My team – Quartus teaches us that we should always have on our team someone surprising.

Can you imagine having a name which means ‘fourth’? That’s all we know. There isn’t anything recorded about Quartus except this:

“Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.” (Romans 16 v 23)

He probably wouldn’t make many teams but he was on the Apostle’s.

In this team he sits alongside the director of public works of the city of Corinth!

The Church is the place where everyone in society is given respect and status. Quartus may not have done many things that can be written about but he was known as a spiritual brother and that is enough to make the team.

I was in a church yesterday and met a man (who was slightly disappointed that I actually wasn’t the BBC North Weatherman!) sat on the front row and very much part of that community of believers. The Pastors clearly loved him. He wasn’t just occupying a chair. He was part of their team. He may not be on many teams outside the Church but in that place he was important.

Do you honestly think that the team Jesus put together were a group of male models with designer hair, bleached white teeth, muscular, supremely gifted in every area of life and the most amazing influential communicators the world has ever seen?!

Every team needs people where others might say, ‘why are they on the team?’ The answer? ‘They’re our spiritual brother/sister.’