do the bulk of their ministry in between events, not at events. How can somebody become a more effective team leader, why all conversations with your team fit into four categories and how most team leaders get this wrong. Dave Moore is the executive pastor of Hunter Bible Church in Newcastle, new South Wales, and I predict this new Team Leaders Handbook is going to be extraordinarily widely read. I want to buy a stack of copies for the team leaders in our church. Dave ministry teams. I'm imagining that, having written the book on ministry teams, every team in your church must be functioning perfectly, and I'll just say that's not the situation here and I've been trying to roll out ministry teams here and kind of to do it the way that you're describing since 2018. And some of them are going great and some of them not so great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's our experience as well. So much of what we have found out over the last 10, 20 years of trying to do ministry through teams is that it's hard work. There is a real pain to getting ministry done through teams, but it is worth it. There is a pain, yeah. What is the pain? Well, the pain is I think one of the key pains is that when people step up from being a team member, from doing ministry, to being a team leader, it's actually a big shift in the role that they have to do. The role changes completely. I think one of the classic mistakes that happen in church world is we have a group of people and they do a ministry really well and we think, oh, I should make someone the team leader of that team, and so what we normally do is we look at the best person who does that role and we say you should be the team leader, and so I mean the best person and my heart's right. Yes, they're enthusiastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Yes, they're enthusiastic. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they've got energy, that's right.
Speaker 2:They look like they're excited about this thing and so we say, can you be the team leader? And what they think that means is they think now they have to do two jobs. Now they have to be the team leader and be in the team. Still they don't. They don't grasp the idea that they actually have to stop doing the thing that they love doing, and we often end up with teams where the person we've appointed as the team leader struggles to sit between these two worlds of still trying to do the team member stuff and struggling to work out what it means to be a team member.
Speaker 2:A team leader, yeah, team leader, yeah, but seeing that the team member stuff is essential and so I can't drop that ball, yeah, well, I think what we also do is we have such a high value of doing that well as we do ministry, as our teams do ministry. We want them to do that really well and we love seeing it done well, and we kind of struggle to imagine someone else doing it or doing it not as well, and so we become allergic to letting things be done not so well for the sake of growing a team. That's part of the pain of watching your team do slightly worse as you build them up into a healthy team.
Speaker 1:But you're saying teams are worth the pain. Why are they worth the pain? Because when?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a really good question, because when we do it, we actually get more ministry done, we actually love more people, we serve more people. Well, that, if we don't encourage people to join teams and step up into team leadership, then what that leaves us with is churches or ministry organisations where those in leadership function as the team leaders for 20, 30 teams, and they do that not well at all. It's trading off one pain of being a team leader for every team compared to raising up team the pain of raising up team leaders and them doing a much better job than if you led all the teams, and so when they do that, they actually love it. So one of the lovely things we've found is, as we've gone through the pain of encouraging people to be team leaders and take on that role and they change their mindset about what it is they're trying to do.
Speaker 2:They actually love it, they can actually see the value of what they're doing and how it's enabling more people to serve well. And I think when you do it well, the outcome is much better than if you led the team.
Speaker 1:Team leaders do the bulk of their ministry in between events, not at events. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think this is one of the kind of philosophy shifts that happen when someone moves from being a team member to being a team leader. And I think there's a helpful illustration that helped me understand this with one of our MTS trainees, as he was working through this and he was really into sports, and so I'll just use a sport illustration for him. He loves soccer, so I talked to him about what a coach does, what a soccer coach does, and during the game the soccer coach watches, watches. They don't run onto the field. That would be really weird if they did.
Speaker 2:Their job is to watch and think, and what they're thinking about is all the conversations they need to have before the next game. They're thinking about all the things the team needs to do before the next game. They are planning their week. That's what a team leader. That's kind of an ideal world of a team leader that the youth team leader sets everything up through the week. That's where the bulk of their work happens. And then they get to youth and they watch as their team members happens. And then they get to youth and they watch as their team members do the ministry. They get the joy of watching other people do the things they've set them up to do.
Speaker 1:So can you be a team member and a team leader at the same time.
