Transcription
So I want to talk to you today. In my time, I want to talk to you about building teams that build the church. And I'm really excited today. I mean, that's my, that's my topic, but there's some exciting things that I want to share with you today. I want to talk about our journey, uh, in Team Church. And I want, I want to talk about where we are today. I want to talk about where we believe God is taking us in the future.
So, as you know, this building teams that build the church, I was last night when Pastor Brandon was, uh, introducing me and he showed those pictures from, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, and I was teaching on that. I, I was thinking, uh, about, man, people must get tired of hearing me talk about that. I've been saying, there's, build teams, build church, build teams, build church. But it is, it is my message. It's at least one of my messages, and that we have focused on and understood that it's crucial in the life of the church that there are teams that are built.
And I want to show you our Team Church mission statement. It says, "We exist to equip teams to build churches that impact communities for Christ." And so, it's really the short version of that that you hear us say over and over again: We build teams to build the church. We build teams to build the church.
When Jesus started his ministry, the first thing he did was to pick a team. He started having team meetings, team prayer meetings, meetings where he downloaded the vision and the mission of his kingdom into the team. Our greatest asset is not an org chart or a software program, the latest tech equipment. Thank God for lighting, cameras. Our greatest asset is in a team of people who come together with different roles and one goal, and that is to build the church. Our greatest asset is in people who are encouraged, inspired, and committed to set aside their individual ambitions and wear the team jersey with, with pride, proper pride, of course, dignity, walking hand in hand, step by step, building God's great church. It's the greatest asset. [Applause]
And so, I want to take, and you know, I've talked about this, we'll keep talking about it, but I want to just take you quickly to Matthew 10, which I would say is the revelation that I received years and years ago, where Jesus is talking to his team. And I'm going to give you a few lines out of it. I think I'm starting in verse, you know, verse 9 or so, but he's saying things like, here about what to take, not take as you go out together, um, you know, to, to the world, to the towns of the cities. He tells them, "Be shrewd as snakes, be harmless as doves." And then he gets into the list. Verse 9: "Do not, do not take any gold or silver or copper with you in your belts, no bag." Verse 10: "No bag for the journey, no extra shirt or sandals or staff." Verse 11: "Whatever town or village you enter, search for where a person worthy, stay at their house until you leave." And then, "As you enter the home, give it your greeting. As you enter the home, give it your greeting." If, verse 14: "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home, that town. Shake the dust off your feet."
Now, I don't want you to get hung up on the details of this, okay? Like, whoa, wow, what's that mean? I just want you to grasp hold of the concept. How specific and how clear these instructions are. Jesus was the greatest leader of all time. Say that again. Jesus was the greatest leader of all time. And his plan for launching the church was to build a team, starting with 12 men, rugged, rough around the edges, in a small community in Galilee. That team, that team of disciples were the first team of church builders. They also built their own teams, and then with great courage, they carried out the mission that Jesus gave them. So, church doesn't happen without a team. A team that's committed, a team that is all in, a team that is in sync with their leaders and with one another, doing church like a team. The stronger the team, the stronger the church. The healthier the team, the healthier the church. The more honoring that a team is, the more honoring the church will be. [Applause]
So, it shouldn't surprise us that the devil works so hard to divide, separate, create offenses. Shouldn't surprise us because as the team goes, so goes the church. Teams, like sports teams, are made up of people who have different roles but the same goal. So on a, on a football team, a quarterback has a different role than a lineman, who has a different role than a receiver, who has a different role than a defensive back. On a baseball team, a pitcher has a different role than a catcher, who has a different role than a third baseman, who has a different role than a center fielder. Different roles, same goal. Different roles, same goal.
Let me give you a couple of quotes. One is, "Too small of a number to achieve greatness." I think that was John Maxwell. Another one is, "Behind an able man, there are always other able men." That's why I appreciate, thank you for the 20 years honoring, and all that Sheila and I, obviously, it's, that's, we, we're thankful for that. Um, and but it wasn't my idea. And it's, it's a little bit like, you know, I want to just announce every time that honor is given that I didn't do this by myself. You know, it's like, because behind every able man, do you understand what I'm saying? We wouldn't be here today if it were not for the teams. "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." [Applause]
So, say with me: We're building teams that build the church. Say it again. We're building teams that build the church. Say it again. We're building teams that build the church. Say, "That's what Jesus did. That's what we do."
