This is just a massive issue and one which I imagine I will be spending a lot on time of over the next years. Essentially, what we are dealing with here is the pastoral aspect of church planting, and since this gift is not one of my strongest points, its the thing that I will be making sure I major on as a team leader, to the best of my ability. Importantly, it is also the responsibility of the local Steering Group, and this is the issue that we are having a dedicated day meeting about with Stuart and Juliet in Glasgow in August. How does the Glasgow Steering Group ensure that the best possible quality of support for team members and team leaders will be in place for their cross-cultural work? I'm just gonna batter some ideas down, no particular order...My natural tendency is to put task before team. So I've made it my mantra to say "Team before task" in order to balance myself out!
Personality profiles
I intend to use Belbin. Myers Briggs, Enneagram, Navigators Gift assessment sheets, SHAPE (a system devised by Whiteinch Cof S), retreat days with Peter Neilson and his wife Dorothy, biblical teaching and any other method possible to raise individual awareness about personality, preference, communication, and style so that team communication is as good as it can be in spiritual, emotional and personal terms...we need to learn our blindspots and learn to accept other personality styles as a blessing, not a curse. If you would like access to any of these profiles, just email me. I reckon that 80% of team breakdowns are down to bad communication, not the Enemy himself, though he will exploit bad communication and personality tension.
Mutual encouragement
One of the best exercises we did when I worked for 4 years on a scheme in Edinburgh was to simply sit down and encourage one another with what we saw in each other. We went round one by one and everyone else had to say something encouraging to each person in turn. It was massively affirming. Before we did this, we got everyone to write down what they thought they brought to the team. The correlations were staggering and also massively affirming.
Ephesians 4 giftings
Essential to understand how the 5-fold ministries interact and be able to diffuse tensions based on individuals championing their own gifting (understandable). This is about how the Body interacts with itself and developing the fruit of humility. Tensions between evangelists and pastoral types are most common, and thats where you need apostolic gift to hold things together. Prophets on core teams can be a tremendous boon but also a source of real crazy tension. Prophets get their words from God mixed up with the only way we should go. Important to keep emphasising that there are other perspectives and that ultimately the bible is normative. Belbin suggests, however, that possibly the most crucial team role on a team is what he calls the Plant, who provides eal creative stimulus and comes up with wacky but excellent ideas...often prophetic types are Plants as well.
The recruitment process needs to be as rigorous as it can be
Essential to get references, spend lots of time with candidates, ask probing background questions, expect them to take counselling if necessary. We are also probably going to ask every potential team member to go through a psychological assessment at Edinburgh International Heath Clinic (an overseas mission medical practice), an assessment usually reserved for overseas cross-cultural workers, but excellent, to for inner city teams. Well worth £100 a shot - includes background checks (eg past issues with family, sexuality).
Books
An excellent resource for cross-cultural and missionary psychology is Marjory Foyle's Honourably Wounded - staple mission agency fare it details clearly and well all the stumbling blocks (pastorally) that can arise in cross-cultural situations. I also recommend taking a course in cross-cultural mission at your local bible college (if offered) - ICC has an excellent course taught by David Millar, which I would recommend (it may be available by distance learning).
Understanding Culture Shock
Essential to pastoral care for cross-cultural mission workers is understanding the psychology of missionary adjustment. We must take our work seriously as cross-cultural mission, and there can be alot of tension on a team as it adjusts into a new culture. Important to manage this well.
Expectations
We must portray the right expectations to team members about our leadership, what they will be able to do, what we expect of them, what they can expect of us. I was very surprised to see that no UE team had created a strategy document before they began...what expectations are we creating for people if we just jump straight in? Check out the document Esther and I created. Note the disclaimer about how it will need to be continually re-written etc, but also see how it gives people a handle on what to expect and a place to begin disussing crucial areas of team life
Essay on best practice in missionary care
Check out the essay I write on this at my blog - had some good feedback within UE saying that it had been very helpful.
Team training days
An excellent innovation starting this year, and forum for us in UE teams to ask these questions.
Ongoing, programmed interviews
Important to build into team culture special one-on-one review times with team leaders to pre-empt potential issues before they blow out of all proportion. i want to learn more about how best to go about this.
Spiritual Warfare
Keep bringing reality of way that Satan tries to drive a wedge between teams into prayer sessions and bible-studies together. Get team memebrs to actually buy into a commitment to keep short accounts.
Best Practice
Try to stay ahead of the game and research best practice among other urban mission initiatives (Eden and UNOH being prime examples).
Support for team members
Ensure that team members have a range of individual support mechanisms and friendships in addition to the team, to let off steam, get perspective etc.
Prayer, prayer and more prayer
Crucial aspect of team leader's responsibility.
Team sabbaticals
UNOH expect all their individual teams to have 2 team sabbaticals a year, just for R&R and team dynamics issues.
Expect tension
This stuff really is de-rigeur in church planting. I cannot think of any plant that flourished which did not go through tensions like this. Its not necessarily a sin to disagree and go seperate ways, while sustaining relationship. Also, these issues are pretty much to be expected...name this potentiality from the word go and work very hard to enable God to pre-empt the issues breaking the team up...don't shy away from tensions but lovingly confront...letting them fester will really make the situation worse. Having outsise, impartial wisdom to work through issues is essential.
So there you go, hopefully these ideas may help, I expect you're already doing a lot of them.
