A Successful Team

   So, some of you may know that I have decided to play soccer again this season. I have enjoyed playing soccer for fourteen years of my life. But, if there’s one thing I have learned from playing soccer it is that it is important for a team to work together.

   So how do people work together? It seems like a simple question with an easy answer. But that is not the case. There have been many teams that I have been on which I did not feel like I belonged on the team. There were different reasons each time like all the drama, people not including me, people not encouraging me, and so on. But, over the years I realized there was something in common with each of the teams I did not feel like I belonged on. People did not form relationships with one another. They did not want to get to know each other.

   In order to have an amazing soccer team, leadership team, work team, or whatever team there is you need to have relationships with others. If I did not know how the people on my team played then I wouldn’t know what to expect out of them. I also would not know if something was wrong with them. See, people on my old teams did not seem to care about me if something was wrong with me. Because of that, I did not feel like anyone cared about me.

   We need to get to know one another in order to be successful at whatever we are doing, if we are on a team. We also need to listen to one another. One major problem I’ve had in the past with teams is that people think we are just there to play soccer. Yes, we are there to play soccer; but we also have other things going on other than soccer. People on my teams did not get to know what was going on in each other’s lives. Sometimes there are issues in people’s lives that impact how they play soccer. But, people wouldn’t know that unless they asked that person or knew that person well enough.

   You may not be on a soccer team; but I know for sure you have had to work with others or will have to work with others in the future. Do you know the people you work with well enough to know when something is going on with them? Do you have relationships with the people you work with, or are you just going through the motions? Do you care about others the way that you would want them to care about you?

   Philippians 2:4, Galatians 6:2, 1 John 3:17