Thursday, February 13, 2014

strong words, but team words

Today at our team meeting, I read from the weeks lectionary reading – 1 Corinthians 3:1-6. It is very strong in the Message. So strong that I felt I needed to begin by reminding the team these were Paul’s words, not my words 🙂

But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? When one of you says, “I’m on Paul’s side,” and another says, “I’m for Apollos,” aren’t you being totally infantile?

Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working.

I then invited us to name each other truly. None of us are Paul. None of us are Apollos. We are each unique. And so our task was, in small groups, to remind each other of our unique value to the team. And then to pray for each other, for the field in which we are working.

We’re two weeks away from the start of Semester. We’ve got our best enrolment figures in years. We’re launching a whole range of new topics – Bible and culture, pioneering, global mission, chaplaincy. We’re in the midst of a major resourcing of our online capacities, exploring blended learning – topics in which student learning includes online delivery of content and instruction – building connections and enhancing community student to student and teacher to student. We’ve got new postgraduate courses with very strong enrolments. We’ve seen a 60% change in the make up of our team in the last 18 months.

We can only do this as servants, differently gifted, gradually learning to entrust our lives to our mutual Master. Strong words, yet perhaps for us team words.

Posted by steve at 08:48 PM

1 Comment

  1. Wow! Yes, a powerful message indeed. May the prayers that were uttered and sliently prayed by the groups be fulfilled in exciting ways that are a blessing to you all. May your very different team be a blessing (and a challenge) to your students through 2014 and beyond.

    I shall think carefully and prayerfully about some of the teams of which I am a part.

    Steve, thanks for the teaching.

    Pam

    Comment by Pam Bartholomaeus — February 15, 2014 @ 11:04 am

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