Below is a recent email I received. Maybe some of you can help out Richard with your years of experience and expertise. I’ve given him some of my quick and brief thoughts below.
Hi Chris,
I know you do consulting with YS. Can you help me out? I’m in my first year of youth ministry and I’m wondering if you can help me know some of the important factors involved in working with teams. I am working with a great team of volunteers who are mostly much older than me. I have never really been on or led a team before. I’m relational but not really good at leading my team mtgs. Can you help me know what kinds of things I should be thinking of?
Thanks,
Richard (White Plains, NY)
Here are a few really key points of thought/discussion regarding how healty teams interact. I hope they are helpful…
- Care for one another — Of course, without concern for another, you are selfish. Selfishness has no place on any team. Effective teams are selfless and live out a genuine concern or one another.
- Open, honest and truthful — Effective teams are open to new ideas, honest about their feelings and truthful in how they communicate those feelings. To be an effective team you must be willing to share your ideas and feelings.
- Trusting – Team members trust each other. That is to say that team members think the best of one another and rely unconditionally on their cohorts for the overall success and effectiveness of the team.
- Opportunity for consensus — Not all decisions can be led by consensus. However, effective teams at least allow for the opportunity of consensus when making small or big decisions.
- Commitment — The reason why teams can work together in a trusting way is because each team member put forth a unswerving commitment to the task(s) at hand. Ineffective teams have members of those teams who partially commit or only commit when it is convenient for that particular person.
- Peacemakers — Effective teams make sure that they are operating as peacemakers. Occasionally there will be a conflict to manage. Effective teams work together to find ways to make peace arise from disagreement and discord.
- Listening — You cannot be an effective team if you are not willing to genuinely listen to one another. This does not simply mean giving everyone a chance to talk. It involves that for sure, however, it also involves making a conscience effort to genuinely hear from one another.
- Expressive -Good teams become great teams when the members of those teams are able to express their feelings. Sometimes those feelings will be things like doubt, fear, uncertainty, celebration, joy, anger, etc. We are all human. We are going to have feelings and great teams allow for its team members to express how they are feeling in healthy and appropriate ways.
Any of you want to contribute other helpful points of thought/discussion?
Hey Chris -
Great posts lately on volunteers. I think with the whole economic crisis and uncertainty that is out there, volunteers will become more and more important for youth ministries.
I would add these three things:
(1) Have fun together – I think that a team that can play together will in the end stay together.
(2) Celebrate together – Nothing is cooler than a team celebrating the successes of one another and the different dynamics that come through life.
(3) Pray together – I believe that prayer can be the bond that unifies all of us on the team together as we pray for our students and one another.
matt-
those are great points of thought for teams to consider. thanks for contributing them. yeah, you caught me spiritually napping on the prayer one. prayer is a fairly key element, eh?
I would add one thought on working with teams in youth ministry…
The team needs to be practicing what they want to see happen in the group they lead. I think that is what is behind each of the suggestions you are offering Chris.
In other words those values and priorities you would like to see in your students need to be practiced, valued and authentically modeled among those on your volunteer team.
Peace!
Chris and Matt laid out some really good points for being a part of a team, I would echo all of them. And also add one more, as a fellow young youth worker I have learned that it is really important for to establish an individual relationship with each member of your team, as a leader. Find out more about their lives, what they are good at, how they think, areas they would like to grow in.
It is easy to lump volunteers together, but the truth is that they each have a distinct personality. You may have one mom that is really laid back and go with the flow while another one is really detailed oriented and in need of more information. Learning to communicate with each one individually is a great way to make them each feel valued as a member. Plus, knowing them on a more personal level makes you and them feel more comfortable in the group.
doug — totally! if we want our teams to function in a certain way, we’d better be personally living out what we hope to become as a team. if each member of the team is working toward that, that would make for a good, healthy, effective team
Alicia — that is a good word about the individual stories (you didn’t use that word but I think it is implied in what you are saying) of our volunteers/team members. each member of a team is unique and the ability to recognize that and respect it accordingly will help make a healthy team.