A Barnabas moment

  I have one client who I very often ask, “Who can help you with this?” He’ll usually respond, “That’s a good question,” and then he proceeds to come up with more people who can help him. We’d had about eight appointments and I had probably asked him that...

What is coaching?

Coaching is the process of coming alongside a person or team to help them discover God’s agenda for their life and ministry, and then cooperating with the Holy Spirit to see that agenda become a reality. Coaches come alongside to help, just as Barnabas came alongside...

Never do ministry alone

It’s interesting that after the time when the Apostle Paul found himself in Athens all alone, we start seeing a much greater emphasis on team-based ministry. I suspect that Paul learned some things about the value of a team during his time in Athens. Teams encourage...

Solidify the change

The team I worked with in Mexico, after experiencing the power of the “Barnabas questions,” quickly recognized that they could use these questions in their work with community organizing. They regularly come alongside people to help them with community...

Model the change

We need to model the change we want others to embrace. Use the questions I listed in yesterdays’ blog entry as you engage with others in the relationships you already have. Let people experience coaching conversations so they can capture the emotions and the benefits....

6 questions to create a coaching culture

I like to call these The Barnabas Questions: How are you? What are you celebrating? What challenges are you experiencing What do you plan to do about these challenges? How can I help you? How can I pray for you? I introduced these six questions, originally used by...

Paul and Barnabas

Quite a while back I was asked to work with multiple denominational groups in Germany on a church leadership initiative they wanted to put together. I told them I’d do it as long as Christoph would work with me. Christoph was a young emerging German leader. They...

A staff meeting of Barnabases

When I was in Mexico recently, I attended the staff meeting at Comunidad Mosaico, a ministry that works toward transformation among the urban poor. They had a time of worship, and due to my poor Spanish skills, I understood very little that was going on. But I felt...