Speaker 2:You can and it happens a lot. But if I can push the illustration a little bit, it's a little bit like being a player coach on a team that you neither coach the team well nor play particularly well. You're kind of caught between those two worlds. And so you can do it and it happens a lot, and I do it a lot on the teams I'm in as well that there's a certain point where you have to jump in and make sure things happen.
Speaker 1:Someone's got to put the chairs out. That's right, and I'm one of the people who puts the chairs out, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think what is helpful, I think, is if we talk to our team leaders about saying that's the exception, not the rule. There's always be times where you have to step in and play on the team, but let's make the ideal that you don't. The ideal is you step back and you encourage your team members to do it. You set them up to do the ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, leading people often means asking people to do things that they don't necessarily want to do.
Speaker 2:Yes, is that a statement or a question?
Speaker 1:I'm pointing you. Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, because it's very easy for people to say, hey, here's the thing you love, let me free you up to do the thing you love. So if we think about church, it's really easy. If you find the person who loves, think about church, it's really easy. If you find the person who loves welcoming at church, that's great. And so team leading them means saying, hey, let's work out how to help you do the thing that you love.
Speaker 2:But every aspect of ministry involves sacrifice. Every aspect of what we're doing, we're doing it for others. We're not actually doing it for ourselves. And so there's a real part of this that we want our team leaders to care about the personal faith, the personal trust and living for Jesus that their team members have and call them to sacrifice, call them to do hard things for the kingdom, not just do the things that they like. So an example of this might be we have a coffee team that provides coffee for people before church. Some of those people love coffee. They absolutely they love making coffee. It's really important to them, as they do that.
Speaker 2:I actually don't want them to care as much about the coffee as they care about warmly welcoming the person who they're serving. That is the purpose of what they're doing is loving people, and the tool they're using is the coffee. If they're just doing it for the thing that they like, then they're not going to care about the big purpose. And this is one of the things that team leaders get to sit back and watch and then ask about and go hey, how are you feeling about what you're doing? What's your motivation for being on this team? Can I remind you of the big prayer that we're trying to achieve? We're trying to welcome people well and warmly. If you're really engrossed in your coffee, you don't welcome them well, then we don't achieve what the big prayer is. We're not doing the thing we're trying to do.
Speaker 1:I want to come back to that big prayer in a minute. Yeah, just before we do that, can you talk to me about? I'm looking at page 42 of the book and this diagram and we'll put it up on the screen and if you're listening to the Pastor's Heart today, you may want to go across to thepastorsharpnet and find this episode and see this diagram, because it's a super helpful diagram. On the Y-axis, it's got let's keep discussing this at the top and let's keep each other in the loop down the bottom. And on the X-axis, to the left, it's got, I'm making this decision. And to the right, it's got, you're making this decision.
Speaker 1:And there's four quadrants. Let's start in the bottom left, the type one conversation, which is I'm making this decision, and let's keep each other in the loop. Tell us about that one, because you're saying every conversation you have as a team leader is in one of these four quadrants. And really that was a light bulb for me as I read this book. That was a light bulb for me as I read this book and I thought that is so clearly true. And yet I've been doing this for a long time and I've never thought about it like this before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when someone describes it, so it's not my idea. When someone described it to me, I was like that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I'm always going to tell everyone dave moore's idea that so I think it's really helpful just to recognize I think all every good diagram or illustration works because you go, that resonates, that, that makes sense of of the world, I mean. And so what it's doing is saying, yeah, we have this type one conversation. Some conversations we have with our team members is hey, hey, I've made a decision and I need to keep you in the loop about the thing I've decided. And that can be a huge decision Like this is why our team exists. Or it can be a small decision, like we're doing it on this date and so, but the goal is to recognize oh, as a team leader, I've got a responsibility to keep my team in the loop. I've got to keep reminding them of the big prayer, the big purpose why we exist. Or, if we've changed the date, I've got a responsibility to tell them early on, not let them find out late that type of thing. And so we need to remind ourselves to have those conversations with our teams. They're the ones that get assumed and not had Type two conversations.
Speaker 2:Type two conversations is where we're still making the decision, but we want to chat about the decision with our team members. Where we say to our team members hey, I've got to make a call about this thing, or you're talking about the Halloween thing. Maybe your team sat down and went, okay, we've got to make a decision. And you go, look, I'll make the final decision here, but let's all brainstorm, let's have input together, let's discuss the principles and the reason why and what we value about it. Let's get that all out on the table. But in the end I'll make the decision.