Now, I want to turn the page and I want to talk about the vision and the future of Team Church. Church leadership, it's, it's never been easy. Like, never been easy. I always tell people, when you see a great church leader, they had other options, and they still do. Some of you, some of you honestly, you need to lay hold of that and, and, and handle that swag, because a great church leader, a church who succeeds, a pastor who leads a church and goes forward like that, that's why people are so silly to get mad at them and, you know, and treat them bad. They got other options. You didn't know that? Like, I, I think you do. Dave and Chavez, I'm pointing. Hey, you got other options. You don't, you don't build, you don't start and build a church and not have skills. Community, you, you kind of got to figure out a whole bunch of skills, and a lot of them you pick up along the way. But after you've done, done this, and you've earned some level of, wow, like their church is really doing good, you're kind of at a point where if they treat you too bad, "Take this job and shove it. I'm not working here no more." Ah. Now, that's not a word from God, by the way. That's, that's not. But I want to emphasize, church leadership has never been easy.
But the last couple of years, life has been hard for many people. And we've all watched as churches have experienced strife and division. Church leaders have fallen. Churches have closed their doors, some permanently. Others have left the ministry. Others have experienced a disconnect and parted ways with ministry relationships that they had. Pastors need pastor friends. And like I said, worship leaders, when they get a few worship leader friends, so it strengthens you, it emboldens you, you learn and you grow together. And so, what we've watched happened, though, is that there are, there are relationships that over the last couple of years have changed. Pastors who are not, who were good friends, are not such good friends right now. Hopefully not enemies, but discovering that through this transition, that we're maybe not walking out the same way, and where they're going, I'm not going.
And my point is that "church hurt" phrase, I don't really like. I know it's real, but with that phrase, typically it's stories of people who get hurt in the community of the church, and typically they will talk about that hurt when they leave the church. And that hurt is usually aimed at, and, and leaders are the ones who are responsible for inflicting the hurt. That's the typical. What you don't care much about, and only eternity will reveal, is the painful experiences of church leadership. People who are on the front lines of the battle, because pastors are human. So it's not just leaders who hurt people. Probably even more so, it is people who hurt leaders. People's actions, people's words. The average person might say, well, you know, I, I've had people, I had somebody make me a promise and they didn't keep it. I had people pledge themselves just being on, on my side or my friend or for me. And average people, I'm just going to throw this out, you know, you might, they might have four or five of those every four or five years. Pastors, a whole other level. People commit themselves, and next thing you know, where are they? People you feel like are really with you, and you go, you go through these cycles over and over again. Now they're blaming you. Now they're pointing their guns at you. Now they're doing everything they can to, to hurt you, tear you down. And so people's actions and words and accusations and blame is directed at pastors and church leaders. And, and the leaders that are like in this room, who do stand close to pastors, get hit too. Yeah.
And, and I want to just say this, that when COVID hit, we, we got hit by not just COVID, but all of the strife. And I, I want to, I, at our level, so to speak, the size of our church, the blessing or the benefit is that I do have, I'm surrounded by a team of great people. But I'm going to tell you what it has to happen to me. I, I don't know there's ever happened before, is that I started seeing them hit so hard. And, and we were getting on Zoom calls daily, and I could see bloodshot eyes, and I could see fatigue. I could see brokenness and hurt in my, in my leaders. And they were saying, "I, I haven't, I haven't slept." And I would inquire, and I would push, and I would ask questions. So around me, my team and my comrades were taking hits that actually, I still to this day don't know the extent of the verbal abuse. I don't know the extent. All I know is their, their, their, their arms were broken, and, and, and, and their faces were smashed. I mean, that it was horrific for me. And I, and it, what it did to me was it shifted something in me to realize, I'm so grateful. Uh, they're hurting, I'm hurting, but these guys are really as committed as I am. Like, they have pledged their lives to this cause. And I know there's pastors, this clap is coming because I know there's pastors that share this sense of great gratitude for the comrades, team around you. And I don't know that I, I honestly believe that in the last couple of years, there, there are people who will walk with a limp the rest of their life. Not just lead pastors, but church leaders who will have a brokenness that at some points, somebody will say, "Well," and they'll say, "Yeah, that happened." I'll tell you the story of what happened to me, and it'll be the rest of our life, we'll carry some of the things that have happened in the context of building church. Right.
