Whether you are part of a small group, a ministry team, a discipleship relationship or a coaching relationship, you will need to be intentional about listening to the Holy Spirit. That’s how we help others growth: not by telling them what to do but by listening to the...
I realized early on in ministry that I was not smart enough to be the Holy Spirit. The best I can do is to help people listen to what God is doing in their life and then to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to see God’s agenda become a reality. When we are discipling...
Next time your people meet to dig into discipleship or leadership development, try this. Break people into groups of three. Then give one person the floor for thirty minutes to talk about they’re experiencing God and what they’re hearing from him. The other two people...
If we are to practice a kind of discipleship that is truly tailored to the individual, we absolutely need to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Where God is calling one person to focus their growth is not necessarily where he’s calling another to focus. We can...
People can listen to the Holy Spirit better than you think they can. At a recent consultation I did, I started out the way I usually do: meeting with the leaders to unpack their strengths, concerns, and vision. Then I led them into a time of questions and listening to...
On Mondays when my house church gathers, we read through scripture together, carefully observing it over time. We only let the passage answer the question. No external interpretations and no cross references. If the answer is not there in the passage, we’ll just have...
Chris Roberts, pastor at Madison Vineyard Church, has been using the coaching process– particularly active listening– as a way to discover what the Holy Spirit is doing in his friends and neighbors who aren’t yet following Jesus. “The Holy Spirit is at...
Many of you have probably heard this story before. It’s an old story, and still one of my favorites– it marked a significant turning point in my ministry. Someone reminded me the other day of how powerful this story was for them when they heard it, which made me...
One of the key foundations of coaching is the belief that the person being coached is able to hear from God. The client is able to discern and cooperate with what God is doing– the coach’s role is to help them do that. In taking this approach, coaching honors...