Speaker 1:And that gives a lot of clarity to teams, because they don't realise you tell a story in your church where there was a vigorous discussion in your staff meeting about whether or not we would do X or Y.
Speaker 2:Actually, yeah, I still can't remember what the discussion was.
Speaker 1:But you remember the intensity of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was heated and there was a point it was just kind of silent as people kind of realised what was at stake, whatever it was. And Richard Swetman said to Greg Greg, can I just check what type of discussion are we having here? Is this something we need consensus on or something you're deciding? Really, he's saying, is this type 2 or type 1? Yeah, well, he'd be saying type 3 or type 2. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, you better tell us what type 3 is and then continue with that story in a moment.
Speaker 2:So type 3 is where you're a team leader and the conversation you have with your team member is hey, let's talk about the values and brainstorm together, but in the end you make the decision, you make the call. We want our team members to bear responsibility for making the decision and we don't make the decision. We withhold veto right. So, whatever you tried, but we make it part of a conversation. I think in that moment it felt like we were having a conversation somewhere between type two and type three, where we are making the decision. Both the leader and the team member is making the decision. That's always awkward.
Speaker 2:I think there are some people who really love consensus and their team leaders go oh no, I just want to get all the team on board, and that's a lovely ideal, but in the end, someone has to make a decision unless you vote and I don't think we want teams to necessarily vote on outcomes. I think we want to be clear and say this is a decision that I'll make or this is a decision that you'll make Anyway. So what happened was that, as Richard asked that question, Greg very graciously said oh my goodness, you're right. I have not been clear in the situation. This is a discussion that we're all going to have, but in the end I will make the call, I'll make the decision. And as soon as he said that, the tension went out of the room because we all realised what role we were playing and how the team was operating. Without that clarity, there's a real ambiguity about who's making the decision here and who's making the decision. It's a really big distinction when discussions are happening.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've got the distinction there between type three and type two. Now, what's type?
Speaker 2:four Type four conversations are where we've given our team members the authority to make a decision. They're responsible for a decision and we want them to keep us in the loop, and so it's not a deep conversation. We're not wanting to go into all the details, it's a short conversation. They might send us a text or an email or a quick chat saying oh, this is what I've decided, so that they know that we still care, that we're interested in what they're doing, but we keep encouraging them, empowering them, that it's their call and what that does is those four conversations gives us a pathway to work out.
Speaker 2:Okay, what does my team member need me to be right now? I think this is one of the really key things for team members to grasp is, I think the way team members team leaders, sorry, the way team leaders are self-sacrificial, the way we're servant-hearted, is that we want to be the type of leader that in the moment that our team members need us to be. But if I have a preference for being a type one type leader, having type one conversations all the time, and you're saying we will actually have preferences- oh, definitely, yes, yeah, we all have preferences.
Speaker 1:I think I as you were describing. I think I'm a type three.
Speaker 2:You're a type three, so you want to have discussions with people, but you want them to make the decision.
Speaker 1:Well, I want there to be a consensus to yeah right, I want, I really do want our staff team to come to a common mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is a nice idea and it is like it's worth trying getting. If it's basically it's good to get everyone on the team on the same page, that's really helpful, but in the end you're happy for someone else to make the call well, I wanted to come to a common mind, which I'd really like them to be.
Speaker 1:the one that I think is right. That's right, but I do recognise if I get my way every time, then actually that's not a good way for it to go. Yeah. And so I do try to defer to the common mind as much as I can.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I think I've recognised that I'm similar.
Speaker 1:You can rebuke me on that if you want.
Speaker 2:I prefer leading in type two. I prefer having type two conversations with people, where I'm getting them to brainstorm and I make the call Right. But as I've looked back over the last ten years of my development as a team leader, the one I've had to develop in most is type 3. I think type 3 is the hardest Right, because you have to have deep conversations with people and without saying that's great, let's do that. Because the moment you say that's great, let's do that. What you've done is made it a type 2 conversation because you've made the decision. Ah, yes, your team leaders sorry, your team members hear the team leader say that's great, dave said let's do that, so that's what we're doing. And so a type three conversation is a conversation where you say, oh look, it seems like you've thought about it heaps, that's wonderful. Whatever you decide will be great. Let me know you move it to type four. Keep deciding, let me know, keep me in the loop, what you finally choose.
