A former professor, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, is out with a new book, Democratizing Biblical Studies. I remember the course that I took from her on "feminist theology." (I was one of three males in a class of more than fifty.) Education, she concluded, was based on a competitive model. We compete for the highest grade; the process forces individual excellence. But in our working careers, she argued, we will not be working in isolation - while individual excellence is good, few people learn how to work together, how to be part of a team, how to develop group excellence. Historically, Elizabeth stressed, "Men compete and women cooperate." So she taught us a new model for education - in her class there would be no individual papers or tests; everything would be done in cooperation with other students. In other words, our grade depended not on who scored the highest - but on who contributed the most to their team.
 
How many people have you met in life who can score off the charts, but do not have the skills needed to work well with others? I have tried to relate Elisabeth's insights into working on a church staff. The old model was "Who is the best staff member?" Her model is, "Will we be the best staff that we can be?"