Working Together with Different Gifts

               Team dynamics are tricky for everyone, because we have different abilities and specialties, and blending those together can be hard. Paul talked about this with the Corinthians who kept fighting, because they weren’t respecting each other’s gifts. I’m sure you have probably been on a team like that before. Too many people give directions…or not enough direction is given. It’s hard to find a good blend sometimes.

 

              

               Creative                                                                                                        Manager

One way to think about gifts on a team, is to think about the kind of gift people have on a spectrum. On one end, you have your very creative, visionary people. They think up new ideas or ways to do things. They can see things that aren’t yet, and can rethink old problems. On the other end of the spectrum are managers. These people can take an idea and break it into manageable steps. They can see the different parts of the whole. They are strategists. A great team has both these people on it, because together they make things happen that surprise everyone. 

               But because these two kinds of people think differently, they have a tendency to drive each other crazy. A good leader can get these people to see the other’s work as valuable and appreciated. They can bring the creative folks to the table, and then equip the managers to flesh out the ideas that are brought forward. They also can help creative folks to not only be the dreamers but the problem solvers when something in the strategy is not quite working. 

               If you were to place yourself on that spectrum, where do you think you would be? Do you lean on the creative side? If so, you may be great at thinking up ideas, but bad at implementing them. Maybe you lean more to the managerial side. You can see the details, and assign people to tasks along the way, but it’s hard for you to think outside the box. 

Whichever end you are on, it is important to make space for others and to have grace with others. When the creative type cannot work out the details or seems to not get things going, it helps to step back and realize they need a manager not to yell at them, but to come alongside them. When a manager starts micromanaging and it feels like they have “taken over” the project, it is important to have grace with them, to come alongside them and help them to think about things a new way. 

God made us all different not so we would drive each other crazy, but so that we would complement each other. One of my favorite cartoons when I was little was Captain Planet. There were a group of kids each with one super power, and when they put their rings together, they created Captain Planet who could do so much more than they could separately. That is the picture I see in Paul’s writings about gifts. God has made us all in his image and likeness with a small part of Him. When we put those gifts together, we make an image that better represents God. We can do immeasurably more when we work together in grace and love, and God can do more through us. 

               So the next time you get frustrated at someone on your team, take a deep breath and think about how what is driving you crazy also makes your team stronger. Think of how you can support each other to get where you need to go, and help each other in those weak spots. We need all kinds if we are to transform the world.    

Persistence

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

18 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ² He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³ And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

⁴ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’ ”

⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” ^[1]

Widow in the Scripture is code for “someone with nothing.” A widow had no husband or sons, and with them no land rights or ability to make a living. They were at a dead end. This is why Jesus consistently reached out to them as the poorest of the poor and makes them the hero of his stories. With one word he described a person of the utmost lowest class without the ability to rise. Not only this, but this position was not due to things under their control. They didn’t deserve to be in the position they were in. They were someone that any group of people could have sympathy for. That poor widow. This widow in particular is even more to be pitied than most. She has experience injustice.

Jesus doesn’t tell us what injustice she has experienced, just that there isn’t much question that it could be judged otherwise. Perhaps something was stolen from her…perhaps it was something else. This widow goes to get help from the only one with power to bring justice where it is so sorely missing. She goes to the judge.

The problem is this judge is not good at his job. He doesn’t want to bother with this woman’s claim, which has no financial reward for him. Jesus states twice that he isn’t concerned with God or others, so we can guess that he was in this business for the payoffs. This widow clearly couldn’t bribe him, so why would he bother with her?

But the woman keeps coming. Day after day she is there asking for justice. She pleads for justice. Each day she is sent away. Then the next morning, there she is again. Until finally the judge realizes she is not going to stop. He knows that her presence is absorbing his day and taking away from his business. So, he decides to grant her justice.

Jesus uses this story to remind people that persistent prayer in the face of injustice matters. That when we seek justice, we must be persistent. We must keep pressing even when our message doesn’t seem to be heard. Later, the Apostle Paul talks of persistence as a key part of our faith.

We are to persist. We are to seek justice. When justice is refused, we are to continue day after day to bring it before God.

There are many days that I am ready to give up. There are days when I no longer want to fight to be treated as equal. There are days when I want to stop defending people wronged by our culture. There are days when it seems that nothing I do matters.

Those are the days that I remember the persistent widow. When I remember Rosa Parks, Irene Sendler, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Malala Yousafzai.  When I remember Dr. Martin Luther King and the Reformers of the church.

Those are the days when I pray for justice. Those are the days I persist. I weep over the sins of the world, and I pray, “How long, Lord?”

And God whispers, “Soon.”

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^[1] The New International Version. 2011 (Lk 18:1–8). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

5 Things to Remember when the Church Disappoints You

In the last week, I have heard two heartbreaking stories of the church disappointing someone. And it was the church’s fault. They had felt abandoned in their need.

It isn’t only care issues that disappoint us about the church. We are disappointed in the church for all kinds of reasons. We are disappointed when the church puts itself before the least and lost. We are disappointed when people complain about petty things. We are disappointed by gossip and plain old meanness in the church.  The church can be a place full of disappointment.

These are some things I try to keep in mind when I am disappointed by the church.

1.      She is full of sinners, just like me. Jesus doesn’t wait for people to have it all together before he calls them to be disciples. He just tells us to follow. That means that when we follow him into the church, we end up surrounded with people still working towards perfection, still trying to be holy. Yeah, it would be great for the church to really look like heaven, but the thing is each of us has to look like heaven before that can happen. There are some sins that are still hard for me to resist and sometimes I can’t resist temptation, even after a lifetime in the church and decades of following Jesus. I want people to have grace with me, so I need to be willing to offer it to others. After all, unforgiveness is biblically unforgivable. 

2.      She makes mistakes. #1 was really about DNA, the church’s make-up. This one is really about her vision. I don’t mean “vision statement” vision. I mean, the church is not all knowing. She doesn’t always see the consequences of her actions. She doesn’t always see the people getting hurt by her decisions. She doesn’t always know what the future holds. The church trusts God, who can do all those things, but she can’t. 

3.      She isn’t trying to be malicious. Even though disappointment can feel like an attack, it often isn’t.  When my kids are playing with their lightsabers, and one of them gets hit in the thumb, even though one of them was hurt by the other, I don’t get heavy handed with punishments. Why? Because they didn’t mean to. They weren’t hitting each other filled with hate. Sometimes that happens in the church. Gossip could have started as a misinterpretation of the facts. Complaints could have come from a desire to make church better for everyone. In our hurt state, sometimes we forget to look at the original intention behind the action. 

4.      She is still the best system for Spiritual Growth.  You can read your Bible on your own, but your interpretation is strengthened by others’ interpretation. Your resolve is strengthen when you know you aren’t the only one struggling. When life is beating you up, it’s good to have a group of people in your corner, bandaging you up, telling you where to punch it back. You can believe in God without church, but it is really hard to follow Jesus without the church. 

5.      She isn’t going to get better by disappointed people leaving. Now this might just be how I was raised, but I was taught that if you don’t like something, you should do your best to change it. If you think the church is a mess, you should try your best to change it. And you can’t change it if you’re not on the inside.