By Jeff Miller
So, I have a fantasy football team. It is a misnomer on both accounts: fantasy & team. First, it is not a very good team at all. It seems unlikely that I will win many weeks, if any, the rest of the season. I am a part of a large group so there are too many teams for there to be even mediocre players to pick up on the waver wire. The only ‘fantasy’ about my team is that it is a complete fantasy to think that anything more than a participation ribbon is coming my way.
Second, it isn’t really a team. “Fantasy sports” and “team” are essentially mutually exclusive. I have football teams that I like. But my fantasy football team has nothing to do with that. It is just a collection of players. I don’t even really care if their actual team wins or loses. I simply want them to get lots of good, meaningful stats that might boost me this week. I do not care about all their stats; only the stats that count toward points in the league (there are no points for blocking or for playing penalty free). Some of my players are from teams that I really don’t care for. But I hope the player on my fantasy team gets great stats. I find myself rooting for a contagion of selfishness to contaminate my players. A team sport becomes anything but.
At District Conference, we talked a lot about the last of the 5 D’s. The five are
Depend
Disciple
Develop
Deploy
Do it together
Collaboration. Teamwork. Partnership. Do it together. “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” We truly can accomplish more together than we can separately. I hope that we believe it. I long for us to practice it more fully.
Our district team has been studying Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The fifth dysfunction is “Inattention to Results.” What it really means is inattention to the ultimate aims and goals of the team/organization. Instead, the person is more concerned about his own reputation and accolades or her own department’s production and security than about the primary purpose of the organization or ministry.
In other words, the 5th dysfunction is about the ‘fantasy team’ syndrome where my own work, income, security, comfort, accolades, reputation, admiration are more important than whether the ministry’s objectives and Kingdom purposes are being met. It is like the athlete who is happy after the team’s big loss because his own numbers on the stat sheet are really good.
In the book to the Romans, the Spirit reminds us to ‘rejoice with those who rejoice; and mourn with those who mourn.’ (See Romans 12) The Lord nudges us in Paul’s writings with the notion that we are a body, joined together, and fully dependent upon each other (See I Corinthians 12). Abba speaks through an in-law, of all people, to show Moses that he was not good enough to go it alone (See Exodus 18). Moses had to learn to ‘do it together’.
At District Conference, we were challenged to follow the example of the Perfect Collaboration of God the Trinity. Though our Do it Together posture will be more of an Imperfect Collaboration, it will no doubt be a Spirit-empowered partnership. I’ll take imperfect, yet Spirit-empowered collaboration with my brothers and sisters in Christ any day over a ‘go it alone’, ‘I’ve got it covered’ ministry that lacks the partnership of the Spirit or His people.
At the end of the day, I will choose team sports over fantasy leagues every time. That being said, I am in the market for a good running back for my fantasy football team who actually can run forward two times out of three and may even find the endzone on occasion. Yes, it is a fantasy.
Jeff