A recent interaction regarding an article I previously posted on my Substack reminded me of my own lack of self-awareness and how loyalties can sometimes go astray. We can transfer loyalty to our specific ministry expressions instead of the Kingdom without even knowing we are doing it.
I was a young missionary on furlough at a local church missions conference. I was in their exhibit hall with a table set up that had a few odds and ends from our overseas life, promotional brochures, and a banner from my organization. The place was buzzing with people coming and going, some stopping to say hello and ask questions, and others smiling as they ushered their kids down the hallway that was full of booths.
"I used to serve on ‘a God team’".
A gentleman came up to introduce himself. He held out his hand and told me his name and pointed to the organizational banner and said, “I used to serve on ‘a God team’ with several of your people.” “Really?” I responded while shaking his hand, “Where was that?”
He told me it was a large city in the Middle East. A place that I am sure had few missionaries despite its large population. I was impressed. “Well, wow,” I replied, “Who was the organizer behind that?”
“Behind what?” he asked. “Behind this team working there. Is this something that one of the organizations put together?” “No,” he chuckled. “It was a very restricted access place, and we were all working there.”
I still didn’t get it. “Tell me more,” I asked. “What do you mean?”
With different organizations... working toward the same goal.
He looked at me with a bit of concern, and said slowly, like I was a five-year-old, “We were all with different organizations, but we were all working toward the same goal in that city, so we were all on God’s team together. Whenever you are in a place where there are different organizations working, that’s a team that God has organized, I like to say they are ‘a God team.’”
Under the banner of the gospel.
He was simply pointing out the fact that all these disparate missionaries were under the banner of the gospel. In my organization-centric experience, when he gave it a name, “a God’s team,” I don’t know if it was the definite article “a” that threw me or what, but I immediately drew the improper conclusion that this was some kind of bureaucratic ministry structure.
At that moment, I realized how limited my gospel horizon was. It was not that I was discounting the work of others or promoting my own organization. In some ways, it was worse than that because it was an aberrant mental framework. The way that I was internally organizing my world, was off.
We all have our ministry identities.
We all have our ministry identities. Some are quick to declare themselves Reformed. Others say they’re with this organization or that organization. For some, it’s a denominational loyalty. Yet others are most concerned with the fact that they are church planters (and not only that but doing a specific kind of church planting) or media ministers or whatever strategy they are doing. There’s nothing wrong with ministry identities unless they crowd out the Kingdom aspect of what we are all supposed to be working toward.
Unity... comes from the essence of God.
The high priestly prayer in John 17 reminds us of the importance of unity. One way unity is eroded is when we identify more with our ministry identity than we do with the Kingdom. Unity itself comes from the essence of God and is expressed in the Godhead. We have union is Christ through the Holy Spirit. When we as believers experience unity, we are reflecting the Kingdom. Unity is itself evangelistic and a marker to the world that we are in the Kingdom.
Unity is a missions principle.
Unity is a missions principle. Our shared witness together is part and parcel of how God works and reveals himself. Standing together with other believers, despite many reasons to be divided, is powerful stuff. Slicing up the kingdom on secondary and unimportant issues harms gospel witness.
I learned that day that one way I was slicing up the Kingdom was through organizational categories. It wasn’t because I was critiquing or criticizing the work of others or promoting my own team. It was the fact that my first instinct was to think in terms of these silos. As the saying goes, I was “caught in the headlights” of an errant thought pattern that helped me to be much more self-aware.
We should first and foremost recognize that we are, together, on God’s team.
Originally published on Ted's Substack, TedQuarters. Republished with permission.
Ted Esler is the President of Missio Nexus, an association of agencies and churches representing hundreds of mission agencies and churches. Ted worked in the computer industry and then served in the Balkans during the 1990s. He then held various leadership roles with Pioneers. He was appointed the President of Missio Nexus in 2015. He is the author of The Innovation Crisis. Ted has a PhD in Intercultural Studies (Fuller Theological Seminary, 2012).
