Set the Team Apart

That is already the first thing I want to talk about here. You should set your team apart from the rest. By this I mean you should set them apart from the crowd. So when these people come to you, you say,

“I’m choosing them and I want to have them closer.”

Make it clear to everybody else that this is your appointed team. Because of that they will have greater access to you.

This is important, because as a leader you should not just give access to everybody. Eventually you will take yourself back and work through the team. They are the ones who will represent you like this.

Make it clear to the people out there so that they know who is on your team and who they are. Make it very clear so that they also get the recognition from the crowd.

Give Them More Privileges

Next, you must make it clear that the team get privileges which others don’t have. This means you don’t pour yourself into the whole crowd. You pour yourself more into your team members.

Going back to Jesus, that is what He did. He preached before the crowds and gave them principles and teachings. He also healed people in the crowds. But when it came to His disciples, that is when He really opened Himself up and poured everything into them.

He shared things with them that He didn’t share with the crowd. There were certain things that He kept just for those who were privileged. He shared it just with the 12 disciples and with nobody else.

Like Jesus, you must be prepared to open your heart to those team members. Again let them see the real you. You don’t do that in the crowds. You don’t let everything down and show them all that you are.

You have a certain image that you have to uphold. But when it comes to the ones on your team, that’s where you start to really open your heart.

Let them see your weaknesses and your strengths. Let them see your failures and how you have overcome them, so that they know who you are.

Yes it is a risk that you are taking in that way. But they have to know you more than the rest. They have to learn from you in such a way.

When you speak about your failures they can learn from it, especially when you have overcome them. I trust that when you want to share your own failures you have done the same thing, then people can really learn from it. They can pick up your DNA and can say,

“You know that is how we should do things. That is how he thinks.”

Pour In Everything

By pouring into them they will keep picking up your DNA. You must also not only your pour your DNA into them but the anointing. Minister to those people and pour everything that you have into them.

Pour your knowledge into them. Put all that you have into them and don’t hold anything back from those team members.

This is very important. Some leaders are so afraid to give what they have into their team members. But by doing so, how can they now send those team members out so that they can represent him or her as their leader?

It doesn’t work that way. You have to be free to give, and you have to be willing to give everything and not to withhold anything from them.

That is why you have to choose wisely whom you will have on your team. It is why it is so important not to rush into anything.

Because you see if you take a person on too soon or someone who is too immature, what will happen is you will take them in and find out along the way that they are not suitable. Either that, or they find out that they actually don’t want any of it and they will then run off.

In the meantime you will have already poured yourself out to them. You will have already let down your guard and allowed them to see things that nobody out there really sees. Then they will go out with those secrets.

You don’t want that to happen. You really need to know by that stage,

“They should be on my team. They want to be on my team, and they will be faithful to me as part of my team.”

Give Freely

Expect from your team members the best that they have. By that I don’t just mean the best when they are serving or when they are ministering. No, you must expect them to invest back into you.

They should feed upwards and communicate upwards. They should even pour finances into you. As you pour yourself into them and give them everything that you have, you can expect something to come back.

We often say, “We have freely given to you, now you should freely pour out to us again.”

In a team there should be a communication taking place, and when one part doesn’t have enough, we should help each other. I hope that you have that image and that you have already given that image to them, that you give everything that you have to them.

This goes into every realm. I am talking here of finances, ministry gifts and normal practical things; even things like food. If you see that your team are struggling with something, surely you will pour into them, even if it is the last bread that you have in your home.

On the other hand you should be able to expect the same to come back to you from them. You should not be afraid to expect it.

Your team should be willing to give their last. Somebody may say to you,

“I will give you this much time because of my free time.”

Then when you ask them for something more they say,

“No, I can’t give you more.”

That is not the kind of person you want on your team. You can expect that if they are part of your team they should have the same vision, the same passion, and they should be willing to give the last that they have if it has to be like that.

Communicate Up and Down

You must be sure that your team know this. I shared just now about feeding upwards in communication. Well you need to make sure that you have also communicated downwards.

When they look at you, you had better show that image to them first. You had better be it already. This is because you can’t come in and say,

“Don’t do as I do; just do as I tell you.”

No, they will look at you and will do exactly as you do. That is what happens with leaders and with followers. So you had better be that image.

You had better make sure that you are a person who communicates upwards if someone is above you. In this way you can expect it from those who are underneath you.

Also be sure that you communicate downwards to them what you expect of them. Make it clear to them. Sometimes as leaders we miss that point and we think,

“Well it is so obvious what is expected of them.”

But it is not always so obvious to your team what you are thinking. You need to let them know. You need to communicate to them. Yes you must expect it from them, but also be sure that they know what you expect.

If you don’t do that you will get angry and will yell at them. They will look at you and think,

“I didn’t even know that he expected that of me.”

So make sure that the communication channel is flowing freely.

Correct Them

Don’t be afraid to correct where it is needed. If somebody in your team is out of line, do not be afraid to correct that person. Let them know,

“This is not acceptable in here.”

Don’t let them get away with it. Let’s look again at the scenario where they have perhaps given you a lot of money. They have been pouring into you continuously. Now this person is suddenly getting out of order and doing something that they shouldn’t.

You might think, “How can I now correct this person? What if they stop following me or investing in me? What if they hold back on these things?”

You should never be afraid of that happening, because if you let that bad behavior go, guess what it communicates to the rest of the team? They think,

“Oh, we can all do that now.”

You can’t treat them differently. You have to treat everybody in the team the same. I don’t mean you must correct everybody in the same way. You should have learned by now already that you have to correct each person differently according to how the Lord leads you.

But if correction is needed, please do correct them. Let them know when they are out of order and pull them back in.

Release Them in Love

Don’t ever be afraid to lose somebody or to let them go if they decide to follow in a different way. Nobody is indispensable. If someone decides to go, rather let them go in blessing and release them in love. It is very important to do that.

As a leader it will happen. So many things that I have shared in this section are because we have learned them. How? By filling our heads with knowledge? No, because we lived these things and we experienced them along the way.

I know it is not always easy and it is not always pretty. Things happen when you are a leader. People will come and they will go, even on your team.

It doesn’t have to be that way, and if you apply what I have taught you here, I believe that less will happen. You can learn from some of the mistakes that we had to make or that we had to go through from these sections.

Don’t let it hold you back. If it happens, just get up again. Learn the section and don’t do it a second time around.

Testing Time

You must test the people to their limits. I know that this really is one thing that some leaders don’t want to do. They say,

“Let’s just keep it all nice. Let’s just brush over it and keep everyone happy.”

Well it doesn’t work that way. Look at Jesus who said to Peter,

Get behind me Satan!

Jesus spoke it like it was. Peter was out of line and Jesus didn’t mince His words. He addressed it clearly.

God will arrange the tests for you. You cannot go by yourself and say,

“Let’s test Team Member A, and tomorrow I will test Team Member B and C.”

No, it is not in your hands. God will set up the test. You just have to recognize it. As the leader, once they are going through the test you just have to think,

“Have they passed the test or have they failed?”

If they have passed it, please make sure that you encourage the person and that you tell them,

“Hey, did you realize that you went through a test here? Did you realize that you passed the test? That means promotion is coming.”

Encourage such a person. On the other hand if somebody failed a test, they now need to know what they need to work on. Why is God testing us? So that we know when we fail that it is not to put us down. It’s not to say,

“You are so useless. Team Member B I can’t ever use you. You are always doing the same mistakes.”

If they always make the same mistakes, maybe you need to check why they are always making those mistakes. Maybe it is because you never corrected it. Again it also goes back on you at times. But let them know what they have to work on.

The ests expose the weaknesses. They expose what has to go. They expose in a member what stands in the way of them rising up.

As a leader, you should recognize what your team members are going through. You should be there to help them. Yes you can’t go through the tests for them. You can’t walk their calling out for them or pass the tests for them for that matter.

But you can be there to let them know yes they passed it or what they still have to go and work on again.

In conclusion you cannot succeed in ministry without a team. You have to have a team with you if you want your ministry to succeed and if you want it to expand.

On the other hand you cannot succeed with the wrong team. Make sure that you choose correctly and that you train these people correctly. Make sure you pour everything that you have in them.

Make sure they understand what is involved in this whole process. Make sure they are ready before you give them a title or before you truly make them part of your team.

Make sure they know the expectations that you have and what you truly offer them as well. When they are ready, send them out and then build the Kingdom of God as one.

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