What Five Days in Wales Taught Me About Teamwork
Last week, we completed the On Mission Retreat—five remarkable days spent in the Welsh countryside with hundreds of young people, worshipping, learning, laughing, serving, and discovering Jesus afresh. Even as I sit down to write this, my body feels like it’s still catching up with everything that happened. My legs ache, my voice has only just returned, and my mind keeps drifting back to moments that caught me off guard, moments filled with laughter, tears, power, and quiet clarity.
Behind every one of those moments was a team. Not a perfect team, but a present one. A group of people who showed up, day after day, task after task, giving of themselves in ways that reminded me why nothing of real value can be done alone.
I have always believed that high-achieving people need solitude for reflection, but they also need community for momentum. This retreat made that belief even more vivid. The lessons I took away were not just theological or pastoral; many of them were deeply human. I saw up close how teams can break through limits that individuals buckle under. I saw how people who barely knew one another on Monday became indispensable to one another by Friday.
So I want to offer three lessons I learned, or re-learned, about the beauty and necessity of teamwork. You may know them already, but sometimes it takes five days in a high-pressure, deeply spiritual environment to turn knowledge into conviction.
1. You travel further with people who share the weight
There is a rhythm to every retreat, and once it begins, the pace can feel relentless. From the moment we arrived, there were things to sort, people to direct, sessions to prepare, and a constant stream of questions to answer. Yet somehow, it never felt unbearable.
The reason was simple. The weight was never carried by one pair of shoulders. Our team shared it. We shared it instinctively, without always needing to be asked. There were people who checked in early and stayed late. Others ran to Tesco multiple times a day or sprinted to the sound desk to save a crashing mic. I saw people folding chairs at midnight, praying over others in whispered voices at dawn, and offering encouragement in quiet corners when no one else was watching.
When a group of people catch the same vision and decide together that no one will be left to carry the burden alone, they create a kind of resilience that no individual could replicate. You get more done, yes. But more than that, you endure longer. You stay joyful. You find your second wind. You surprise yourself with what becomes possible.
It is easy to underestimate how important this is, especially when you are used to doing things alone. But success achieved alone often comes at the cost of peace, energy, or relationships. Success achieved with others tends to come with a sense of celebration, humility, and deep satisfaction. Even the mistakes are easier to bear when you have people beside you who understand the cost and who help you move forward.
2. Shared work deepens relationships faster than shared interests
Before the retreat, some members of the team had never met. They came from different parts of the UK, with different personalities, different temperaments, and very different spiritual journeys. Yet by the end of the week, they were hugging each other tightly, swapping inside jokes, and making plans to stay in touch.
This is the quiet magic of working on something meaningful together. It binds people far more quickly and deeply than sitting in the same church service or attending the same conference. When you serve together, you come face to face with each other’s gifts, flaws, quirks, and capacities. You see who brings calm when a storm hits. You learn who notices the forgotten details and who brings joy to the room when things feel heavy.
You also discover who you become under pressure. Sometimes you’re the helper. Sometimes you’re the one who needs help. Either way, something happens when people serve one another rather than simply perform alongside each other. You move from being co-labourers to companions. The shared jokes and late-night takeaways aren’t just fun distractions. They become a kind of glue. They create history. They make you look around and realise: I never want to do life or ministry without this kind of community again.
If we want to grow emotionally and spiritually, we cannot only surround ourselves with people we admire. We need to walk beside people who are willing to carry tables, pray for strangers, fix broken cables, and lift each other up when the energy starts to drain. We need people who have seen us tired, stretched, and still willing to love.
3. Culture is carried by teams, not written in documents
One of the things I kept noticing during the retreat was how many people were taking initiative without being prompted. There were moments when someone would sweep a room, comfort a nervous delegate, or spontaneously start worshipping in a hallway, and it was done without any instruction or recognition.
That kind of culture does not emerge through rules or slogans. It emerges when a team internalises a shared set of values and starts to act from them, naturally and consistently. In our case, those values included honour, humility, joy, and excellence. But more importantly, they were lived out rather than just spoken about.
At some point in the week, I stepped back and realised that the culture we had been trying to build was alive in the people. They were carrying it without being told to. They were creating the tone and atmosphere just by the way they chose to serve and relate to others. In those moments, I saw what it means to lead something that is no longer held together by charisma or micromanagement, but by conviction and unity.
Teams are not just functional. They are formational. They shape the environment. They establish what is tolerated, what is celebrated, and what is ignored. If you want to build something that lasts, invest deeply in the culture of your team. Speak life over them. Correct gently. Celebrate loudly. Trust often. Because when the team is healthy, the culture is strong. And when the culture is strong, the vision starts to carry itself.
When I finally sat down at the end of the retreat, I looked around and realised that what I was most proud of was not the smooth execution or the positive feedback from delegates. It was the quiet, often unnoticed, beauty of the team. It was the way people leaned into one another. The way they trusted each other. The way they gave everything they had, not for applause, but for the sake of the people we were serving—and ultimately, for the sake of the gospel.
If you are trying to build something meaningful in your own life right now—a project, a business, a church ministry, a new venture—let this be your reminder not to build alone. Surround yourself with people who believe in the vision and who are willing to do the invisible work of making it real. Do not just look for brilliance. Look for character. Look for people who show up with open hands and a full heart.
The truth is, everything works better with a team. The work gets done. The joy runs deeper. The vision becomes stronger. And, perhaps most importantly, you begin to taste the kind of community that points people towards God.
Have an amazing week
Michael