"The Collaborative Method!"

They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary,the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. Acts 1:14

One of the greatest lessons that I am learning in my Christian walk is the growing discovery of the collaborative method. This is one of the hardest lessons I have ever learned in my life, and I still have a lot to learn. When the Marine Corps take a recruit, they have 12 weeks on Paris Island to turn those recruits into a team. Their lives and success depends on them beginning to learn thislesson. In sports, we say we can accomplish more together than we can apart. And in the church we have the example of Jesus Christ in his teaching. The promise of a coming helper, his death on the cross which gives us forgiveness of our sins (everything that holds us apart from him and each other) and then he told his followers to stay together for Pentecost. Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit fell upon the diverse group of gathered believers and they were empowered to be a team that would impact the whole world. This was the birth of the “collaborative method.” The word “together” is mentioned 390 times in the Bible. Every marriage has a lot to learn in order to workcollaboratively. Every family has a lifetime of lessons to learn. There are so many lessons to learn for a little league soccer team or an office sales team, but in a church we have no other optionbecause we want them to know we are Christians by our love.

• Long-term commitment is essential.
• Learning and re-learning how to communicate with one another is vital.
• Being able to put our projects on the table for the team to work on is really hard, but its an important step of trust.
• Everyone looking for God’s will, beyond seeing each issue as “us against them”, is maybe the most important ingredient.
• Discovering that great teamwork takes time – so lets keep working on it. This is a really big deal.
  
  Your friend for the rest of my life,
  
  Pastor Tim White