So, just quickly, to finish that, that was a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I, my, my team of my pastors will tell you that I told them, "I want your phones off. I want you to leave in every way. We've already left the offices physically, but you are not present and you are not available. You have to get your team healthy. You have to go to the hospital." And I said, "Shut your phones off. Don't take any more bullets on behalf of me or the church. I need you. If everyone else falls, I need you. If everyone else gets mad, I need you. Let people leave without being able to tell you they're leaving. Let people be mad without the privilege of venting their..." [Music] And that's what we did. That's what we did.
But along with that, I, with the last couple of years, I wanted to help. And I wonder, what could we do for pastors? The pastors in this tribe, of course, were leaning into each other. And there were phone calls of with pastors who were weeping. There were pastors in this room right now, I'm not going to look at them, I'm going to look right here. We talked about, talked about leaving their churches. Those conversations were so raw. Those conversations were so real. And as we process, as we talked, as different ones intersecting, first of all, the strength that we had together was so helpful. But that conversation turned into not just us, but it turned into, "What can we do?" Because if we're hurting, we're not the only ones hurting. And so we were talking it about it, we were discussing it with our conversation with other leaders, and it became, you know, bigger than our own church and our minds. But I just knew that whatever I could do to focus on helping and encouraging and resourcing the church in this season, I, I wanted to do it. And I think many of you have felt the same way.
And so this year, I'm really excited because we're launching something that's been in our heart for a while to do, but the time is now right. And I'll just start by saying that Team Church is becoming more than a conference. Everybody say it with me: More than a conference. One more time: More than a conference. Yes, we will have a conference. But today is the official launch of TeamChurch.org. And, and I want to, I want to explain a few things about that. First of all, I want to tell you what we're not. We're not a church planting organization. There's other people that do that well. We are not an outreach missions organization. There's other people that do that well. We are not a denomination. There might be some people that do that well. I, I don't know. I'm not really sure on that one. Caught myself.
We're not getting into governing over churches. We, we don't have a membership that pays dues or receives a percentage of your church budget. Trying to help, you know what we're not. Well, what about membership? What about, yeah, show up and participate. And when you're done doing that, stop showing up. You don't need to send a letter and notify us. [Applause]
Team Church is organically grown. We've just grown organically. And our lead team, we may show another photo right now. You saw a photo last night, just pictures of, of pastors across the United States and Canada. Very organic, like it, the way it all came together, like just really organic. And couples that came to Sheila and I and expressed a desire for oversight in their life and so forth. And but since 2016, 450 different churches have participated in a Team Church event. There's, and that is teams from 12 nations that we know of that we've tracked. And in about the last, I mean, you got to take COVID out of that, you got to take 2020, 2021 even out of all that. But just since 2016, we grabbed some of these, uh, so 12 different nations, 35 states, six Canadian provinces. How about the Canadians? How many of you are in the house? I love that. I love that. If they're here, it's because they're vaccinated. I don't know. I just, I just thought we'd put that out there. [Applause] Shame off you. No shame. And I'm kind of saying that because we're missing, we're missing some of our friends from Canada right now. And we, we support why they're not here, um, just as much as those who are here. Our 2019 conference, we had at this conference, we had over 200 churches just at that conference and organizations that were represented. And, and also, we just started hosting these digital events, and we hosted 17 during, during COVID year. 17 different events is what I'm trying to say. Team Church road events look like this: in Canada, we've had Canada One Days in Vancouver. We've had [Applause] We're coming back. Maybe if you want us to. Texas One Days in Houston. Canada One Day, Red Deer. Idaho Training Camp. Florida One Day. Texas One Days. Ohio One Day. Eastern Washington One Days. Canada One Day, New Brunswick, way way over there, way over in, yeah, another world. I did not know what I was getting into when I went on that trip. Anyway, multiple and different states. We even went to the Philippines and had an amazing, had an amazing Team Church event in the Philippines. That was great. That was fun. Pastor and chose the best. Yeah. So thank you to all of the churches who have hosted Team Church events over the last few years. And thank you to the Champion Center leaders. I want to say this, who have supported, still do support. Uh, we have just kind of operated like, like no, no real organization other than our own. Like, and so this small group of pastors and, and us, and investing and going and doing, and host churches that wanted us to come and opened up their doors and said, "We can get X number of people here, we promise." And some of that kind of simple stuff. And but thank you. Our own team here at Champion Center has supported so well and gone the extra mile. And all of that just comes out of a heart to s- to help the church beyond our own local church.
