Did you ever wonder why we go in teams? We almost always go in groups of 2, 3, 4 or more on our trips.
Thirty-five (35) years ago I had a dream in which the Lord showed me travelling with a team of people to bring God’s life to another church. The team prayed together, discerned together and worked with one person to tear down the enemy’s works and build up God’s work instead!
Now, I have a chance to put this dream into practice. Besides being obedient to what the Lord showed me in my dream, travelling in teams just makes sense. If someone gets sick, another person is there to help. Usually there’s someone good at organizing the trip, but not everybody is so organized.
From a ministry perspective we normally travel in teams because we believe that the people who receive our ministry will be better served by a variety of spiritual gifts and manifestations than by just receiving the gifts of one.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12 that we are all together the Body of Christ. The different parts of the body all need each other. The meek parts are still part of the body even if they don’t feel very valuable. The confident parts of the body still need all the other parts even though they feel as if they are pretty self-sufficient.
God wants us to work together to model teamwork, love and humility. It is a way of shining His light just by working together.
And playing together. One time I was in Peru having breakfast with my team, a mixture of Americans and Ecuadorians. We were having a good time, so much so that we got to laughing so hard we were falling out of our chairs. That wasn’t so easy without a translator, but such was the chemistry of that team.
All of a sudden I looked up and I saw our pastor-coordinator, who had just come to bring the whole team to our event that morning. He was just staring at us and I could tell from the look on his face that he was wishing he had friends like that with whom he could laugh.
The Christian life and ministry doesn’t have to be so serious. We can and should relax and enjoy our times with other believing teammates.
May the Lord help you form a “team” of people around you with whom you can minister and enjoy life together!