Recently I talked with a pastor who is searching for a new ministry position. Normally stalwart, she was in tears. She and her spouse had traveled for an on-site visit to a church seeking a pastor. This minister’s search team liaison had led her to believe that the face-to-face interview was merely a formality. There were one or two other clergy still in the running, the liaison said, but that was only because the judicatory required search teams to conduct in-person interviews with more than one candidate. And so this pastor had started looking at houses and schools. She and her spouse had allowed themselves to begin falling in love with the area. They were excited about their impending move.

The church ended up calling someone else as pastor.

As it turned out, the search team was not in agreement about the ranking of candidates coming into the on-site visits. The liaison didn’t intentionally mislead the searching pastor. She simply made some assumptions based on her own inclinations, then spoke out of them. She felt terrible about her misstep, but that provided little solace to the pastor who felt she’d had the rug pulled out from under her. That minister is not sure now whether she wants to remain in search and call - or in congregational ministry. This would be a big loss to the wider church.

When your search team speaks, make sure it is with one voice. When communicating with candidates, consider:

• What information has the team explicitly agreed upon?

• What would my motivation be for sharing beyond these parameters?

• What might the implications of overpromising be?

A unified voice is not just essential with candidates, however. It is important that all the team members be on the same page when talking with the congregation. If a church member hears one thing from one team member and something else from another, that can decrease confidence in the search team’s work (and by extension, in the called minister) and breed confusion and conflict - not a situation any clergyperson wants to walk into.

While it is normal to “click” with a particular candidate, then, make sure you are enabling that minister to show up as well as possible without setting up unrealistic expectations.

Committee 1 gathers monthly – more or less – to maintain one of the church’s ministries. It has a dedicated core group, plus some other participants that drift in and out. The meetings tend to be needlessly long and rehash a lot of the same issues each time. Action items are unevenly distributed, and implementation is hit-or-miss.

Committee 2 gathers monthly to carry out one of the church’s ministries. The members are clear on their task and have spent time agreeing on how to accomplish it. Before beginning their work each time, they revisit the covenant they created that guides how they interact with one another. Sometimes there are differences of opinion during discussion times, but each committee member makes an effort to understand where others are coming from. At the end of each meeting, the chair ensures everyone is on the same page about the action items, point people, and timelines they’ve agreed on.

What’s the difference between the two committees? Committee 1 is a group, a loose collection of individuals who share an orbital pattern. Committee 2, by contrast, is a team. In teams the members share a purpose, a grasp on the process for accomplishing it, and responsibility for seeing it through. Someone has taken up the mantle of leadership (which may be passed among the members) and someone has given this group the authority to move on their plans. There is a cohesiveness among the members that allows them to build on one another’s strengths and hold each other accountable.

There’s nothing wrong with being a group, if that’s what the situation calls for. The people gathered for a class or training, for example, co-exist well as a group. They’re all there for the learning, but there’s no project to require interdependence. However, church leadership teams will be much more effective if they embrace a team identity with all it entails.

To start making the move from being a collection of individuals to a true team, build mutual understanding by discussing together these four questions:

What is our shared purpose?

What is our process for living toward that purpose?

Who will be responsible for which pieces of the process?

How will we know we can trust one another throughout the process?

These aren’t the only considerations for team-building, but they’re a good start.

What groups in your purview need to evolve into teams – or be disbanded and re-formed as teams from the start?

A friend talks about you behind your back. Your significant other makes decisions that impact you both without your input. Your supposed advocate throws you under the bus to protect her own reputation, position, or livelihood. We’ve all had our trust broken at one time or another. And put simply, if inelegantly: it sucks.

That’s why it is so tempting to frame trust as predictability. When we can anticipate the actions of others, we can exhale. I can let my guard down a bit at a green light because the Department of Transportation has promised me that crossways traffic will be halted by a red light. If I know what you’re going to do, I can trust you.

But is predictability the full measure of trust? Some of the most relationship-deepening moments I’ve experienced were the result of surprise. Unexpected words of affirmation or acts of care. Sharing a hidden piece of one’s soul. Defending another at great risk to self. Anticipated? No. Trust-building? You’d better believe it.

I may trust that oncoming cars will obey the law, but I’m still going to drive defensively. (I hope others will do the same!) But in the world of relationships, people will know and be known only at a surface level if we stay on our side of the double yellow line. The more foundational level of trust, then, involves risk-taking. Being vulnerable and creating space for others to do the same.

What relationships, either with individuals or groups, need to grow roots down into that lower layer of trust? How can you take the first step by sharing something about yourself that lets the other know it’s safe to return in kind?

It always mystifies people that I once played basketball, since my height has not changed since roughly the third grade. (Even then, I was in the front row for class photos.) Part of the fun for me was being part of a team. We worked out together. We pushed each other. We were united in our goal of having the higher number on the scoreboard when the final buzzer sounded.

Contrast that experience with group work in class. That was often the pinnacle of “ugh” for me during my middle and high school years. Inevitably, some group members put in more time and effort than others. One person was passionate about busting the bell curve, while another was happy simply for a passable project to be turned in.

