Should I Collaborate with You? How to know...

Not all unity and collaboration are the same. Take a moment to consider these two statements:

We are inviting God to collaborate with us and bless what we are doing...

God is inviting us to collaborate with what He is doing.

What's the difference? Which is smarter?!

Being a leader in faith and work means we get invited to do a lot of things. Almost all of these are of great intent and heart. The challenge is that we don't have the physical time to do everything. So how do you know what to collaborate or partner with and what to graciously say "no" to?

To start with let's establish a working definition of collaboration:

Collaboration is the process through which multiple individuals or groups work together towards a common goal by sharing knowledge, learning, and building consensus. It involves open communication, mutual respect, and coordinated efforts to combine their skills, resources, and expertise to achieve a desired outcome. Effective collaboration often requires clear roles, shared responsibilities, and a focus on joint problem-solving and decision-making to ensure all participants contribute meaningfully to the collective effort.

So the first question is:

1. What is the end goal or intended outcome of this collaboration?

Is this a shared vision and do you share a common set of values? Are you going the same direction? If this was an athletics race, are you all in the same race eg. 4 x 400m or are you in completely different events? What does success look like? Are you competing with one another or completing one another? 

Is the leader or facilitator bringing people together to collaborate for their own vision, or are they bringing people together for a much bigger, shared vision? "i want you to come and help me build what I am doing in this area.... compared to... how can we help one another realize our common vision for the nation?

=> on a scale of 1-10, how aligned are you on vision and values?

2. Are the right people in the room?

Now that you know the end goal, are the people in the room the best ones to collaborate together? For example, if the goal is to be a group of contributing members, do the people in the room equally bring something to contribute? A more specific example is if you are wanting to gather leaders across different cities to collaborate for city wellbeing the clarifying question is "are they leading anything to start with?" 

Note, you may not be wanting all to contribute the same. It may be that one is contributing strategic insight and another contributes a community network. The key is that each is clearly contributing something of aligned capacity. For example, I don't want to place a presidential level strategic advisor with a leader of five neighborhood groups - one is at national capacity and the other is at local neighborhood capacity. It would be smarter to put the presidential advisor with leaders of regional groups or even international networks.

=> on a scale of 1-10, how well are you aligned on capacity and contribution?

3. Do you want to be together?

This is always an interesting one especially in faith-centered circles. The 'right' christian answer is to love everyone, accept everyone and dance with everyone. The problem is that Jesus didn't model this. In John 2 Jesus ministered to the crowd and they all followed, committed to and believed in Him. But He didn't reciprocate because He knew what was truly in their heart. Next we see Jesus praying all night for who the Father was sending Him to and who he was to commit to (read about the result of that in John 17;12). But notice that even with the 12 disciples, there were three that Jesus demonstrated he wanted to be with more than the others. How so? What was it about Peter, James and John that communicated a greater desire/want to be with Jesus? 

- James and John wanted to destroy a city that rejected their friend Jesus (good heart, wrong method!)

- Peter tried to stop Jesus from harming himself and then tried to protect Him from being arrested (good heart, wrong method!)

- Peter and John ran to an empty tomb when all others stayed locked up in a room

- Peter and John recognized Jesus on the shore. Peter jumped in and swam to shore!

=> on a scale of 1-10 how well are you aligned relationally? 

4. Who has God sent you to serve?

Finally and most importantly, the first three questions are irrelevant if God has told you to collaborate or serve. Jesus had Judas... and 11 other young men who all deserted him in the garden. And Jesus went to the cross. None of that was fun or convenient or warm and cuddly. It was obedient. When it all comes down, are you being obedient to what the Lord is leading or sending you to do.

=> on a scale of 1-10, how obedient are you being with where you have been sent?

 NEXT STEP

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Listen to this week's podcast episode HERE!