Teaming for Sentergy: How Tasks, Relationships, and Stewardship Forge Kingdom Movements
- Dave Miller
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
by Dave Miller
In mission and leadership circles, the term "team" is used often. But real teaming isn't just about people working in proximity or alignment. It involves a deeper synergy that holds together both the visible tasks and the invisible bonds of trust. It is both functional and formational.
Two diagrams can help us visualize this vital balance:
One shows the Tasks of Teaming: the progressive actions that drive multiplication.
The other shows the Relationships of Teaming: the depth of trust and faith that holds teams together.
Held in tension, these frameworks point toward something more powerful: Sentergy—Spirit-led synergy among sent ones who live in covenant and labor with clarity.
This article explores both diagrams, the necessity of their integration, and the stewardship model that helps movements Start, Strengthen, and Sustain.
I. The Tasks of Teaming: The Work That Must Be Done
This concentric bullseye diagram maps the activities that lead to gospel saturation and church multiplication. The movement goes from broad support to catalytic leadership and back again:
Resources / Research
This is the outermost ring. These contributors may not even share the same mission, but they offer essential data, tools, or infrastructure. Because their work is rooted in facts, not alignment, they can contribute to a movement without directly participating in it.
Example: A secular demographic study that helps identify strategic neighborhoods for mission.
Engage / Prayer
The spiritual soil must be tilled. Engagement and prayer mobilize the heart of God and the hearts of His people. This is the unseen labor of intercession and first contact.
Example: Prayer walking a city block or launching a digital ad to reach spiritual seekers.
Gospel
Evangelism is essential. This layer involves direct proclamation of the good news, offering people a clear invitation to follow Jesus.
Example: Sharing the gospel with a neighbor or starting a Discovery Bible Study.
Disciple
After gospel proclamation, intentional discipleship must follow. This is life-on-life obedience-based learning where spiritual DNA is formed.
Example: Weekly discipleship around the Scriptures focused on obeying Jesus together.
Church
As disciples multiply, they gather into churches. Not simply weekly services, but communities of worship, mission, mutual care, and reproduction.
Example: A house church that shares meals, baptizes, and multiplies other churches.
Apostolic Team
At the center is the catalytic core: an apostolic team that initiates, equips, troubleshoots, and sends. They steward the health and expansion of the movement.
Example: A regional team that mentors leaders, trains trainers, and guides overall movement dynamics.
II. The Relationships of Teaming: The Covenant That Sustains It
The second bullseye highlights the relational dynamics necessary for true teamwork. Progression moves from transactional cooperation to covenantal commitment:
Cooperation
Working in proximity, loosely aligned, often project-based. There's little shared risk, but it can be useful.
Example: Two ministries co-hosting a food drive.
Collaboration
Integration of plans and resources. Decisions are made together, outcomes are shared.
Example: Several churches co-developing and running a leadership training initiative.
Covenant
A relational commitment marked by mutual trust, long-term unity, and shared stewardship. This is about belonging to each other for the sake of the mission driven by common faith.
Example: An apostolic band who shares life, vision, and responsibility to multiply gospel presence in a region.
Where the "Tasks" diagram helps define the "what," this diagram explains the "how" and the "who with." The prophetic role plays a critical foundational role with the apostolic at this point: calling the task alignment to biblical fidelity in process while leaning into moving at the pace of prayer and relationship. In a word, covenant.
Covenant calls us to identity and responsibility. The prophetic role continually asks the hard questions to keep alignment with our covenantal identities and responsibilities in relation to Jesus and one another. They are about keeping promises to build trust. Without trust, strategies collapse under stress. Without tasks, trust stagnates into comfort.
III. The Sentergy of Teaming: Task and Relationship in the Radical Middle
What happens when you overemphasize one model over the other?
If you emphasize tasks without relationships, you get burnout, disunity, and fragile systems. Things move fast but fall apart quickly.
If you emphasize relationships without tasks, you get beautiful community that never multiplies. Lots of love, little movement.
The sweet spot is the radical middle—where covenantal trust and catalytic action live together. This is the place of Sentergy: Spirit-empowered, synergistic movement.
In this space:
Teams execute strategy and pray and repent together.
Movements multiply disciples and deepen identity.
Leaders release responsibility and remain relationally bound.
IV. Start, Strengthen, Sustain: The Real Work of Movement
The integration of these models isn't theoretical. It's the roadmap for real multiplication.
Start
This is the frontier. New people in new places hearing the gospel and forming new communities. Apostolic teams must be task-oriented but deeply relational, laying a foundation of DNA and covenant from the beginning.
Strengthen
Once communities form, they need formation—not just systems, but identity. Disciples must become leaders. Movements must develop elders. This phase demands the shepherding and prophetic voices that shape culture and confront spiritual lies.
Sustain
Long-term health happens when authority is passed well. Apostolic leaders don’t hover—they hand off. Spiritual parents raise children into maturity and then release them with honor and friendship. This is the heart of stewardship.
As noted in recent leadership reflections, sustainability requires a deep understanding of roles, mutual submission, and DNA integrity. The baton pass must be deliberate. The father must say, "Now you're the head of your household." And trust that what was planted can thrive without his daily presence.
V. Sentergy: Becoming Something Together
The role of APEST (Apostolic, Prophetic, Evangelistic, Shepherding, and Teaching) gifts cannot be overlooked in the entirety of this process. Each plays a role in equipping for and ensuring the tension of the gifts so starting leads to strengthening, which leads to sustaining, which then leads to starting again. Unpacking these ideas, though beyond the goal of this article, is nonetheless foundational to the practice coming to reality. The APEST roles create the glue between task and relationship. I refer to this as Sentergy.
Sentergy is more than working side-by-side. It’s becoming something together that none of us could become alone.
It’s:
Apostolic starters honoring local elders.
Prophetic voices anchoring the work in prayer and obedience.
Teams multiplying, not just activities—but values, identity, and culture.
When we live in the radical middle:
Movements aren’t divided by gifting—they are harmonized by mutual submission.
Churches don’t silo their shepherds and teachers—they equip them to strengthen what others start.
Leaders don’t just do more—they become more.
Final Thoughts: Don't Just Do More. Become More.
In an age that idolizes acceleration, we need apostles who will slow down to hand off well. We need teams who not only share vision but share meals. We need movements that move because they are relationally anchored and strategically focused.
This is how we become sent ones—together.
This is how we forge movements that last.
This is part of Sentergy.
Learn More:
The H3X Podacst with Guy Caskey is a great place to learn more about Start, Strengthen Sustain.
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