What is "church" ? Part I

The Church: Team Or Family?
What you call the church determines how you will relate to it. Some of the newer terms we have used to market the local church, and even solicit involvement and participation are the use of the common term "team." It gets printed on t-shirts, banner and baseball camps, whatever necessary to both foster morale and to esteem cooperation, it seems a "team" spirit works thematically for a missions project, an evangelistic endeavor or even an annual call to practical service.

But when we begin to call ourselves a team and not a family, too much shifts, and often too much is lost. A team is a group of people banded together for the express purpose of achievement, winning a game, accomplishing a goal, or completing a project. The Chargers are a team, so are the marines, and United Airlines. A team usually has a coach, an owner, and of course players, all trained to accomplish a task.

If the right guard keeps missing blocks, the coach is obligated to the owner and the other team members to bench him and even eventually replace or trade him. Sometimes when churches operate as teams, the leader (lead pastor) acts as a captain or a coach, sets up goals, and then initiates the action to achieve those goals. If someone gets in the way, misses a catch, sprains an ankle or is just plain too slow, he gets let go, dismissed from his charge, is asked to leave the game and is dropped from the team.

However, if the right guard is married to the coach's daughter, or is the son of the owner, that becomes a different subject. Now the team is a mixture of team and family and families operate on a different level.

Whereas teams are committed to achieving goals and winning games, families are committed to each other. In fact, the goal sometimes may be no more than simply sticking together. Staying committed, as a family, staying together particularly when things are not running smoothly means everyone at all times gets to play, because participating is more important than winning, and in family it is more important for the overall morale of the family that everyone makes it. Becoming someone in the family is more important than accomplishing something, even if that accomplishment is letting the opponent score and second goal when you turn the other cheek.

Churches, who set themselves up as teams, or even institutions, are missing the purposes of God. Churches are not teams committed to a common goal, even if that goal is as lofty as winning souls or sending missionaries. Churches are families, whose basic commitment to each other in order to accomplish anything. A son has a right to leave home, but a father does not have the right to fire him from his Sonship drive him away. The coach may bench an ineffective player, but in family when the game is over, we still eat at the same table. We are family first...team second.
Courtesy of Third Day Churches..