my team

I have a great team of volunteers who labor alongside me in the kingdom of God to minister to the teenagers in our church. I am honored by their unfailing support and encouragement.

I went to a youth ministry conference last weekend, and one of the presenters, Mark DeVries, spent some time talking about volunteers. And somewhere in there, he asked, "Who's the most important person on a football team's offense? (Obviously, it's the quarterback.) Who's the second most important... or at least the second highest paid? The left tackle." If you don't know, the left tackle is the guy on the offensive line with the task of protecting the quarterback's blind side (that is, of course, assuming the QB's right-handed... and actually, in the case of my Cleveland Browns, Left Tackle Joe Thomas is THE highest paid player on the team). The point is this: An unprotected leader is vulnerable... and even though the leader of a youth ministry is important, don't neglect the importance of someone in your life who looks out for your blind side. This football analogy really made sense to me and got me to thinking about some my volunteers...

First of all, there's my left tackle, my wife Amy. More than anyone else, she defends my blind side. Without her, I'd be toast. She keeps me in check in everything from balancing my time with work and family, keeping my ministry priorities in line, and helping diffuse frustrations. She's the one who sees the things that threaten my attitude... the things that can easily make me ineffective. And she'll go to bat for me every time, even when I make some pretty clumsy plays. In football jargon, she keeps my uniform clean.

Then there's my starting running back, Alex. In football, the running back can run the ball out of the back field, stay in as an extra blocker to pick up a pass rush, or go down field as a receiver. In most offenses at least half of the offense goes through the running back. So, needless to say, Alex is my work horse. He has led Sunday morning Bible study, taught the guys small group, went on mission projects and last summer's mission trip, chaperoned for many events, and basically fills in any time I need him. He's a great friend who I trust to make great decisions, and we've gotten pretty good at coordinating clean hand-offs. He's very versatile, and I can depend on him to "pick up the hard yardage through the hedges" over and over again.

Also I've got this amazing receiving corp, including Melissa, Blair, Christa, Erin, and Scott. The reason I think of this group as my receivers is because they're the ones who make the big plays and show up on the highlight reels. I love to watch them work... it's so fun to see them loving on these kids and making a significant impact in their lives! They each have their own strengths like receivers in football (e.g. speed, good hands, tight routes, athletic agility, big targets, and even down field blocking). Some of these volunteers have just the right timing with words, some of them give just the right nudge to push a kid along, and some are always showing up to be there for a kid when they need it the most.

In particular, I think of Christa as my slot receiver. The receiver who lines up in the slot is usually a possession receiver (a.k.a. you count on them to make the play to keep the drive alive) with great hands that is willing to run across the middle of the field, knowing they'll take the big hits from the defensive backs. Not only is Christa clutch, but she has been willing to take some "hits" for the team. When she's in there, she's definitely a momentum changer.

Similar to the slot receiver is the tight end. However, tight ends are unique because on any given play they can function as either important possession receivers or stay on the offensive line as extra blockers. The primary tight end on my team is Donna. Even more so now that she's on the personnel committee, Donna picks up some key blocks by advocating for me or the youth ministry whenever she can. On the other hand, Donna is one of my favorite passing targets. Tight ends are known for being tall and big (so they can block effectively) which means they have a larger throwing window, i.e. there are a lot of places you can deliver the ball and it will still be caught. Tight ends are often athletic and can catch passes thrown at their feet or way above their heads. Many times I've not delivered the ball particularly well to Donna, but every time she has found a way to make a great play out of a bad pass. In fact in a lot of offensive schemes, the tight end has become sort of like a pressure release valve. When the quarterback is in trouble and about to be sacked for a loss, he'll often dump it down to the tight end and can count on him to make the play. When I'm feeling the pressure I have a lot of confidence in Donna to help me out of my mess. She is indeed "clutch."

Though these are a few of my "go to" players, there are a host of other teammates who come in and play valuable downs, helping to take the pressure off the starters. I have depended on great volunteers like Tia and Aaron, Dianna, Connie, Alyssa and Paul, Christie, Charlene, Karen, Jamie, Terri, Jennifer, Sabrina, Kevin, Heather and Matt (and others who work behind the scenes or cheer us on from the sidelines).

I have a great team. And this is really the point: We are a team. These important volunteers are not simply chaperones who babysit the youth. They value the goal, they buy into the system we've put together to reach them, they work hard at their responsibilities, and they believe in me to lead them. They truly take ownership of this ministry. Do we mess up? Yes, I often draw up a terrible play. But we're getting smarter, working together better, seeing some great results, and having a lot of fun, too.

Many times when I've gone to the kinds of youth ministry conferences like the one last week, I've sat there feeling depressed about how much work I needed to do to have a stronger ministry. This last weekend, as the guy talked about healthy, sustainable youth ministry, there were a lot of youth pastors there having these same kind of obvious difficulties with their programs. The interesting thing was that I really had this sense that, even though we're not there yet, my student ministry at GBC is getting there, and I felt good about it. And I think the thing that made the biggest difference--my team.

By the way, as we approach the time when we finally have our new senior pastor in place, I hope that he's looking for a teammate. I'm hoping he'll let me be his left tackle (or maybe tight end!).