Three Keys to Building a Great Team

Apr 15, 2025 · 6 min

Church leaders huddling in prayer and unity at Watermark Community Church during the annual Church Leaders Conference in Dallas, TX—team building and discipleship in action.

Ministry is a team sport—but before the team comes the leader. In Scripture, whenever God wanted to do something significant, He began by raising up a leader—Moses, David, Paul, etc. Leadership, then, becomes the rate-limiting factor in ministry growth. Healthy ministry grows at the speed of healthy leadership. That’s why one of the most impactful things we can do is not just lead ourselves well—but build up others to lead too. That means both bringing in newcomers and helping the people we already have grow more mature and spiritually in-tune. To build a great team in ministry, think about how a coach builds a great team in college football:

Recruit Great People

A coach needs to seek out raw talent, which means praying and casting vision. People want to be part of something that God is doing that's significant. God will draw people to your ministry, but He often uses you as the one to invite them in—so be intentional. Always be looking for potential leaders.

When I planted a church in Virginia, I got a part-time job working the front desk at Gold's Gym. We had just moved to Virginia, and it was an area I hadn't lived in before. I knew that to build a church, I would have to develop a bunch of relationships, and a gym is a great place to build relationships with faithful, disciplined people! I scanned people in at the front desk and immediately knew basic information about them, which was helpful as I began forming friendships with the “regulars.” At the same time that I was developing these friendships so I could invite people to come to the church once it started, I was also networking with like-minded people at Campus Crusade, InterVarsity, Young Life, and so on—people who shared my passion for making disciples.

Come alongside people, cast the vision, and invite them to be part of it. Trust that God will spark interest in the people He wants to use. Constantly be looking for the next person God might bring to strengthen the team.

Get People into the Right Positions

The second thing football coaches do especially well is figure out where to put people on the field. In high school, the best athletes all tend to play quarterback, running back, and wide receiver. But a great college football coach is able to look at incoming players and discern what their gifts are and where they should play, regardless of what position they played before. It’s the same in ministry.

Of course, you need to have an idea of how someone is gifted in order to get them into the right spot, and sometimes it takes time to discover their gifts. That’s okay. It might take a few tries to get someone into a role that complements their skill set and wiring. You’ll need to pay close attention to the people on your team. Who is thriving? Who is struggling? How do someone’s innate strengths complement their role?

Coach Them to Be Better

College football programs typically hold a 90-minute practice each day. That’s an hour and a half to make your team better. A great coach will use this time strategically, and when they’re trying to develop a player, they’ll ask three key questions.

First: What is this person doing that they need to keep doing? A great “coach” spots Christ-honoring behaviors that lead to effective ministry and reinforces them with encouragement. What gets recognized gets repeated.

Second: What are they doing that they need to stop? Sometimes people are blind to the ways that they’re self-sabotaging. They might be actively hurting their own ministry, like a brilliant guy I once worked with who was exceptionally good at his job, but lost his temper and started blaming people whenever things went wrong. I had to take him aside and warn him that if the behavior didn’t change, people wouldn’t want to work with him anymore. Other times, a behavior might just be stunting or wasting their potential. Someone who spends three hours a day killing time on the internet, for example, is capable of doing so much more with their time.

Third: What are they not doing that they need to start? A great coach is always trying to identify the one step someone could take to improve their game—just one habit or practice that will make the biggest difference in their development.

It is God who transforms; the Bible is super clear on that. We can’t do it for them. All we can do is serve as a mirror to someone to highlight things and bring things to their attention.

The keep/stop/start framework also has the advantage of being easy to replicate. We’re not just equipping the next generation; we’re also preparing them to equip others down the road (2 Timothy 2:2). When we're in relationships where we're trying to help build, coach, and develop people, it's important to be cognizant of those three questions. If you don’t keep them on the forefront of your mind, it’s easy to miss the signs.

Great Teams Are Built Intentionally

If this kind of coaching sounds a lot like discipleship, that’s because it is. Pointing out things people are doing to bring them closer to Jesus, or sin patterns that you’ve noticed that are impeding their spiritual growth, and suggesting ways for them to take new ground in their relationship with God—all of that is discipleship. If you can cast a compelling vision, pay attention to the ways people are gifted and where they can flourish, and regularly disciple them, you can build a good team. Great teams don’t happen by accident—they’re built intentionally, one person, one position, and one conversation at a time.

About The Author

John Cox

John serves as the Executive Pastor at Watermark Community Church.

Learn more about John here on his biography page.