TEAM, FAMILY, CHURCH

TEAM, FAMILY, CHURCH

What do ‘team’, ‘family’, and ‘church’, have in common? Their connection may not be immediately obvious. A team, such as a football team, is comprised of members who perform a task to achieve a common goal. Each of the players’ roles complements the other players and when coordinated together enables them to achieve far more than they could on their own. A family seems to be completely different. For starters, a team may only last for a season. A family lasts for a lifetime of decades. A team is connected by talent. A family is connected by biological bonds and the unconditional love that flows from that bond. Team composition necessarily has to change based on individual performances. Family composition isn’t based on performance – and may even be in spite of performance abilities. But what of a church? In many respects it is different altogether to a team and a family. Or is it?

¶ For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
First Corinthians 12:12

MORE ALIKE THAN IT APPEARS

The things that make for a strong team, also can make for a strong family – and a strong church. All three diverse involvements unite people. All three involve people fulfilling certain roles. All three require leadership. All three must have rules. All three need coaching and discipline. Even churches. Having these things in common makes teams, families, and churches more alike than we might initially appreciate. Each of us have something to learn about becoming a stronger team, family, or church, from each other.

THE COMMON INGREDIENT

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
First Corinthians 11:3

I once heard the CEO of major international hotel chain describe how his faith in Christ and his understanding of Biblical leadership had helped to shape him, his company, and his senior staff. While many of his competitors had a view of leadership that was very hierarchical and authoritarian, this CEO saw that the Scriptures described leadership primarily as service. In this view, the leader, and those in their leadership structure, performed a function rather than merely holding an impressive job title. Seeing leadership in this light changes the way teams work. Coaches and captains become servants who work with their team rather than having their team for them. It also changes the way families work. Husbands and fathers become a servant to their wife and children. Their leadership seeks to ensure their family’s safety, provision, welfare, and nurture. (Some men see being a husband and a father as a position of power to make others do what they want. This is not Christ-like leadership.) And it changes the way a church views leadership. Rather than a church leader relishing in their position or title in order to garner the respect of those in their congregation, they strive to fulfil their position or title by using their appointment and gifts to help others. 

The common ingredient of all successful teams, families, and churches, is servant-hearted leadership. The team leader wants to see their team members succeed. The husband and father in a family wants to see his wife wife and children flourish and succeed. A pastor and his leadership team wants to see those in their church thriving and achieving successes that they never did

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
First Corinthians 12:26

YOUR PLACE

You may be one of those people who has experience in all three involvements – a team, a family, and a church. If you are, then you’ll know what I’ve been talking about. If you’re even more fortunate to be a part of a successful team, a successful family and a successful church, then you’re doubly blessed. You will already know that your team needs your to do your part well. You will have also found that in your family, each member shares a part of the load for the household. And in church you will have come to know that when everyone does what they can, just as in a sporting team or family, you also have a better chance of achieving success. 

from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:16

Much to our Board’s frustration, taking leave is very difficult for me. Perhaps in a way that only a pastor can begin to understand, taking leave can actually be quite stressful for me. But, for the good of our church, so that we learn together what Christ meant by the pronouns ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘as one’, when referring to His followers, Kim and I are taking some leave. I writing this to you now, from just outside Stuttgart Germany in the beautiful town of Nürtingen. You won’t hear from me again until November. In the meantime, each Sunday service, you will see, hear and appreciate, just how deep our preaching ‘bench’ has now developed. In addition to this, each week, you’ll hear from one of our pastors who will be filling in for me to write these weekly pastoral epistles. I look forward to returning in November and meeting all the new people who have joined our church and found Christ. And hopefully along the way, they too will come to find the acceptance and love that all good teams, families and churches offer.

Your pastor,   

Andrew Corbett

HOW TO TREAT A WOMAN

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has revolutionised how women are treated. Jesus Christ was a radical in the way He treated women. He honoured women. He gave them respect. Women's sense of worth took on new bounds of pure dignity. Rather than being relegated to menial tasks to serve unappreciative men, Jesus Christ shocked everyone by entrusting His mission to women as well as to men. Indeed, the first people to witness then proclaim His resurrection were women. So deep has the Gospel permeated the Western World, that we now take it for granted the inherent dignity that women deserve. And above all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has dramatically reinstated God's intention for marriage for women. 

At the time of Christ's earthly mission, women were treated, excuse me, mistreated, as little more than objects. They were frequently physically, sexually, and financially abused. They were generally not equal partners in marriage. Outside of Israel, women entered marriage for various reasons but rarely for anything noble. In fact, study Roman history around the time of Caesar Tiberius and you'll be horrified to discover that women were  "subservientem" (utterly subordinate ones). This is why Christ's statements about marriage in Matthew 19, for example, were utterly shocking to His original audience. We sometimes think that marriage today has become a relatively disposable commodity, but back in the First Century, divorce was rife! 

Matt. 19:3 ¶ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 

Matt. 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,

Matt. 19:5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

Matt. 19:6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Marriage from the beginning, said Jesus, was designed by God to be between a male and a female (Mat. 19:4) so that a woman would be "held" (provided for, protected, cherished, and loved) "fast" (permanently close) by her husband (Mat. 19:5). When Jesus declared that God had joined a man and a woman together, He was making a powerful statement about the abuse of women through unjustifiable divorce.

This Gospel teaching about the indispensable role of women and the purpose of marriage to ensure that  they can flourish is expounded by Christ's apostles in their epistles. The concept of love in a marriage (which we now take for granted) is taught by Paul in Ephesians 5. He charges husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. If husbands do nothing more than strive to fulfil this charge, they will  go a long way to ensuring that their wife reaches her potential happiness! The Apostle Peter similarly charges husbands to honour their wives, strive to understand them, and treat them with gentleness - so that their prayers may not be hindered! (1Peter 3:7). So highly does God consider His female image bearers that He warns husbands about spiritual barrenness if they don't honour (to treat and value as most important) their wives.

This elevation of womanhood by Christ and His Gospel doesn't start with the redemption of marriage though. It goes back to how a woman is to be treated before she's married. A very important part of nearly every wedding vow is to live together after the holy ordinance of marriage. That is, before marriage a man is not to treat the woman he will marry as if they are married. In fact, the Apostle commands men to treat women they are not married to as either their mother or their sister!

1Tim. 5:1 ¶ Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,

 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

Young men, just because you're engaged to a young lady doesn't mean you can treat her as if she is your wife! You are commanded by the Gospel of Jesus Christ to treat her as a "sister". Until you marry, your fiancé is your sister not your wife! Don't do anything with her that you wouldn't do with your sister. This level of man to woman respect is desperately needed today and sorely lacking. Every time a man sleeps with his fiancé he is teaching her that it's OK to sleep with someone you're not married to! 

The Gospel instructs for women to be with tenderness, respect, honour and dignity. Showing common courtesies such as opening doors, stepping aside, assisting with arduous physical tasks is not old fashioned - rather, if more men understand the Gospel in this matter, it should be fashionable.

Andrew Corbett