On Team

I recently received an email from one of our staff that made me smile. Fresh out of a curriculum meeting with a couple other teachers, he wrote: "Our meeting today was phenomenal. I want to go teach the snot out of my students now!"

Team. You've heard the cliches (not to mention that there's no "I" in it), but have you experienced what it feels like to be part of one? If you have, you know why team matters; if you haven't, here are a couple things to think about.

Team matters because none of us are omni-competent...or omniscient...or omni-present...or omni-anything else. Team matters because God - in the form of the Trinity - is a team made up of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Oh, and team matters because it's fun. Even for the introverts among us, we need to feel the joy of something bigger - of a team, of a community - as the Body of Christ.

Last week, 30 or so staff and family members gathered at our house here in north OKC to meet each other, enjoy some eats, ask a few questions, and dream a little bit about the future of Veritas Classical Academy. I was reminded of Psalm 133:1, where David writes, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!" The ESV gets it right by including "behold" - unity is indeed something that should draw our eye and captivate our thoughts, if for its rarity alone.

I recently came across this quote from C.S. Lewis: "It is not your business to succeed, but to do right; when you have done so, the rest lies with God." Unity and functioning as a team are "right" in God's eyes (think Trinity, think Psalm 133:1), and I can't help but be excited by what God might do in and through us as we go/grow together into the coming school year.

The next day, I wrote our staff about all this, encouraging them - even as we head into this last week of July - to meet with, work with, pray with, or just be with one other person as they thought about and prepared for this fall. If the examples and promises from the Scriptures aren't enough motivation, I said, maybe a little positive peer pressure will work: everybody's doing it (or will be) at Veritas!