If you are planning to work through the book you should read through it first before reading this.
The past few weeks at OBC have been devoted to looking at and planning for the future of our local church. It started a few weeks ago with our January elders meeting. We were looking at adding to our elder team. We had an elder candidate interview and discussed what the future held for our church. The following Saturday we had our long range planning meeting. We got updates from all the councils about where they had gone during the past year, and where they were headed for the upcoming year. We evaluated our teams and looked at how we could strengthen them. Then this past Saturday, we had the congregational meeting. It was a chance to share with the congregation what out individual ministry teams are doing. The next day, Kyle preached on building teams.
I think the common vein has been "teams". That is what jumped out at me as I read through 1 Thessalonians. It starts out right away in verse 1 with Paul listing the people in his ministry team. It continues through the entire book with Paul saying "we" instead of I. Paul, Silas, and Timothy (now known as PST) formed a ministry team. It was not just Paul running around as the lone ranger.
It is almost as if 1 Thessalonians is a manual for building teams in the church.
Chapter 2 talks about the motivation, method, and effort of the PST team.
Chapter 3 goes into the love that needs to be expressed by teams for other members of the church.
Chapter 4 looks at the idea that how we live and act as individuals impacts our teams.
Chapter 5 addresses how we treat each other on the team. It gives pointed application especially at the end of the chapter.
That is what jumped out at me. I am sure that you will find something different. Let me know what you find.
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