Is Your Steering Team a Committee or a Community?

As the MOPS year begins to wrap up, many of you will be experiencing changes in your Steering Teams. Some people will move on, others will change positions, and there may even be some fresh faces joining you. For some groups, all the Steering positions are filled and you are probably looking forward to your summer and a new year. Other groups may be going through some minor changes, while others may be changing a great deal. Finally, there are some groups that will be struggling to fill their Steering positions. Please don't be discouraged and remember to pray. Whether you are a Steering Team of 10 or 3, I urge you to take the time to build your team as a community rather than a committee. Sometimes Steering Team members can become so overwhelmed and/or focused with planning the MOPS meetings that they don't make time to build relationships with one another.
You will be amazed to find that as your Steering Team becomes a community rather than a committee, Steering Team members will want to come and participate. Consider this perspective on creating community in your Steering Team:"The univited guests in your meeting are our emotions, family problems, and personal concerns. Like little gremlins, they sneak in and mess up a meeting by discharging frustrations in speeches on topics totally unrelated to what is really bothering us. In a community, there are no uninvited guests. The whole person is invited. We take time to catch up with each other, pray for needs, and then go on to business."
(Roberta Hestenes from MOPS Connections 07/04 pg 17)

One way to help build your committee into a community is addressed by Carol Kuykendall in her
writing titled "Steering Synergy:Working Together for Better Results"

Synergy – what does the word bring to mind and how does it apply to you and your MOPS leadership? Granted, it sounds like a techno-term, referring to something strange and invisible that happens in cyberspace. But actually, the word refers to what happens when two or more people work together to achieve something better than they could achieve alone. Synergy comes out of team unity.
“I can do what you can’t do, and you can do what I can’t do. Together we can do great things.” -- Mother Teresa

How is your Steering Team’s synergy?
We recently asked MOPS leaders this question in a MOPS Leaders On-Line e-mail letter. We got many responses with practical suggestions. Most leaders agreed that synergy is crucial to the success of a MOPS group.

Leisa Larson, Council Coordinator from Lincoln, NE, writes: “I learned that unity and shared vision were intertwined. Here are several things we have done to foster unity on our Steering Team. Each piece contributes to the oneness we have as leaders.”
We sign a Steering Team covenant. We outline and commit to a list of Steering Team expectations so we are all on the same page, regarding our level of commitment. This is also helpful to share with potential Steering Team members. (Here is a sample covenant)
Together we choose a Bible verse to claim for our Steering Team. Ours this year is Philippians 2:2 about “being one in spirit and purpose.”
We have prayer time at every MOPS Steering Team meeting, sometimes spending half our meeting in prayer. This is especially important for a new Steering Team or one with several new members. Spending time in prayer knits our hearts with the power only God can provide.
We take an annual weekend retreat together, which includes training, plenty of time for sharing our hearts, and lots of good food. We also spend time discovering our personality types and how to work together.
We try hard to handle any conflicts in a timely fashion, with as much love and grace as possible. The more we realize how much we all love God, love each other, love MOPS, and love our moms, the easier it is to realize true unity of spirit.

Tami Kuratli, Co-Coordinator at Grace Foursquare MOPS group in Camas, WA, describes a Steering Team activity to build unity:
“We have a team-building time at the beginning of each Steering Team meeting. My Co-Coordinator and I asked each woman to bring a rock to our next meeting. At the meeting, we had gel pens so they could write their names on their rocks and decorate them. We told each one to pass her rock to the person on the right, and then asked each leader to take the rock home and put it somewhere where she would see it and pray for that person each time she looked at it. The rock represents Jesus, upon whom our lives and our MOPS group are built.”

Suggestions from other leaders include:
Be friends first. Invest in each other. Make sure you communicate regularly.
Get to know each other better. Take a Personality or Personal Strengths survey and learn to work together. In the book Real Moms by Elisa Morgan and Carol Kuykendall, the chapter on “Real Me Mom” offers a short personality test. Click Here for the personality test from What Every Mom Needs. For help with Adobe files click here.

When you face disunity, be open with each other; agree to disagree on some issues, and move on!

Do a Bible study or devotional book study together. Several groups suggested studies they have found beneficial – What Every Mom Needs Bible Study (Elisa Morgan and Carol Kuykendall), The Power of a Praying Wife (Stormie Omartian), Becoming a Woman of Prayer (Cynthia Heald), A Women’s Guide to Servant Leadership (Rhonda Kelly).

Gather some prayer warriors to pray for each person on your Steering Team. Perhaps your MOPS Mentor can find more prayer warriors. Each Steering Team member can take an area of the MOPS ministry and pray specifically for that area. Share praise reports! Steering Team synergy helps your team accomplish your goals. This goal of unity is really God’s idea. He created us as relational beings, in need of him and each other. He desires that we be “knit together in love” (Colossians 2:2) as we achieve his work on earth.