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I can't turn this series into some personal redemption. My redemption is to get back to where
I was [a member of a champion team]. My redemption does not come from individuality.
His Airness Michael Jordan(1)
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Rock-the-Cradle Discussion Questions and Exercises
1. How does McDonald's get minimum wage employees to work full time when there is a vast shortage of labor for minimum wage jobs? They invite people to join "The McDonald's Team." How well is your church doing at inviting people to "Join the Jesus Team?"
2. Discuss why Billy Graham is now this nation's most respected citizen. Could it be because of the "Billy Graham Team?" From the very beginning, the "Billy Graham Team" pledged themselves to the "Modesto Manifesto"--a commitment to keep each other's feet to the fire to avoid those things that brought down the ministries of others--financial improprieties, sexual indiscretions, carping criticism of one another, ego exercises, and so forth.
3. How might the language of "teams" change your own church's vocabulary?
4. Does your church have teams of leaders facilitating people's spiritual journey?
5. Arrange a phone interview with Mike Foss of the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, or Robert Lewis of the Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, two churches that are moving to a true team model of leadership.
6. Birders spend small fortunes in their desperate (and losing) attempts to outsmart squirrels and rid bird feeders of these "tree rats." An especially popular weight-sensitive feeder made by Century Tool & Manufacturing Co. (Cherry Valley, Illinois) is proudly named The Absolute. When it first came out five years ago, birders thought someone "had finally come up with the ultimate solution," says Sue Wells, director of the National Bird-Feeding Society. But in recent years, reports have surfaced that once again squirrels have defeated our most ingenious efforts--by teaming up with one another. While one squirrel stands on the counterweight bar behind the feeder, thereby keeping the front door from shutting, the other squirrel stands on the roost and feeds.
Have someone bring in one of these feeders and discuss how teams work in nature as well as in church.
7. A recent study of the United Methodist church argues that we are in decline partly because Methodism "has become middle-class" and has lacked "outreach to all sorts and conditions of persons. We have opted for a very narrow sociological group for our ministry and mission. There will be no recovery from decline unless we recover Wesley's missionary impulse to reach out and welcome all."(29)
Do you agree?
8. To get your church to celebrate differences, why not send out some teams of "Noah's Doves" to visit other congregations and report back on what they saw and felt? Or ask your snowbirds to tell how the churches they are a part of in the winter months worship?
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