Team Work

Last night, I was watching some of the Olympics reporting, while I read in front of the fire.
I watched a short segment about the Australian Men's Basketball team.  Now, I don't follow basketball, at all, so I know very little about it, but I watched with interest as this team of guys did something amazing.  No, it wasn't winning their game or a medal.    They lost their game against Serbia, even though they were the favourites.  So now they can fight it out against Spain for the bronze medal.    It's a big deal over here, apparently.  

I love this comment from an online news report, and I guess this sums up what makes this team work well, though he acknowledges other factors as well.
'....a team-wide willingness to find the open man has contributed to Australia’s tournament-leading field goal percentage.'

Now, I don't really understand basketball, but I understand that no one person is carrying the load, no one person is getting all the big shots and all glory, no one person is doing all the big stuff but together they're trying to win their game.   And apparently it's what is helping them to shine. 

But, what  caught my interest about this team is how unified they were as a team and what they did in a remote, Aboriginal community in a bonding exercise.   Of course, whether they win that medal will be all over the news for the next week or so (their match is Monday morning, AEST), so we won't know for a few days.   There will no doubt be criticism or applaud and probably both, as there already is.    

But what they did as a team in that Aboriginal community makes me proud of them, as an Aussie.     They went there to bond together, to help their team, but also to help out the community in practical and philosophical ways.  They fixed up the basketball courts so the kids could play on them again, and they encouraged and inspired some young people to reach higher  and look beyond their circumstances.   You can read about it here.

And when I look at the Olympic rowers in their boats, I am reminded that if they didn't all work together and head in the same direction, it would look ridiculous and they would invariably lose their races.   I guess it would be pretty obvious in something like a rowing contest. 

So, I guess team work is about all wanting the same thing and be heading in the same direction and for no one person to be carrying the load or needing to get all the glory.   

So, when I see a team falling apart (a marriage, a church, an organisation, a home school family), I wonder if perhaps one person is carrying too much, trying to do too much or perhaps one person is getting/needing/wanting the glory, or perhaps they don't know where they're headed or why or how to fix it. 

Praise God He sets the standard for what makes a team work well. 

Philippians 2:1-9   So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him.

Linking up at Five Minute Friday, where we write for five minutes on a prompt word.  Today's word is 'team'.