Speaker 1:When was it that you worked out this four-type category?
Speaker 2:We went to Greg and I went to a leadership a very early leadership development thing, pre-reach Australia type thing and there was a guy there named Scott Perry-Jones and he's done a lot of leadership stuff in the particular world and he kind of talked through it and, like you were describing, it was like a light bulb. I just went. That makes so much sense of conversations that as a team member I've been in so as Greg has conversations with me, or throughout my life as team leaders have had conversations with me as a team member, I'm like, oh, that's why that clashed, that's why there was that conflict, and so now do you use it as part of your kind of chatting in the staff team.
Speaker 1:He might say now I've got to bring you a type one thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much. It's become part of the language of our team and even the teams within our church. So if I'm bringing on, if I'm raising up someone in one of the teams that I am leading, I will write this grid out and I'll describe the different types of conversations and say look, over the course of the next couple of months I'm going to have lots of these conversations with you and lots of these conversations. But my ideal is we have lots of these conversations where you're making the decision, so I can give them a pattern or a mindset of where conversations will go and even I'll be. I did this recently with someone where one of my team members came to me and they said oh Dave, can you help me decide this? And I went okay, let's be really clear. I'm going to help you decide this, I'm not going to make the decision. And you could see their face fall. What they really wanted was for me to make the decision.
Speaker 2:And I'm like no, no no, we're going to have a type three conversation. You're going to make the call and as soon as I said we're having a type three conversation, they went oh, I know, I understand. Yeah, that's what's going to make me make the decision here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now you talk about praying the big prayer for the team and that being a type one thing. So tell me what.
Speaker 2:firstly, the big prayer is yeah, see, I love the idea that our teams have a big prayer, and I think there's a few reasons. So one is we want to bring our teams and the ministry they're doing to God, and we also want our teams to understand why they exist. And I think prayer is just a really good overlap of those things that we think about our teams and we say God, help our teams, please use us to do this thing, whatever it is. And then I think there might be a lot of team leaders who do that, but they don't communicate that to their teams. They don't let, they don't keep their teams in the loop about, hey, do you realize?
Speaker 2:The thing that I'm praying for us is this thing. So I'm on the finance team at our church and for last few years we've been praying god help us, please use us to wisely steward the finances at Hunter Bible Church, and I've got them to pray that, and so hearing them pray the same thing in their own words helps clarify why the team exists. So we could have done months on vision and strategy and that type of thing, but Christians, we've got a God who is sovereign over all things and who uses us, and so I just think it's a really lovely way to do it. Let's just pray for it together, and the way we pray for our teams clarifies for our teams why they exist.
Speaker 1:I felt, just as you say this I'm feeling slightly rebuked and slightly affirmed. On the one hand, when I was first reading this chapter, I thought I'm feeling rebuked because often when I am leading a team meeting and most of the teams I'm in I'm the leader in the team and I'll delegate prayer to somebody, I'll lead the content of the meeting and then I'll delegate prayer to include somebody else, which could mean that what we actually pray is not quite as clear as what you're encouraging me to do, which is actually to not just be praying for the sake of asking God's blessing, but praying for the sake of having clarity about what we're asking for. And so I felt a slight rebuke. But then, just as you were speaking, then I feel a slight affirmation that you've actually also tried to educate them on what the right thing to pray is, and they're praying the big team prayer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think it's helpful to get your team to, as you get your team together, to get them to pray for the team, because it helps. Not only is it helpful because you're praying to God, which is most important, it also helps you think about what it is they think the team exists for. So, for example, we had a kids' team once and my apprentice was leading the team and as he got the team to pray, one of the members kept praying that these kids would further in their education while they're at church. It was the constant thing that this person kept praying for, and so what that led to was a great conversation between he, the team leader, and her, the team member, about why the team exists, and there was a correction that needed to happen. This team member.
