What Pokémon Go teaches us about team work

This post was originally posted at circleofhope.net/blog.

A game about teamwork

When Pokémon Red and Blue came out, it felt like I played for a day straight (it was about 24 hours in two days). I was enamored. I loved the game very much. So imagine my excitement last week when Pokémon Go came out (if you’ve been living under a rock, it’s a free, mobile-based game that brings Pokémon into our reality). Feels like I’ve been playing that game nonstop. There’s a lot of things we can learn from Pokémon Go. For example, you could say that our reality doesn’t need further augmentation! But I don’t want to distract from my main point: it teaches us something about team work.

After you play for awhile, the game prompts you to select a team. There are three: Team Instinct, Team Mystic, and Team Valor. I’m on #TeamMystic. I’m not really sure what the point of the teams is yet (I’m not sure how or if a team can “win”), but I at least know that teams can conquer local gyms. When your team owns a gym, you can station yourself as a trainer there or donate your Pokémon to the cause. I think that’s the best part of the game. It teaches you how to work with other people (and it may actually cause you to meet other people too).

Circle of Hope is team-based too

I think I like this because in our atomized world, it can be hard to cooperate. In an economic system based on competition, we aren’t afforded many chances to work together. But I think we crave it. I think we do our best work together. So I think that’s why Circle of Hope is organized that way too.

We have some basic lore that talks about this very ideas. One of our proverbs says, "Leadership is a team effort."

We’re majorly into teams. We are training our apprentices, listening to each other. We want people to take initiative, we discipline ourselves based on what we’re mutually agreed to, and we are embracing the diversity that helps us do the same common work. We want people to lead together, and so that’s why as of last month, we had 55 cell leaders, four congregations (going on five), 16 compassion teams, and eight mission teams. Not to mention a healthy and vibrant leadership team. We need to do the work of redemption together.

Jesus had a team too. Not just his three closest buddies, but his twelve disciples, and a team of 72 around them. They became thousands. So even though we aren’t as virally growing as Pokémon Go, I think our teams are making a difference.

We want to be a team with other Christians too

The teamwork doesn’t stop within our congregations, either. We know that there are groups, Christian and otherwise, around the world and region doing good work. And we want to be part of that. We want to ally with them. We want to be affiliated with them too. We’re on the same team.

Have you seen our list of allies? Give it a look over. It lists our worldwide and local connections, our local ones, how our aforementioned compassion teams connect us, as well as who our covenant members are connected to, and finally who we’ve shared money with too. It’s “ecumenical” as some Christians might say, but it helps us cooperate with others. We have differences, obviously, but we also have commonality that connects us.

I’m thankful for that kind of partnership. And honestly, I’m thankful that Pokémon Go shows us that we want to be connected to each other, in real-time.

If you feel isolated in the world, I hope our community can bring you some hope, but I hope you will also join us in the common work too. You’re gifted to do it. See what God has for you.