Hi, thank you for joining me today.  I’m Debbie Wallace, and this is Girl Church.  Today we’re gonna talk about TEAMWORK.  Why you should be on a team, and why you should  be an awesome team player.  Now I know that some of you are thinking, “Well this isn’t going to apply to me, so I don’t need to listen to this,” but before you close down your computer, let me ask you this:  What is a family if it’s not a team?  What about the church?  Is the church a team?  What about civic organizations?  Are they teams?  Yes, they are.  Because a TEAM is a group of people who are like-minded, who come together.  They give their gifts, their talents, their skills, their time, and they work together.  They actually collaborate together to reach a common purpose, a common goal.  That’s what a team is.  It’s a group of like-minded people.

You probably are a member of several teams in your life, whether or not you realize it.  Your workplace, you’re a member of a team there.  

I think that, traditionally speaking, little boys have been taught how to be team players — but not so much little girls.  If a little girl was not on a sports team, chances are she missed out on that.  I know that when I was a young woman — younger woman — I became a realtor.  All my daughters got in school, and I decided I wanted to move into the workplace, so I got a realtor’s license, and I signed up with an awesome real estate company.  Just awesome people, I still think so highly of them today.  And I worked there for years.  I’d started to work as a realtor, and I thought everything was going fine, and one day the broker came to me, and she said, “Debbie, you are not a team player.”  And she made herself clear.  That if I was going to continue with that company, I would have to learn how to be a team player.  So, I was a little indignant.  I thought, “What!?!  I mean, I’m here every day.  I’m here.  I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing.  What am I missing?”  So I was teachable, and I went to the office manager, and I told her, “I need some help.  Can you teach me what I need to know to be a team player?”  And she said, “Yes I can.”  

So she began to share some things with me, and I’m just gonna give you a couple of things today that she shared with me.  If you really want to study this in depth, there are so many good books written on teamwork.  This that I’m sharing with you today nowhere near covers all the bases, but it will give you some things to start with.  It’ll just give you some things to start with.  So I just want to encourage you to have a teachable heart about this and let’s see, first of all, let’s see what the Bible has to say about teamwork.

The Apostle Paul talked about the parts of the body working together, we would say as a team, although he didn’t use that word.  Now I’m gonna read just a couple of verses of this, it starts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and we’re gonna start in verse 14:

1 Corinthians 12:14-22 (NIRV)  — So the body is not made up of one part.  It has many parts.  Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand.  So I don’t belong to the body.”  By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body.  And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye.  So I don’t belong to the body.”  By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear?  If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell?  God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be.  If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body?  As it is, there are many parts.  But there is only one body.  The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”  The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  In fact, it is just the opposite…

Now we’re gonna stop right there.  To be clear, I want you to understand Paul’s teaching on this, he is speaking strictly of the church.  He’s not talking about teamwork in general.  I’m using this scripture as an analogy of how we should operate in the church, but also I think we can use the Biblical principle to operate in other places in our lives.  

So what do you do when you want to become a team member?  And how do you want to engage with a team?

#1 — WATCH WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING.  Pay attention!  And you know, while you’re watching, you don’t need to be talking all the time.  You need to listen sometimes when you really want to talk.  Watch and listen. 

#2 — DO WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING.  That’s what team members do.  Have you noticed when you go to a basketball game, they’re all dressed the same?  You don’t have one dressed in blue, and one dressed in gold, and one dressed in orange.  The team members are identifiable because they all dress the same.  Now I’m not suggesting that we all dress the same in our daily lives, but if your team or your workplace is meeting tomorrow at a coffee shop for a meeting, and they’re all planning on wearing red, you need to wear red too.  Even if red is not your best color.  

#3 — GET ALONG WITH OTHERS.  Now this is a big one.  It’s very big.  When you get along with others it means that you’re just not always about yourself.  Get your eyes off yourself, for goodness sake!  It’s not just about you.  You don’t have to be the star, and it’s okay to let someone else win.  Totally okay!  As a matter of fact, set somebody else up to win.  Stand back, and let somebody else take the applause.  You don’t always have to be in the spotlight.  Being a part of a group or a team is not about you.  As a matter of fact, you’ve probably heard it said that “i” — there’s no letter “i” in the word “team.”  Because it’s about working together.

As long as you are joining up with a good group, one that’s going to take you places you need to go, you will grow.  Just by watching other people, and by doing what other people do…Sometimes just that alone helps us to grow, because it moves us into areas that we haven’t really exercised in before.  Maybe they’re doing things you’ve never done before, and it feels a little foreign to you.  But if you’ll just get in there and watch them, you don’t have to say much, just watch them and do it, you’ll begin to grow — emotionally, and sometimes spiritually too.

So just remember that you need to be a part.  And you know, God gives us this example in the Word where the Apostle Paul is talking about the body of Christ…That is God’s example to us of how we should live our lives.  You don’t need to be isolated.  That’s not what God has for you.  In the church, in the body of Christ, like the Apostle Paul was saying, you don’t all have to look the same, you don’t all have to sound the same, you don’t all have to be from the same background.  But you’ve got something to offer, yes you do.  You have something to offer.  I promise you, I know it.  God has given you gifts, abilities, you’ve developed skills, and you’ve got something that someone else needs.  And you don’t need to be harboring that to yourself.  

If you’re suffering from depression…if you’re suffering from anxiety…if you’re suffering from loneliness, and feeling isolated,… go find a team.  Go find a team where you can be a valid, viable team member.  I can think of no better team than the church.  If you’re not a member of your local church — a local church, and I’m talking about a brick and mortar building, somewhere where you really go.  I’m not talking about an internet site.  I’m talking about a place where you get in your car and you drive to the building, and you get out and you walk in and you see other people there in flesh and blood…if you’re not a member of that, let me encourage you to do that.  That’s the best team you could ever join up with.  

Thank you for joining me today.  I look forward to seeing you next week.