There’s a difference between being an allied force with a goal and being a collection of individuals with an assignment. In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators, Patrick Lencioni outlines the process of becoming an honest-to-goodness team.

• Build trust. Without creating a safe space for vulnerability, conversation will be surface level.

• Be willing to engage in conflict. When there is trust, participants are willing to put all possibilities on the table.

• Commit. When it’s clear that every option has been explored, a team can make hard decisions with confidence.

• Hold each other accountable. When teams have agreed on a course, the members are invested in making sure everyone does his/her part.

• Pay attention to results. When team members keep one another on track, they are generally able to focus on and meet the objectives they have set.

A significant piece of ministry involves working with committees, boards, and/or task groups. In your work, how many of these groups fulfill the five functions of a team? How might attention to these functions not just make the groups you work with more functional, but also affect a culture change in your faith community? What would it take for your leaders to embrace these functions?

You share a closely-guarded piece of your heart with a friend, only to have her discuss and dissect it with others.

Your significant other tells you he has to stay at work late for a meeting, but someone tips you off that he was somewhere else…with someone else.

Your governing body holds a secret meeting, after which you are blindsided by the “request” for your resignation.

Trust. It is what crust is to pizza. Rails to your bed. Axles to your car. It is not only the thing on which relationships rest, it’s what holds them together. I can disagree with you, I can even dislike you. But if I trust you, I can stay engaged with you. And if you prove yourself consistently worthy of my trust, I can overlook a multitude of mistakes.

Trust is not just the bedrock of individual relationships. It’s the glue in the pastor-parish partnership and the connective tissue in congregational life as a whole. Trust between ministers and members allows them to say hard but necessary things to one another. Trust in processes keeps the church functioning. Trust in the pastor, in God, and in one another paves the way for a congregation to name a vision and pursue it, even when the plan hits a pothole. When there’s no trust, none of these things happens, and the energy churches could be spending on mission is wasted on secrecy, gossip, and agendas.

As important as trust is, it can be annihilated by a single word or the commission or omission of one action. But re-building trust is possible. In next week’s post, I’ll suggest some ways to go about it.

Scenario one: Your congregation has discerned the need to reach out to an underserved population in the community. Several church members have put forth ideas about what this outreach might look like. Some suggestions are re-hashes of previous enterprises. Other recommendations would take the church in innovative directions.

The congregation’s governing body puts a discussion of the issue on the agenda for its next gathering. At the meeting, proponents advocate for their proposals while those with different ideas point out why others’ plans won’t work. The recommendations are put to a vote, but everyone is so exhausted from the debate that there isn’t much excitement about getting started on the winning initiative.

Scenario two: The discernment of the need at hand is the same as above. When the governing body convenes to consider the various proposals, however, the leader suggests that everyone in the room work together to improve all the ideas put forth. After each recommendation is made as strong as possible, then the people in the room will discuss how to decide which one God is calling the congregation to implement.

I don’t know about you, but I would much prefer the decision-making climate described in scenario two. Yes, there will be some real dogs put into the idea hopper. But asking every person to improve every idea accomplishes a few things:

• It creates an environment in which everyone is on the same team.

• It deepens and broadens initial ideas instead of watering them down to the lowest common denominator.

• It ensures the end result has buy-in from each person in the room.

• It reminds us that our leadership is not about our desires but about the future to which God is drawing us.

Improving every idea runs contrary to the ways our culture (political and church) has taught us to make decisions. It will probably take some groundwork to prepare leaders to consider this approach. But wouldn’t it be worth it to get excited about meetings, knowing that the gathered body will be doing creative, Spirit-infused work instead of looking for all the possible holes in a plan with great potential?

As the NCAA tournament has played out the past few weeks, I’ve spent some time reflecting on what makes a good teammate. Ministry is a vocation that can lend itself to Lone Rangerdom, but it bears the longest-lasting fruit when it is done collaboratively. (Hey, even God needs three aspects working together to get the job done.) Whether you are part of a big staff or a solo pastor who recruits laypeople for some of the tasks covered by ordained ministers in larger churches, the following observations apply.

Good teammates:

Cooperate. This seems obvious, but it doesn’t always happen.

Coordinate. The most effective ministry requires some measure of advance planning – together – not just in our individual areas of responsibility.

Communicate. Learning teammates’ verbal and non-verbal cues cuts down on costly misunderstandings and allows the team to roll more easily with the unexpected.

Practice and play hard. The whole team looks good when everyone has prepared. On the other hand, one person’s lack of preparedness can make the whole team look like it hasn’t taken the task at hand seriously.

Share credit. Spread the word about how others contributed to a good outcome. Your teammates will become more deeply invested in your relationship and in your shared mission.

Encourage one another. We all get down. And when we get down, we rarely do our best ministry.

Know how and when to confront one another… Teams run into personality conflicts and differences of opinion. Don’t let them fester.

…but also maintain a unified front. Nothing tears a team apart faster than teammates talking behind one another’s backs.

Being a teammate is about working with others toward a common goal and making those around us better. And there are few things as exhilarating and productive as being part of a team that has really gelled.