Andy Kampman, Director of Mobilization for the 100 People Network, recruits and trains people for missions work overseas. He issues a call for such people at The Austin Stone on a biannual basis. Every time he appears to make that call, though, he offers a pointed reminder: “There’s no such thing as an A Team and B Team.”
He says that because it’s easy for Christians to believe the lie that some people are “better” than they are. These people belong to the A Team. They move around the world, often to an inhospitable or hostile environment. Others go into full-time ministry. They make it their life’s work to serve people as pastors, worship leaders, social workers, mental health practitioners, human rights activists, et cetera.
The B Team, almost by association, comprises everyone who plays it “safe.” They take full-time jobs in the 9–5 workforce. Maybe they work “behind the scenes.” No one knows they exist, and they’re all right with that. They would rather not dwell on the stage or in the spotlight.
Andy would say these people don’t belong to any team but God’s team. While the two sets of people perform different activities, one group is not more or less important than another. Both matter to God, and both matter to each other. The church doesn’t work without both types of people; in fact, it quickly falls apart without the two working in concert. The church — and the world — needs people who will go and people who still stay.
I believe those words to be true, and yet, I’ve realized I’m guilty of thinking in terms of A Team and B Team. I assume people won’t want to support my ministry because it isn’t working with youth or venturing into the mission field or planting a church or… My work will be quiet. I will research, write, and edit.
However, that work serves a useful purpose. It will help the people on the “front lines.” It will equip people inside the church, too, to live out the gospel wherever they are, be that heading to a traditional job Monday through Friday, working from a coffee shop, or preparing a sermon for the following Sunday.
The work might even lead to teaching or speaking opportunities. Who knows? All I know is that God has called me to a certain role on his team, and his team is much more significant than any A Team or B Team. He made me to love helping people, and this time he’s going to use the talents of writing, research, and editing to accomplish it. I have a place on the team, and it’s just as worthy of support as the one that entails living in Africa, counseling church members, or putting a stop to human trafficking.
There is no such thing as an A Team or B Team. It’s time to do away with that idea once and for all. There is only God’s team, and he calls each of his children to a specific role on it.
“…I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
“For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,
“so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
“Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly…”
Romans 12:3–6
Image: EladeManu (Creative Commons)