Working as a Team
Some missionaries in the Philippines set up a croquet game in their front yard. Several of their Agta Negrito neighbors became interested and wanted to join the fun. The missionaries explained the game and started them out, each with a mallet and ball. As the game progressed, opportunity came for one of the players to take advantage of another by knocking that person’s ball out of the court. A missionary explained the procedure, but his advice only puzzled the Negrito friend. “Why would I want to knock his ball out of the court?” he asked. “So you will be the one to win!” a missionary said. The short-statured man, clad only in a loincloth, shook his head in bewilderment. Competition is generally ruled out in a hunting and gathering society, where people survive not by competing but by sharing equally in every activity.
The game continued, but no one followed the missionaries’ advice. When a player successfully got through all the wickets, the game was not over for him. He went back and gave aid and advice to his fellows. As the final player moved toward the last wicket, the affair was still very much a team effort. And finally, when the last wicket was played, the “team” shouted happily, “We won! We won!”
That is how the Church, the Body of Christ, should be. We’re a team. We all win together.
Let’s Get Together
In his book Wind and Fire, Bruce Larson tells of a friend of his who lives near Hoyt Park in Madison, Wisconsin, and who happens to be a great bird lover. Invariably, his yard is full of all kinds of birds in all seasons. However, the squirrels plague his bird feeders continually. Exasperated, he finally bought a pellet gun and began to shoot the squirrels, two and three a day, every day, week after week. In spite of these desperate measures, the squirrel population seemed undiminished. One day, he was discussing the irksome problem with his colleague at work. His friend said, “I solved that problem. I was troubled by squirrels, too. But now I trap them. I trap two or three a day and take them down to Hoyt Park and release them.”
Larson comments: “That’s an example of what can happen when we approach all of our problems individually, with no sense of the larger picture.”
Honking Encouragement
Maggie Kuhn, head of the Grey Panthers, tells of some interesting facts about sandhill cranes. It seems that these large birds, who commute great distances and traverse continents, have three remarkable qualities. First, they rotate leadership. No one bird stays out in front all the time. Second, they choose a leader that can handle turbulence. And then, all during the time one bird is leading, the rest are honking, signaling their affirmation. That’s not a bad model for the Church. Certainly, we need leaders who welcome turbulence and who are aware that leadership ought to be rotated. But most of all, we need a church where we are all honking encouragement.
No Man Is an Island
Peter Goulding, in his book, The Young Minister, weaves into the pages of his plot a hermit who, on the outside, seems to have rejected society. As the story unfolds, it can be seen that though he rejects society and the family of humanity, he is very dependent upon it. At one point, his large library is mentioned with no thought for the fact that without his fellow human beings, this library would not have been a possibility. There was an implied dependence without even thinking about it. The hermit’s very existence is dependent upon the society which he chooses to reject.
Working Together
Two men were riding a bicycle built for two when they came to a big steep hill. It took a great deal of struggle for the men to complete what proved to be a very stiff climb. When they got to the top, the man in front turned to the other and said, “Boy, that sure was a hard climb.” The fellow in back replied, “Yes, and if I hadn’t kept the brakes on all the way we would certainly have rolled down backwards.”
Four Lessons from Geese
We will never become a church that effectively reaches out to those who are missing out if we shoot our wounded and major on the minuses. Instead of being fishers of men, as Christ has called us, we will be keepers of an ever-shrinking aquarium. Next fall when you see geese heading south for the winter, flying along in V formation, you might be interested in knowing what science has discovered about why the fly that way. It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in a V formation, the whole flock add at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own. (Christians who share a common direction and a sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the thrust of one another).
Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front. (If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed the same way we are going.) When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point. (It pays to take turns doing hard job—with people at church or with geese flying south.) The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. (What do we say when we honk from behind?) Finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded by a shot and falls out, two geese fall out of formation and follow him down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly, or until he is dead, and then they launch out on their own or with another formation to catch up with their original group. (If people knew we would stand by them like that in church, they would push down these walls to get in.) You see, all we have to do in order to attract those who are missing back to church is to demonstrate to the world that we have as much sense as geese here at church. That seems little enough price to pay to win the lost and minister to one another. Even geese have sense enough to know it works every time.
A Disciplined Team
Several years ago, in England, Sir John Barbirolli was conducting a great symphony orchestra before a “standing room only” audience. The concert has was unusual in that it was used for cultural events on weekdays and for religious services on Sundays. On this particular Saturday evening, one of the patrons of the orchestra noticed that the clergyman who was to preach there the next day was in the audience. He leaned over and said to him, cynically, “When are you going to fill this fall on Sunday the way Sir John Barbirolli has tonight?” The clergyman looked his antagonist straight in the eye and said with a steady voice, “I will fill this hall on Sunday morning when you give to me, as you gave to Sir John tonight, eighty-five disciplined men and women to be with him and to work with him.”