Sipke Bontekoe

Sipke Bontekoe grew up in C3 Amsterdam. He studied Leadership & Ministry at C3 College for three years, from 2012-2014. Since 2015 he has been the youth pastor in C3 Amsterdam.

How do you ask your team to go the extra mile with you in corona times?

Do you also think building the church in corona times is quite boring? Zoom and Skype running 24/7 with tiresome repeating patterns: “can you hear me now?” You might not agree yourself, but I promise you, many of your team would. It is more important than ever to keep online meetings fresh. But Sipke, that takes so much time, effort and intentionality! And how do you get your team to put in all that effort? My question to you would be: How does Jesus deal with this?

I see Jesus making requirements of his disciples all the time: “follow me”, “you give them something to eat” or “you bring deliverance”, and many more. Each of these require trust, faith, loyalty, time and energy from the twelve. Jesus hardly talked about rewards when making requirements, nor did he threaten his twelve disciples to make them obey. He simply made the requirements. That is how he reinforced kingdom culture.

The twelve apostles didn’t follow Jesus because of the rewards or punishments, but because they found life, and life abundantly. We can mirror that in our discipleship by consistently bringing the power of Christ into the team, which can be perfectly done online! Also, making requirements lifts up people. Don’t tell them: “Call your group this week or else…”. Instead, say: “I want to build with you, because I believe in you, but reliability is the only way there. Would you be able to do some phone calls this week?”

If you take the transforming power of Christ into your team, they will follow you the extra mile.