Cordeiro, Wayne.  Doing Church as a Team: the Miracle of Teamwork and How It Transforms. Ventura, California: Regal Books, 2004.

Introduction

Wayne Cordeiro is a senior pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship instituted in 1995, in Oahu and a church planter. Through New Hope, 22 churches were planted in Hawaii and 67 around the world—Africa, Australia, Philippines, Myanmar, Japan, and US. Wayne grew in Oahu, but lived in Japan for three years, then moved to Oregon where he finished his education at Eugene Bible College. He served with Youth For Christ for seven years and as a staff pastor for three years at Faith Center, Oregon, before returning to Hawaii. He has written eight books, is a songwriter, and has released six albums. As a church planter and President of the Pacific Rim Bible College, Wayne trains, develops, and supports emerging leaders who will plant twenty-first century churches around the Pacific Rim. Wayne is married and has three children who serve with him in ministry. His website could be visited at http://www.enewhope.org

Summary of the Book

Doing Church as a Team uses the canoe-paddling sport, in chapter one, to introduce the main theme and explain how and why operating as team will produce a united, perfect symphony that will glorify God and speed up church growth, with far fewer injuries. The book is composed of an introduction, thirteen chapters, and an epilogue. Chapter one, Reaching for God’s best, describes the paddlers’ team on their first time out practicing canoe-paddling with their instructor/coach. They physically hurt one another with the paddles and their canoe was filled with water to the point of drowning. The coach stopped and taught them how to synchronize their moves; so they practiced many times until their strokes became rhythmic. Two lessons were taught: move as a team and feel the moves. Similarly, just like canoe paddling, God designed His church/people to stroke together to carry out a specific purpose with joy. The discovery and combination of God’s people’s gifts working rhythmically, in synchronization, will achieve God’s purpose faster and with fewer injuries.

Chapter two, God has a Plan for each one; He has put eternity into our hearts by shaping an aching void that only He could fill. That plan is your salvation but it is not only about you; it is what God wants to do through you. The harvest will not self-reap but will self-destruct, if not reaped. In other words, do not forget why you are here on earth; there is a harvest and God wants to use you to harvest his fields.

Chapter three, Don’t Forget Who You Are, for our citizenship is in heaven. Every saint is a minister for Christ to the community and is commanded to do the work of ministry. The amount of influence—to be salt—on our generation depends on us; if we choose poorly, God will open the privilege of involvement to others who are more willing.  We are full time citizens of heavens with a commission and an assignment to accomplish on earth during our short stay. So do not forget who you are and what you are supposed to do.

Chapter four, All God’s Chillun’ Got Gifts, emphasizes the Lord’s original design that calls for all the gifts to function together in harmony and with mutual respect to accomplish God’s plan. God gave everyone gift(s). Everyone has to cultivate his/her God-given gifts and capabilities without comparing oneself to others; everyone is a 10 somewhere, just use God’s gift to edify the Body of Christ.

Chapter five, Finding Your Fit, is about combining your gift and passion in order to fit into God’s puzzle that we are all part of. Every piece of the puzzle is necessary and without it the design will be lacking. DESIGN is an acrostic that represents the different ingredients that, once combined, equals you. D—desire—is the longing that God pairs with all of His gifts, i.e. teaching and discipleship and small groups. E—experience—God will never waste a hurt but do not let setbacks handicap your growth and excellence. S—spiritual gifts—God has endowed each one with one or more motivational gifts for the work of ministry. I—individual style—everyone has personal traits (extrovert or introvert) and temperamental balance; however, the calling remains unchanged but the style best suited to excel is different for each one. G—growth—will give you valuable insight into where you can best plug into the ministry. N—natural abilities—are an important component of Who God made us to be. The key issue is that we must serve the Lord God with a joyful heart. The DESIGN is a process that needs patience until you find your fit; and meanwhile work on developing your character—the fruit of the Spirit.

Chapter six, The Fastest Way to the Throne is through the servant’s entrance by being intimately involved in His plan and by using your gifts in a team with the spirit of excellence. Amazing joy, healthy accountability, and accelerated spiritual growth are the results of using the God-given gifts and natural abilities in a team setup.

Chapter seven, Mining Leadership Gifts in the Church, is about building an ever-increasing core of servant leaders by believing they exist, by providing an easy-entrance into significant involvement, by putting your trust in Jesus, and by releasing their potential—be a dream releaser with an outstanding security.

Chapter eight, Developing Servant-Leaders, is about believing and seeing the best in people. Leaders develop their gifts by serving which will build their character further. Shadowing is a process to involve people in serving by following someone around while serving—like an apprentice. Also Passing the Baton is a way of including others in the race and of team-building, not merely for transition. Lateral serving is a way to serve one another; it implies cross-training and serving in a ministry other than mine like utility players to cover up for a minister—step up and step in when others need a break, or on sick leave, or traveling, or on a Sabbath.  To do church as a team, the leader must learn to turn people from spectators into players!

Chapter nine, Setting Your Compass, is about the vision that guides every activity in ministry. It starts with a God-given dream that is translated into a vision aligned with God’s word, consistent with the Great Commission. Every church must hammer its own vision which must be clear, concise, and easily understood by everyone. The author briefed New Hope’s vision in four stages: evangelism, edification, equipping, and extension.  Churches are uniquely commissioned but unified in Christ. Through our identity as the Body of Christ, we express to the world to bear witness Who Jesus is—this is God’s master plan, this is the church design. 

