Tag Team

This idea was fed to me by Mark Batterson. He and his church have really learned to put this into practice. Their context is one of the most unique in the nation. They worship at the Movie Theater in Union Station, Washington, D.C. They are located in one of the highest populations of college students in the world, and their church is made up of predominantly twenty-somethings.

The idea is this, "Church is a tag-team sport".

On one side the pastor is seen as primarily responsible for church growth. Dynamic preachers, overwhelming personalities, these are what growing churches are made of. In fact the mega-churches of yesterday were mostly built this way. And churches who aren't growing look at their pastor with comparative eyes to see if he's a Jimmy Swaggart (God, help us), or if they'll be locked into mediocrity as a church status.

On the other side are the pastors who depend on people from their congregation taking any action to invite their friends. Some in this camp even believe that people should be brought to Christ not to church. The church and preaching are places for discipleship not conversion. You should be winning them out their in your homes, workplaces, coffee bars. Then bring them to me.

The idea of Tag-team works this way:

We work together. You pray for your friends and live a Christian witness. I prepare diligently to preach the good news for all people with application of God's word for all lives. You bring friends/family to church and tag me. I know...you expect me to deliver. You should. Prepared in study, and led by the Holy Spirit, you should be able to count on me to bring people to decisions and life change. But wait there's more.

I get to count on you. On the way out of church, tag you’re it. We should tag you with resources and knowledge to make you successful on your side. This week for instance, we'll be providing invitation cards again. We expect you to distribute them. We'll be explaining what the sermon series will be like for the 7 weeks to follow. We're gonna tag you with things you need to do what you do, and then tag we'll do what we do.

Now here's where it gets good. When we're tag teaming we can suplex them at the I raised my Hand table. With the laying on of hands we can do the Camel Clutch (that's your job Kevin) and I'll end my sermon with a Three count. ...Ok that went way overboard in the land of metaphor.

Church growth happens when we word together.
We'll do our best.