From the Ground Up: The Rebuild

Thought this article was great from a real practical standpoint. Speaking as someone whose almost entire core team has changed over the last three years it's been a challenging season of blessing and God has grown me in some amazing ways. So here's to teams past, present, and future!

Rebuilding Your Team
 by Kurt Johnston & Josh Griffin

There’s nothing more painful than losing your dream team…or even one dream player.  From time to time, you will be faced with a key leader moving away or a right-hand man being moved up to help with a program for adults. It happens – our adult ministry steals our best people all of the time!

So when this happens – you have a few choices to make: (1) you can wallow in the golden years of what was, or (2) you can get to work on rebuilding a young team and see where God takes you. Honestly, you’ve probably done enough of (1) already, so let’s talk about (2). Here we go:

Don’t compare to the past
Rebuilding a team is difficult enough without making comparisons to the past. You are building a new team now – with different gifts, personalities and passions – embrace it instead of focusing on the frustrating differences.

Adjust your leadership to who you have now
The way you led last year probably isn’t going to work anymore. Different people need to be led differently – the pressure to adjust is on you, not on them. Consider giving everyone a personality test or the 5 Love Languages quiz to see what you’re working with and make a real effort to lead in a new way in the new season.

Become the world’s best coach
Maybe one of the reasons you’re lamenting the loss of your teammates is because you had a whole pack of seasoned, battle-hardened veterans and now you’ve got fresh meat. Become the world’s best coach! Constantly push, nudge and challenge your people in the right direction. Before you know it, they’ll be veterans as well…and prime pickings for adult ministry to swoop down for another batch (not that we’re bitter or anything).

Face the challenges head on
Need a pep talk? We got one: You can do this! Keep your head in the game! Don’t run from the challenge! Rebuilding a team is not an easy task. Hang in there! We knowthat God is going to use you in new ways in the next season