Chapter ten, Alignment: The Power of Moving Together, focuses on the power of the vision that springs from members pulling together for the same cause, having one heart, one mind, one accord, doing the same thing, walking in the same direction.  Alignment starts when members catch, understand, and echo the vision, while remaining single-minded in purpose. A common vision will unite the church and propel it forward but we have to keep the synergy and anointing by constantly evaluating the ministry and by identifying core values to give direction, cohesion, and in-flight corrections. When alignment falls in place, a common culture is developed reflecting the basic tenets and modes of interaction.

Chapter eleven, Building Teams, explains that the fractal design of any living organism is the reproduction of same structure again and again but at smaller scales. The fractal design is applied to church ministry by forming teams of four with a leader; each one of the four forms teams of four, and so on. The end result is that every leader oversees four people and is himself/herself nurtured by a leader; in this way, no one gets burnt out and ministry can grow. In the fractal design, the larger the ministry grows, the deeper the level of team building.

Chapter twelve, Transitioning a Church Culture, is about encouraging the building of a certain culture from an already existing one. There are five steps: identify biblical values; discuss it with leaders until it resounds; tell them what will not change; display values for all to see; do not hurry the process which happens over time and demands sensitive leadership and biblical motives.

Chapter thirteen, Nurturing the Team, is about incubating the right culture that will encourage church growth, by raising the value of and building healthy relationships. Over time the way leaders communicate their values builds a certain culture—faith or fear, grace or legalism. In doing church as a team, leaders live to make others successful in order to be the sweet aroma of life to witness to Christ.

Critical Evaluation

Doing Church as a Team is merely a return to the way God designed the church to function[1] as a vibrant, healthy, and joyful family[2] where all the gifts function in harmony with mutual respect; it is a new way of looking at this dilemma of reaching people; it is not one person doing a hundred things but a hundred people doing one thing each—what they do best. You can’t do it alone is the main theme. If we are to have a successful ministry, then one must develop not only one’s gifts but the gifts of those around us. The author’s target audience is the leaders who have found the status quo unacceptable, and pastors and congregations who have a deep desire to make a difference with their lives. It is an easy-to-read book without theological, denominational, or philosophical biases but instructive. Consequently, it appeals to a larger audience of various backgrounds, as it also contains scriptural evidence to convince the audience and substantiate the points made.

Cordeiro has successfully used the canoe paddling sports in Oahu to make his key theme on how the Church can operate as a team, developing and synchronizing gifts to prompt the church growth speed and with fewer injuries. This analogy was only drawn in chapter one and picked up later in chapter ten on the power of alignment for a common vision and adjusting moving together towards fulfilling the vision. I was expecting the author to have continued using different instances of the sports itself to convey and explain other biblical principles in doing church as a team.  Cordeiro’s writing is influenced by his background as songwriter and guitarist as he uses the music-related words as symphony, keys, strokes, rhythm, etc…

Doing Church as a Team is the author’s main theme and conclusion; the single-handed pastor cannot do it alone!  The evidences provided are rich, varied, and relayed from live circumstances, real stories, nature, music, arts, fairy tales, sports, great men’s lives, and historical events, and from various countries like US and Japan.  The ideas were conveyed clearly; however, at some junctures they were disconnected. Every idea stood by itself well explained and supported through the live examples and biblical doctrine, but disengaged in the flow and sequence to stress the main focus.  Besides, there was no summary at the end of each chapter to recapitulate all the ideas, integrating and merging them towards making one point; repetition is one way of highlighting the focus and leaving the audience with substance. Also the reader had to search for the principles to take away as they were not highlighted or organized sequentially; some sentences were italicized but the core issues were not. Nevertheless, the main theme got across—doing church as a team is God’s design and no single-handed can do it alone.

The examples of great men such as Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Vince Lombardi, and Winston Churchill, who were not dismayed by the negative prophecies and backslashes and who made a difference, encouraged me not to let setbacks and mistakes derail me from my calling, or keeping me from excelling in the areas God has gifted me—“everyone is a 10 somewhere.” Also the historical examples of how one vote made all the difference rekindled hope that although I am just one, but I count and I can make a difference—may be all the difference.

The fractal design is particularly interesting as it exemplified the main theme of Doing Church as a Team and most meaningful is to do it without being burnt out. The chapter on alignment of the vision which creates the power to move together is an issue most churches did not pay attention to, although it is simple and can propel the church in speeding up the vision and help the anointing to rest.

The book could be given to young leaders and novices to read and summarize, then discussed in discipleship groups as the theme itself—teamwork—is a cornerstone for successful, healthy, growing churches. The concepts taught can be discussed and applied on a smaller scale in study groups; for instance, planning an event where the small group will divide the work among themselves, or one to cover up for the group leader, or assigning different responsibilities—prayer, worship, bible study, hospitality, administration—to various group members. The principles of Doing Church as a Team should be practiced at the small group level; and when successfully practiced, it becomes easier to apply it at the corporate level because the basic principles got assimilated.

Doing Church as a Team has reinstated and revived the basic principles I have always believed in because it is just a reflection of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit working in unity as a Team—The Triune God.