I want to thank today. I want to thank Brandon Stewart and Pastor Brandon and Lindsey. Thank you guys for that. They grew up at Champion Center. He grew up at Champion Center. I could not be more proud of them. I think 10 plus years ago, they launched a ministry called Leading Second, serving pastors and leaders who are not lead pastors. And in addition to building Leading Second, which is now, as most of you know, I mean, it's across the nation, and in addition to all of that, in the podcast and the team building and all that they do, he also, he also owned our Team Church conference. And any event that I said, "Okay, we're going to go ahead and do that one," he would own it. Him, along with, you know, other team members, our, uh, pastors. So, so I, it was an unpaid position, by the way. And I just, I wanted to thank them. Thank you for your honor to them. And Brandon is currently transitioning the organizational side of Team Church to our newest team member, whose name is Troy Pollock. And Troy was up here earlier. And Troy's wife is named April. Uh, Troy has served on our church staff and on our teams. He is, sir, he's first of all, he, he is an entrepreneur. He was a church boy, but, and church, and did serve way back on a church staff. But he is a business leader. He was part of the founding team of Pushpay, which many people, many of you would be familiar with, a church software company. And during his tenure there, he led, he led multiple departments, including leading their church conferences. He was instrumental in their growth, which is now feels like it's everywhere, and their success as an organization. He and his family have been a part of Champion Center for, for eight years. And I say his family, but actually him and April, we're coming to Champion Center when they're both single. And we've had the privilege of, of having him on our team again in a volunteer position as the Legacy Leader, Legacy Team Leader at Champion Center for several years. And so I wanted to introduce him. And he was up here earlier, but I wanted to enter, and I probably put the picture up already, but I wanted you to know that he is our new Executive Director of Team Church Organization. Thank you.
Now, what you may not understand is, we could not go one step further than where we had gone. The bandwidth did not allow us. And I won't get into all the story about it. All happened. But I can tell you that this is why we're moving forward is because God, in telling us, in telling us what he wanted us to do, provided the bandwidth for me to stand here today and announce this. Because Troy, as you'll see, Troy and, and April are going to provide incredible leadership to our organization.
I want to introduce to you, my time is almost up, I gotta hurry. I want to introduce to you what I call the Team Church ecosystem, which is a collection of resources to strengthen your organization and your church. And these, this ecosystem, I absolutely love this word. Um, and you understand it in nature, how it all works, and the trees, and the in the water, and the soil, and the growth. You can also think of it as a city. Uh, a city, for example, if you're, if you're, if Seattle needs to get back to building an ecosystem, like when you lose, when you don't understand all the strategy of the elements involved, you have to have housing, you have to have strong business, you have to have law enforcement, you have to have to, uh, and, and all of those work together to build a healthy city. Well, we believe it's the same way with Team Church. That as we talk about leaders and the different things they lead, we believe all of them actually work together as an ecosystem. And if we get this right, good things happen.
