My Super Bowl and why the NFL playbook doesn’t work in church

An occasional essay

Photo by Fredrick Lee on Unsplash

Following my latest post on teams (see here) I thought I would elaborate for those in other sectors, particularly in churches, where so many leadership books come straight from the touchline.

NFL and Corporate life shape our leadership advice: The CEO pastor pitches a winning vision; the quarterback pastor drives all before him. It’s not as though either well of wisdom isn’t pumping out well publicised failures, either. I love Dennis Tourish on Dysfunctional leadership in corporations (watch here). Remember the physical and brain injuries that take down our sporting heroes in later life?

But it’s not just about the fallout for leaders, although that storm is growing on our radar. It’s about the passivity it fosters in the pew; the lack of impact churches make as they wait for another initiative; its about what it does for personal ministry and Bible study; and the way it skews our narrative of what is really happening.

Reading the game

I enjoyed the Super Bowl although I couldn’t make anything of the halftime show; why wasn’t that car, with all those people in the boot, stopped on its way to the stadium? What about seatbelts for the rest who climbed out? I especially enjoyed the commentary as the pundits tried to explain what we were watching.

Born in New England, I once watched in the UK as the Patriots went down, down, down one Super Bowl. When it was hopeless, I turned off, turned over and went to sleep. Next morning I discovered I had missed the most amazing comeback, a comeback that was recalled with increasing desperation as the one-sided nature of the latest struggle emerged. Long before all those people started climbing out of that car, everyone except the pundits had realised that a comeback wasn’t on.

If you’re looking for a hero (rather than observing half a dozen heavies enjoying a hero-free evening) that’s all you see. Although a quarterback won MVP – of course, that’s the only way to watch the game – he was realistic enough to admit he didn’t do it on his own. But you won’t understand the game solely through that lens. It’s a great way to spend an evening but I find NFL a poor lens on leaders and teams, especially Christian leaders and teams.

For the Bible says a lot about teams and leaders, even if today’s book writers, with their corporate and sporting eyewear can’t seem to see it. The early church was built by small teams. Just listen to the voiceover when they went on tour. Acts 18 (read here) relates a miracle when a lame man is healed (and I’m all in favour of lame men walking). What’s the commentary as the crowd tries to understand what they are seeing? ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ (Acts 18:11, NIV)

There’s a big guy, so he must be Zeus. Trouble is, the little guy does all the talking, so he must be Hermes, the messenger of the gods. It’s a sad story in the end, because the priest of Zeus comes out with garlands and bulls to sacrifice, only to discover he’s been watching the wrong game. After a life of service, when the big day arrives Zeus hasn’t come down at all! His playbook meant he missed the real game.

The trouble with using the playbook is not that it stops you winning games: sometimes you do win. It’s not just that it stops you reading the game properly. Sometimes it stops you reading what game you’re actually in.

Reading the real game

There’s a lot of good stuff out there on teams and I‘ve described some of my discoveries here. The thing is, all teams aren’t all alike: the composition and structures of teams are tuned to match the task they face.

There’s a nice example in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, where Gene Kranz (played in his white waistcoat by Ed Harris) splits his forces into a front-line team to manage the evolving emergency by keeping three astronauts alive, and a backroom team to invent difficult solutions – for instance to troubleshoot the rising levels of CO₂ in the cabin.

We see a similar split in Acts, where the early church embraces Jewish and non-Jewish believers and where two teams emerge, one for each community. This dual strategy is formalised at a conference in Acts 15 (read here). How do you read this? Where is all the top-down management of the event? Why was the chap who summed it all up not even one of Jesus’ first disciples?

If we try to read the New Testament through the lens of corporate analysis or an NFL playbook, we are confounded at every step. There is no top-down hierarchy (how about Paul’s attempt to get Apollos over to Corinth for a while in 1 Corinthians 16:12, read here), although clearly some parts of the congregation identified better with some team members than others (go back 15 chapters to 1 Corinthians 1:12, where Apollos is also mentioned).

Diversity? Yes. Directives? Not so much. Clearly, the Holy Spirit is orchestrating events, but it’s not about microphones and ordering up the next play.

Team roles

Finding Belbin was one of my biggest discoveries as a manger in research and something I was keen to include in the final year syllabus when I got to teach project management. Nobody contests the idea that teams fail if they are composed of nearly identical people, and it was Belbin who provided me with my favourite set of roles.

Critically, nobody has more than two or three key strengths, and each strength carries weaknesses that you need others in the team to cover. The Shaper, for instance, may be insensitive while the more sensitive Teamworker may be indecisive, but together they can provide a functioning combo that is decisively sensitive.

Since encountering Belbin, I’ve always been struck by Paul’s list of leadership types in Romans 12. Again, nobody has more than a few traits, and you need the whole team to function well. Without diving too deeply into definitions here, how many leadership teams are destroyed by the harshness of the Prophet or the insensitivity of the Teacher because they didn’t realise they needed an Encourager or a Shower of mercy on the team?

How many leadership teams – secular or spiritual – could you name that have half the gifted roles Paul covers in Romans 12 or even a balanced hand in Belbin’s terms?

Team Structure

Given a compatible group of leaders with gifts and roles across the spectrum, and a clear idea of the task, you can structure the team – not just in terms of titles which may help or hinder operations – but in terms of how people relate to one another.

Most of the teams I’ve seen or been part of in churches were shaped by need. The team must go on! Many (but not all!) of the teams I’ve been on haven’t been much fun or achieved what they might have.

Most of what we’re taught about New Testament churches simply isn’t there in the text. It has come out of someone’s culture or experience. From what I can see, the early church was pretty fluid structurally and was able to reconfigure rapidly and effectively during growth spurts and under persecution. Why don’t we want to know more about it?

And there’s one more bonus if you ditch the playbook…

You can stop hoping for a miracle.

Healthy churches are full of miracles as lives are transformed and destructive vortices are reverse, but that’s not the sort of miracle I’m talking about.

The playbook approach to leadership leaves you hoping – like the Super Bowl pundits – that a miracle will intervene.

I know! I’ve been caricaturing the commentaries from the Super Bowl and there were some notable defensive voices jubilantly raised. I also know they have to keep us hoping that the game will not conclude in the abjectly uncontested manner in which it is being played as they speak.

Across our lands, there are leadership teams that aren’t working, and all the congregations can do is hope for a miracle – that this unlikely idea or that bland strategy will finally prove a winner.

Let’s ditch the playbook approach to leadership and start practising what early churches trialled and triumphed with the in the day of trial. Let’s give up on quarterbacks and visionary CEOs, read what they did back then and build teams that really make a difference.

Enjoy…!