When I moved to Yuma, Arizona to start what is now The Vertical Church, my team consisted of Jesus, me, myself, and I.  But I knew from the start that to grow as a pastor and for our church to grow, I would have to start recruiting and building a team that grows together. When your church starts out with zero people then you either become the lone ranger pastor or you choose to develop those God is sending to you.  From the onset, I chose to develop a team that grows together.    Our team has changed over the last few years, but I have learned much in the process.  Today, I want to focus on an area that has helped me build a team that is still growing together.

A Team That Reads Together Grows Together! About a year and half ago, I realized that our team was just getting together and meeting but not really growing together.  We went through some turnover on our team and now was the time to recapture the vision as a team.  So I sought out a plan of helping our team to grow together.   First of all, we got back to the basics.  I heard a well known pastor say that he told his staff that he was not responsible for their spiritual growth. He went on to say that if they were hired by the church, then they should be mature enough to read the Bible and have a daily relationship with God without him checking up on them.  In some ways it made since; however, I began to notice that our team was not growing in this area.  Suddenly, Jesus began to speak to me about changing my approach from being the sole spiritual leader for the entire church to being the primary spiritual leader for this team and then to allow their growth to cause them to be the spiritual leaders of their teams.  So we began reading the Bible devotionally together.  Here is how it played out: – Each month, we had a Bible reading assignment (They would carry out this reading assignment on their own over the next 30 days) – Each team member was held accountable by me with one weekly journal entry turned in on Fridays. ( I required that they turn in a synopsis of what God was teaching them through the week.  It did not have to be long or profound.)  As we began to carry this plan out, God began changing us and growing us as a team.  We began to unify behind the vision of our church and the Holy Spirit began to become more alive to us each and every day as we made decisions about the church.  Accountability with reading the Bible was the key to helping this team grow together.

The second area of reading together was about reading books that pertained to our vision and leadership development.  After a few months of reading the Bible together and continuing our growth process in that area, I brought in a book for us to read together.  Our first one was, “It” by Craig Groeschel.  I simply assigned a few chapters a month until the book was completed.  Each month, we discussed the book and how we can apply principles to our scenario.  We are currently finishing up “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan.    A team the reads together will grow together.  I really believe that as pastors we need to be patient in this area but also proactive in developing a team that grows together.  If we expect results overnight, we will cut God short on His plan for our team.  But at the same time, we must seek Jesus and be proactive in developing those He has given to us.  We are responsible.