I love sports almost to a fault. If I could I would spend hours every day reading espn.com or watching sports on TV. During my growing up years I played on many sports teams and as I think back to those days some very interesting things come to light.........

Some of the teams that i played on were really bad and others were really good and alot of them were somewhere in the middle. As I was trying to thinka about what made them good or bad I was trying to make a correlation back to the talent that was on the team but I realized that I couldn't really do that. I played on some teams that had alot of talent that finished with a great record and I played on other teams that had alot of talent that finished with an average record. Likewise, teams that had very little talent did not always finish in last place. So what made the difference? The teams that I was a part that did well always had great relationships where each member of the team was highly valued. Each of those members was focused on pursueing a goal the guys that I competed with were a closeknit group. The teams that did not do well, no matter the talent level, were never unified. Individuals would put themselves above the team and there were not clear cut goals to pursue.

Well, you might be wondering...what does this have to do with small groups/spiritual families? It has everything to do with spiritual families. The key thing that made those sports teams good was the community that was within the team. It is the same in small groups/spiritual families. When common goals are pursued within the context of authentic community amazing things can happen.