Speaker 2:We're not actually about you scoring high distinctions in algebra, yeah yeah, we don't actually care that much about how the kids go at school throughout the week. That's not our thing, holiness yeah and so hearing our team members pray for the team does help us clarify with them why they think the team exists um community group leaders.
Speaker 1:Bible study group leaders. Growth group leaders. Bible study group leaders. Growth group leaders are they team leaders? Yeah, this is a big. I'm just trying to remember what Craig Hamilton says. I can't remember, but there's a debate on this topic. There is.
Speaker 2:So it's quite common, as churches embrace the idea of doing ministry through teams, that they will look at their small group leaders and say, oh, they're leaders, that means they're team leaders and consider them as team leaders. I want to strongly suggest against that. I want to say that your small group, the leaders of a small group, they are the team members of the small group team. There is a team at your church of people who lead small groups and I think it's similar to the person who leads a Sunday school is a Sunday school leader. That is, they're sitting with the kids, they're teaching the kids, they're doing craft with the kids. A small group leader is similar to that in that the action between what they're doing and the ministry participant. They're serving the people directly. A team leader the ideal of a team leader is that they serve people through team members, not directly. So, for example, the preacher on a Sunday is operating in a team member role.
Speaker 1:They're a team member, with the guitarist, with the person leading in prayer. That's right. With the sound desk operator yeah, the active preaching. And even with the sound desk operator yeah, the active preaching.
Speaker 2:And even with the welcomer. That's right. It's a team member role. Now that doesn't mean that they're less important or anything, because we don't attach importance or value of someone to their role. We separate those things. It just means in that particular role you are part of a team and you're serving together as a team to achieve this one big prayer.
Speaker 1:I mean. So I'm just thinking back when I worked in radio, our news director of the radio newsroom was also the breakfast news presenter and I was the breakfast news editor, so I was responsible for leading the team that was creating the news bulletins between 5 am and midday and in fact the news director worked for me.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1:And then we would, essentially at 9 am when the breakfast team finished, we would finish the breakfast shift and we'd walk out and he would be the news director and be my boss again and then give me feedback on how I'd done.
Speaker 2:It does make it slightly awkward. We talk about changing hats, that I'm wearing this hat with you at the moment and I'm taking off this hat. I'm going to put this other hat on at the moment.
Speaker 1:Let's talk it with me wearing that hat as a way of describing that weirdness what's the difference between being a team leader in a volunteer capacity and being a um a boss in a workplace, because I think people get these things mixed up it's interesting.
Speaker 2:You ask that. So I think one of the things we've found surprising is the number of people. What we found at our church, at least the number of people. Well, we found at our church at least the number of people who, in their secular role, are team. They lead teams, lead teams of 10, 20 hundreds, and we put them in a church role where they lead a team and all of a sudden it's like they don't know how to. And it's not that they don't have the skills. What we found is a bit of a I think it's a bit of a heart issue that in their secular role, they feel this right, this is my role, this is what I've been appointed to, this is what I'm paid to do, and the people under me are paid to be there, and so the lever you can use to motivate people is largely I'm paying you. Therefore you should. But in a church context, that's not the lever that we use. We don't use the lever of I'm paying you more, so you should. We use the lever of I love you and we want to love these people and we love jesus and we want to grow his kingdom. Let's do it all together. And so, as soon as that person.
Speaker 2:I had the conversation with someone just the other week. He was saying so he leads our welcoming team in his secular job. He leads a team of 50 people in this job welcoming team. Something hadn't arrived and so he left the team of 10 people and said I'll go to the shops and I'll get it. And that was 15 minutes, 15 minutes there, 15 minutes back, 45 minutes of his team leading time. He just wasn't there and he was having a chat to me afterwards and he goes.
Speaker 2:I can't believe I did that. Why would I? I would never do that at work. I would send someone else. But as soon as I get to church I'm like, oh no, I couldn't ask someone else to do it. I, I need to be a servant leader and so that means I need to step in and I need to do it. And he's going through the mindset shift, mindset shift of thinking. This is the way I lead my team is to get them to do things and I can't just rely on the fact that they're my employees. I've got to actually talk to them and say this is a good thing for you to do. I've got to motivate them with something other than that this is their job.