Response
Hi Hannah,
This is just a massive issue and one which I imagine I will be spending a lot on time of over the next years. Essentially, what we are dealing with here is the pastoral aspect of church planting, and since this gift is not one of my strongest points, its the thing that I will be making sure I major on as a team leader, to the best of my ability. Importantly, it is also the responsibility of the local Steering Group, and this is the issue that we are having a dedicated day meeting about with Stuart and Juliet in Glasgow in August. How does the Glasgow Steering Group ensure that the best possible quality of support for team members and team leaders will be in place for their cross-cultural work? I'm just gonna batter some ideas down, no particular order...My natural tendency is to put task before team. So I've made it my mantra to say "Team before task" in order to balance myself out!
Personality profiles
I intend to use Belbin. Myers Briggs, Enneagram, Navigators Gift assessment sheets, SHAPE (a system devised by Whiteinch Cof S), retreat days with Peter Neilson and his wife Dorothy, biblical teaching and any other method possible to raise individual awareness about personality, preference, communication, and style so that team communication is as good as it can be in spiritual, emotional and personal terms...we need to learn our blindspots and learn to accept other personality styles as a blessing, not a curse. If you would like access to any of these profiles, just email me. I reckon that 80% of team breakdowns are down to bad communication, not the Enemy himself, though he will exploit bad communication and personality tension.
Mutual encouragement
One of the best exercises we did when I worked for 4 years on a scheme in Edinburgh was to simply sit down and encourage one another with what we saw in each other. We went round one by one and everyone else had to say something encouraging to each person in turn. It was massively affirming. Before we did this, we got everyone to write down what they thought they brought to the team. The correlations were staggering and also massively affirming.
Ephesians 4 giftings
Essential to understand how the 5-fold ministries interact and be able to diffuse tensions based on individuals championing their own gifting (understandable). This is about how the Body interacts with itself and developing the fruit of humility. Tensions between evangelists and pastoral types are most common, and thats where you need apostolic gift to hold things together. Prophets on core teams can be a tremendous boon but also a source of real crazy tension. Prophets get their words from God mixed up with the only way we should go. Important to keep emphasising that there are other perspectives and that ultimately the bible is normative. Belbin suggests, however, that possibly the most crucial team role on a team is what he calls the Plant, who provides eal creative stimulus and comes up with wacky but excellent ideas...often prophetic types are Plants as well.
The recruitment process needs to be as rigorous as it can be
Essential to get references, spend lots of time with candidates, ask probing background questions, expect them to take counselling if necessary. We are also probably going to ask every potential team member to go through a psychological assessment at Edinburgh International Heath Clinic (an overseas mission medical practice), an assessment usually reserved for overseas cross-cultural workers, but excellent, to for inner city teams. Well worth £100 a shot - includes background checks (eg past issues with family, sexuality).
Books
An excellent resource for cross-cultural and missionary psychology is Marjory Foyle's Honourably Wounded - staple mission agency fare it details clearly and well all the stumbling blocks (pastorally) that can arise in cross-cultural situations. I also recommend taking a course in cross-cultural mission at your local bible college (if offered) - ICC has an excellent course taught by David Millar, which I would recommend (it may be available by distance learning).
Understanding Culture Shock
Essential to pastoral care for cross-cultural mission workers is understanding the psychology of missionary adjustment. We must take our work seriously as cross-cultural mission, and there can be alot of tension on a team as it adjusts into a new culture. Important to manage this well.
Expectations
We must portray the right expectations to team members about our leadership, what they will be able to do, what we expect of them, what they can expect of us. I was very surprised to see that no UE team had created a strategy document before they began...what expectations are we creating for people if we just jump straight in? Check out the document Esther and I created. Note the disclaimer about how it will need to be continually re-written etc, but also see how it gives people a handle on what to expect and a place to begin disussing crucial areas of team life
Essay on best practice in missionary care
Check out the essay I write on this at my blog - had some good feedback within UE saying that it had been very helpful.
Team training days
An excellent innovation starting this year, and forum for us in UE teams to ask these questions.
Ongoing, programmed interviews
Important to build into team culture special one-on-one review times with team leaders to pre-empt potential issues before they blow out of all proportion. i want to learn more about how best to go about this.
Spiritual Warfare
Keep bringing reality of way that Satan tries to drive a wedge between teams into prayer sessions and bible-studies together. Get team memebrs to actually buy into a commitment to keep short accounts.
Best Practice
Try to stay ahead of the game and research best practice among other urban mission initiatives (Eden and UNOH being prime examples).
Support for team members
Ensure that team members have a range of individual support mechanisms and friendships in addition to the team, to let off steam, get perspective etc.
Prayer, prayer and more prayer
Crucial aspect of team leader's responsibility.
Team sabbaticals
UNOH expect all their individual teams to have 2 team sabbaticals a year, just for R&R and team dynamics issues.
Expect tension
This stuff really is de-rigeur in church planting. I cannot think of any plant that flourished which did not go through tensions like this. Its not necessarily a sin to disagree and go seperate ways, while sustaining relationship. Also, these issues are pretty much to be expected...name this potentiality from the word go and work very hard to enable God to pre-empt the issues breaking the team up...don't shy away from tensions but lovingly confront...letting them fester will really make the situation worse. Having outsise, impartial wisdom to work through issues is essential.
So there you go, hopefully these ideas may help, I expect you're already doing a lot of them.