Every week that I sit in our offices here at White Oak, I see up on the walls our Staff Behaviors (the values that drive our church staff). Every week I am reminded of the things that we have agreed that will drive us, unify us, and hold us accountable for accomplishing Jesus’s mission for our church.
The next White Oak Staff Behavior I want to share with you is I Help Others: Don’t ever say it’s not my job. Someone else’s success/failure is everyone’s success/failure.
I recall watching a soccer team play one season. I had watched this team compete several times. There were several players who were fast, had quick feet, and who could move the ball. It was fascinating to watch them perform and use their skills. They were very good. It took me several games, however, to notice the fatal flaw in this team. They weren’t playing as a team. They often weren’t passing when they should. When they did pass it was often sloppy. They didn’t encourage one another but instead you could hear from the stands critical comments made between the players on the field. They each seemed to be playing the game as a group of individuals. Each of them was out on the field to show their own skills. They each wanted the ball. They didn’t encourage one another. They didn’t make each other better. They didn’t play well together. They often didn’t win. They may have been wearing the same uniform, but they weren’t a team.
You see a similar issue among Jesus’ disciples. In Mark 10 Jesus is talking to his disciples about what it means to follow him and that his coming death is imminent. However, in verse 35 James and John pull Jesus aside and ask him to promote them as second and third in command when he establishes his kingdom. This request uncovers several key misunderstandings that the disciples have about who Jesus is. However, an important mindset it highlights is that the disciples don’t see Jesus’s mission as their collective mission. They still see themselves as individuals vying for position, power, and glory.
As a church staff, we see ourselves as a team working together to advance Jesus’s kingdom. As human beings, we are tempted to want to advance our own agendas and pride. This is why we see the critical value of Helping One Another. We value the use of our skills, time, and energy to help each other be successful in ministry. We cannot afford the luxury of keeping our heads down and promoting our own agendas. We win and lose as a team. Jesus’s mission is too important to spend our time looking out for our own needs and preserving our own priorities. When we win for the Kingdom, we all see it as a team-win. When we fail to meet our goals, we all must own that failure and work together to make corrections and try again. That is why we strive to set aside our own work to encourage, counsel, and lend a helping hand to each other. Sometimes it means that my own work doesn’t get done that day. That’s ok. I am needed elsewhere.
I wonder how this behavior might translate to your relationship with Jesus and how it flows over into your relationships. We can get so caught up in our schedules, calendars, and busyness that we miss the opportunities to help one another. We get so focused on our own success, how others view us, and how we can check more things off our list that we forget that Jesus always sought after and paused to help those in need. This was his intention. It’s why one of his last acts and lessons for his team of disciples was to wash their feet. Serving others in love was their highest calling. If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, it’s your highest calling, too. How did we ever get to a place where stopping to help others became something we did as an afterthought or something we did when we had leftover time or energy? How have we let other people do the work of helping in Jesus’s name?
Our obedience to helping one another is the evidence of our faith. Jesus highlights this fact in his sobering words in Matthew 25. I encourage and challenge you. Be the family member, co-worker, teammate, and Christian brother or sister that Jesus calls you to be. Help One Another. Your family needs it. Those with whom you associate depend upon it. Our church grows because of it. Jesus’s mission is fueled by it.
I Help Others,
Nathan
Nathan Hinkle
Lead Pastor
White Oak Christian Church