So, we have Hubs, which is regional opportunities for church leaders. We have Church Essentials, which is a three-week assimilation plan. Call it your new, new members, whatever. It's an assimilation plan for new attendees to help them find their place and purpose in the church. We have Leadership Essentials, which is a practical tool that will center your leadership team on four essentials that maintain strength at the core of your team. It's a leadership quadrant that develops and measures leaders in the four essential areas of leadership. And you will see that here about all of that this afternoon in the super session. We have Leading Second, of course, which is, it exists to develop all of those who are not in the lead pastor role to serve the vision and mission of your church. And Leading Second had their first conference this past year, yeah, in Austin, Texas. We have Legacy Team, and this resource will come alongside churches to establish a legacy mindset in the financial leaders of your church. We have something called Corporate Competence. This resource provides a blueprint for building the organizational and legal structure of your church. We have something called Off the Grid. Thank you. Which is amazing. And it provides an outdoor experience for pastors to be replenished and restored. I went, was with some pastors, you got to know more about it. And pastors are going to want to be a part of Off the Grid. It's an incredible, incredible resource. And then we have what we call Insiders, which is a group of pastors who were walking side by side, investing together in the vision and the mission of Team Church. That's, we, I think that's eight things right now that we have organically, actually, in our tribe, that now we are contributing together. And, and beginning with this, this is our beginning of resourcing teams that are going to resource the church. Think ecosystem. You're going to have great, you can have great youth leaders, but if you don't have some Legacy Team investing in the church, when you get it all moving in the right ways, good things happen. Hey, man. You can find out more about us at theteam.church. Theteam.church.
Now, in 2019, uh, Pastor Steven Furtick, a friend for a long time of Team Church, he, he, uh, came and, as many of you know, he brought, he brought a few of his team, and we did something we loved doing. And it was basically a front-row look at the DNA of a great church team. Uh, we have a really exciting announcement that we're going to make tonight about next year. And at the end of the service tonight, we're going to talk about next year and who's going to be here and the team that's going to be here. And I think you're going to be excited and, and happy about that. We have an opportunity. We have a window. We have a mandate. And there's nothing more important. And I know you believe this, I know you agree with me, there is nothing more important than building the church. This year's theme, and maybe will be for a while, I don't know, forever: Forward. Forever Forward. Forever Forward. We are not backing up. We're going to stare at the elephant.
And as we close the conference on Wednesday night, we're going to receive an offering for the launch of Team Church Organization. Obviously, this is a huge step for us. And we're believing that churches who have been helped through Team Church are going to want to help us to help other churches to build teams that build the church. I hope you'll consider, hope every, every church will consider investing and being a part. This year is a real vital year for us. So, we always have, for, for several years, taking an offering on Wednesday night. And we've said to you in the past, this helps us with the conference, but it also helps us with One Days or whatever it might be. This year is the first year for us to designate an offering to this new beginning, with this new dimension that we're going to step into and move into by faith. And I want to say, I have to say this, when I talk about money and I talk about giving, if you're here from another church, please don't direct any of your church giving towards Team Church. I want you to support your church first. We want that. And if your pastor wants to support Team Church, then that's a great way for you to help get behind him. But, but don't, don't do that, okay? That's, I'm asking you, whether you're just a giver or a legacy giver, as I talk about this with you today in an open setting like this, I don't want any of you legacy givers or you generous givers from other churches to go, "Oh, I want to help and just give individually." Let your pastor know, and he'll feel maybe more confident to do what he wants to do and what he believes the church ought to do to help them be a part of Team Church. Or so I'm believing God. We're stepping out by faith. I'm excited. I believe God's going to provide. He's going to supply all of our need. I believe that he's got this, and he's going to walk with us through this. And, uh, I'm, I'm asking God to just deal with each, every person that is supposed to contribute, be a part, and invest in this vision, in this cause.
TeamChurch.org is now separated from Champion Center. We are our own 501c3. We are not, we are not just Champion Center anymore. We are legitimately, we are legitimately stepping out, moving forward. Our own overseer, our own directors, our own board, all of the other good stuff. So here we go. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your participation. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Let's fill the church together. Amen. [Applause]