Speaker 1:It's interesting as you tell that story. I'm remembering leaving radio journalism where I was team leader of a group of journalists, going to be a ministry trainee leading a beach mission team, leading different ministry teams, then going to be a student minister, and the end of second year theological college I went. I had in the three month summer break I went back to read the afternoon news on 2GB Sydney and it was quite a strange dynamic for me as a casual to go in, above all these permanents and who were there. But I discovered Christian ministry had taught me to be a massively better team leader than anyone else in that secular environment, because if you can lead people who aren't paid to follow you, you can definitely lead people who are paid to follow you.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Yeah, and that doesn't mean that people in secular workforce aren't good at leadership. They really are and they have great skills and there are things that we want to learn from them. But there is a dynamic that happens in church where there's an identity thing of who am I and why am I doing this particular thing. I think it's one of the reasons it's hard to raise people into team leadership roles, because there's an identity shift.
Speaker 1:Where does the pastoral responsibility fall in terms of when I'm a team leader? How much is I mean? I know, when I'm a pastor, I've got pastoral responsibility. When I'm a community group leader, bible study group leader, I've got pastoral responsibility. What about when I'm a team leader?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is again one of those tricky things that we need to negotiate with our team leaders, and I wonder if different churches will do it a little bit differently. So I think we want our team leaders to care genuinely care about the Christian walk of the people on their teams and they want their teams to be Christian. They want their teams to love one another, because teams inevitably have conflict, and they want team leaders have a responsibility to ensure there's a culture, christian culture, on their teams where they love one another and they forgive one another. And yet, because teams are part of a bigger church team, I think I want to say to team leaders you don't have to bear the full responsibility of this.
Speaker 2:These people in your teams, they are firstly part of the church. They are firstly under the, the structures and the past responsibility of the church and the others the other programs that are there, and so I think there's a shared responsibility. The team leaders can go. I know these team members are getting fed over here and they have other people who are looking out for them and I'm going to have a, I'm going to play a role in overseeing and caring for them, but I'm not going to. I don't need to take the full pastoral weight or responsibility for this person. I'm not taking these people out of church and into my own small thing. I'm doing that in partnership with the church that we're part of.
Speaker 1:Teams are going to have conflict. You just said.
Speaker 2:Yes, teams are always going to have conflict. You just said, yes, teams are always going to have conflict If you have a lot of people who care about the thing they're doing, that is, if you give them responsibility. If you don't want conflict in your teams, just don't give your team members responsibility and just tell them just do tasks. You won't have the conflict. But if you want to give them responsibility, then they're going to care about the thing they're doing, and as soon as two people care about something a lot well, they're going to have different opinions about how that is supposed to be done. And so part of what a team leader does is encourage those people to come up with ideas and to shape those ideas and to help those people work together for those ideas.
Speaker 1:And my observation is people care much more about what we're doing at church than they do about what we're doing at work.
Speaker 2:Yes they do.
Speaker 1:And so, therefore, we're much more likely to have conflict because they just say well, they're paying me, I'll suck it up, even if it is inefficient, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think this is just going back to what we talked about before. This is where being clear on who makes the call is so important. That is, if you have a team of people and Jenny thinks that she gets the decision, but then Julie also thinks she gets the same decision and they both go and make a decision, well, the conflict that they have is your fault as the team leader, because you haven't clarified to them who's making the call.
Speaker 1:Dave, Moore is the author of this new book, the Team Leader's Handbook how to Help Christians Serve Jesus Together. My initial reaction on reading this book was I was reflecting back to my impressions on reading Andrew Heard's book Growth and Change that came out in February, and when I read Andrew's book I thought this is a book I want to buy for all my leaders and I bought 25 copies of it. But this is a book this Team Leaders Handbook which I think will actually transform on the ground. It won't give me as much the big picture that Andrew gives me, but it will help me transform on the ground how the various ministry teams in our church operate. So I'm expecting to go and buy 25 copies of this book as well. So thank you very much, david, for writing this, and I think it's going to be a good tonic for our church. My name's Dominic Steele. Dave Moore from Hunter Bible Church in Newcastle has been my guest. The book is the Team Leader's Handbook and you've been watching the Pastor's Heart. No-transcript.
