The Other Side Of Collaboration

I wrote a post the other day about collaboration.  I spoke to the issue of collaborating with the community of Christ.

Today I want to go in the other direction.  I want to talk about the other side of collaboration.

You and I will probably have to collaborate with those that we don’t agree with.  What I mean by that is that we will have to collaborate with those who don’t think the same way we do spiritually.  We will have to work with those who give absolutely no thought to our Christian faith.

What do we do?

I say we turn to the Bible and look at some guys who had to deal with that.

There was Joseph who had to collaborate with a pagan king, who helped save a pagan nation and because of that saved Israel as well.

Nehemiah served a pagan king as a cupbearer.  That seems like a trivial job until you realize that the king was putting his life into the cupbearers hands every day.

Daniel reached the upper echelon of a pagan nation and faced death because of his faith.

What did these three have in common?  They worked in a secular world  in secular jobs that were potentially hostile to their faith and they did their jobs so well that they continued to be promoted.

They affected people’s lives for good.

Not just Godly people.

All people.

We could call that common grace.

God may have you in that position of collaborating with someone who holds completely different values.

When you do a great job, they benefit.

You will grow through working with them.

God may use you to speak to them.

That is the other side of collaboration.

How do you handle the other side of collaboration?  Do you grumble about it?  Or do you look at it as an opportunity from the Lord?

Collaboration, Community and Christ

Unless you were off on a deep space mission this weekend, you probably know that Whitney Houston died this weekend.  LL Cool J described it on the Grammy’s as a death in the family.

I read an article in a magazine discussing the secret to Eric Clapton’s success.  Of course he has talent and has worked hard, but one of the main secrets to  his success was the collaboration he had with other artists.  The list of bands and individual artists that he has worked with was incredible.

What do these two things have in common?

Community.  My One Word this year.

Whitney Houston was part of a community of artists.

Eric Clapton is part of another.

Each has had an impact far greater than they would have had individually because of the communities they were a part of.

What does that have to do with you and me?  Most of you are probably followers of and believers in Christ.  We belong to a far greater community than any of these others.

We belong to the Body.

We need each other.

We don’t have room for Lone Ranger Christians.  As John Maxwell has said, “Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto.”

My blogging friend, Ben Emerson, wrote a great post the other day about this.  He discussed how we don’t need to interpret scripture alone.  We need the group.  At first I disagreed.  Then I thought about it.  We stand on 2000 years of interpretation.  We don’t need to come in to Sunday School or Bible Study Group and all say what it means to us.  We need to find out what it means.   Together.

We need the corporate worship experience, not to be entertained or fed, but because we  need each other.

We don’t need the singing just to pump us up.  We need to sing and praise our God and Savior together.

We don’t need to just listen to a sermon.  We could do that on our iPod.  We need to hear it together and share the experience.  We need to worship Him together in the word.

We need each other.  We need to collaborate in this thing we call the Christian life.  We need our brothers and sisters.

How do you collaborate in your community and part of the Body?