Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Getting Out of the Silo

Come to the church in the evening on the second Tuesday of each month and you’ll find our Ministry Teams hard at work. We’ve set the second Tuesday as Ministry Team meeting night so we can gather in community as we go about our work. 

Churches are famous, perhaps even notorious, for being places where nothing can be done without going through a committee. We laugh at the very idea, but we work that way because we work in community. Each committee, group, or team is a smaller version of the body of Christ, and as Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians, we need one another, and we need one another’s gifts.

And this is true across committees and teams. Our Property Team needs to work with our Finance Team, and our Finance Team needs to work with our Early Learning Center Team, and our Early Learning Center Team needs to work with our Christian Education Team, and our Christian Education Team needs to work with our Property Team, and on it goes.
This is why we have a common meeting night so we can gather together, talk together, and work together. It may well be more convenient for this Team or that to pick another day and time to meet, but we are called to be the Body of Christ, and work together in community, and so we have our common Ministry Team night – a practice that most churches have had in place for years. 

You’ve heard me say before that it is easy for each group to work in its own silo, easy for each group to work diligently and faithfully, but ultimately on their own. This “silo mentality” has become a growing concern for businesses and organizations of all kinds. Gillian Tett, a prominent writer on business and financial matters, has authored a new book entitled, “The Silo Effect”, in which she examines how easy it is for organizations of every kind to fall into the silo trap.  

We work together, all of us, because that is what the Holy Spirit calls us to do. As Paul reminds us, “there are many members, but one body” and it is the body that we serve as we follow the head of the body, our Lord Jesus Christ.  

If you’d like to be part of Team, then come join us on Tuesday September 8 in the Sanctuary at 7:15 pm, or any second Tuesday, and find your place – every Team is always happy to welcome new members. 

“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received…so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 4:10)

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip