Geeks know stuff.
Geeks know Courage, Know Living for a Cause, and Know Their Enemy. We know That mentors matter. We Geeks also know, or ought to know better than most, that teamwork is the pathway to victory.
Now, it’s true that we’ve seen our share of Rambo moments onscreen. The entire Chuck Norris mythology has grown its satiric roots from the soil of this “one man… against the world” farse. It’s a farse because even our dearest, most fantastical heroes rely on a team that help them succeed.
Geeks know teamwork.
- Alice always manages to survive UmbrellaCorp’s newest assault through the help (and eventually, deaths) of multiple team members.
- Neo may be the One, but he’s got Morpheus and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar behind him.
- Luke may be a Jedi, but Han and crew save his heinie more than a few times before Return of the Jedi wraps up.
Geeks know teamwork.
There are still Rambo stories being told, but we watch (or read) these with an extra dollup of butter on our popcorn to help us forget how ridiculous they are. More often than not, we prefer the obvious examples of teamwork:
- The X-Men
- Frodo’s Fellowship
- Rick’s survivors in the Walking Dead
- The Avengers
- Cobb’s Inception cast
- Star Trek’s Enterprise crew
- Ocean’s 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17…
Geeks know teamwork, but let’s talk about it anyway.
- Teamwork is what happens when people connect around a cause. The Bible calls Christ’s team the church, his body, his kingdom, his people.
- Teamwork isn’t about conformity, it’s about focus. If everyone plays point guard, you don’t have a team.
- A team is what you get when people bring their unique strengths to the community, for the sake of the cause.
- Teamwork means using my strengths to complement someone else’s weakness—and to let others’ strengths complement my own weakness.
- Teamwork means no one has to be good at everything.
- Teamwork means everyone has a role to play.
Geeks know teamwork, but again… are you doing something about it?
Remember Jack’s famous lines in the TV cult classic series LOST? “We either live together or we die alone.” Right from the first pages in Genesis, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” So he created Eve—and the moment she sat up, human teamwork was born. Community became the foundation of what it means to be a healthy person.
As a pastor, I spend a good chunk of my time grieving how lonely people are. Our schedules fill up, our lives red-line, and we push through day after day, week after week without experiencing meaningful, authentic community. Loneliness has become so normal that we’ve found ways to not be overly bothered by it.
What we do, though, is watch Avengers and Inception and X-Men… and sigh. Wouldn’t it be great to find a group of people to live life with? Most people I know wait around for community to happen to them. I have news for you: Most of the time, community is built, not found.
Shauna and I were incredibly lonely when we moved to Calgary. Instead of waiting for people to call, we decided to open our home and start a Small Group. To build the community we longed for. Years later now, we’re nestled within a rich community that loves and cares for us.
If you’re experiencing rich community and team, keep investing. If you’re not, what can you do TODAY to start? Who will you call? Go for coffee with? Have over for dinner? If you live in Northwest Calgary, come and join our Small Group!