Team Missions as a Collective Game

Game playing has been a part of our mission team’s culture from the beginning.  While we were still living in the USA in 2000-2003 we would meet regularly to do team formation activities, work out details about where and how we would serve in Africa, meet with missions teachers and mentors… and have fun together, too! 

Even now, after being in Mozambique for almost 14 years, game playing is still part of our team culture.  Every Tuesday night we share a meal, worship together, put the kids to bed, and play games.  Each family has their own collection of games and depending on whose house we are at that week, there’s a bunch of different game options that we can bring to the table.  

There are basically two kinds of games.  There are competitive games, where individual players, or a team of players, is trying to beat the other participants (like Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan).  In contrast, collective games, on the other hand, are different in that all the players are working together to win as a group (like Pandemic, Forbidden Island or Flashpoint).

While our team enjoys playing both kinds of games, we function best when we remember that what we are doing here in Mozambique is not a competitive game, it is a collective game.  When we get distracted and start thinking or worrying about which one of us is “winning” (who gets the credit for this or that), then we’ve begun playing the wrong kind of game.  If we forget the truth that we all win or lose this thing together… that’s when things start to fall apart.

Often that means that team members end up “taking one for the team” and do things behind the scenes that could often go unnoticed.  So, one of the keys has been remembering to name and celebrate together our collective wins. 

We win or lose this thing together.

In my mind, Romans 12 may be the most underrated… and yet the most important chapter in Paul’s letters for team missions.  It provides a powerful vision of what it means to serve and minister together.

May God help us see clearly that we win or lose this thing together in Jesus’ name.

Grace and Peace,

Alan