The high jump

Coaching, Leadership

Where should we set the bar in training people to do ministry? It’s tempting to set the bar too high too fast. An athlete training for the high jump wouldn’t start with the bar seven feet high. He or she would start much lower and then work their way up with...

Coming alongside missional leaders as a coach

Coaching

Below is a meditation on coaching missional leaders that I originally published in Christian Coaching Magazine. As I think back on it, the material seems even more relevant now. More and more of my coaching lately has involved coming alongside missional leaders. Over...

Going for a swim

Coaching

Learning new ministry roles is like learning to swim: there are various skills we need to learn and then we need to coordinate them together. First we watch someone swim. Then we start working on individual skills:  we learn to blow bubbles, put our head underwater,...

How to fail at coach training

Coaching, Leadership, Training

Here’s a fool-proof way to fail in your coach training endeavors:  Train everybody, right now, in big groups. In so doing, you’re denying the very methodology that makes coaching powerful. You can’t produce coaches on a factory assembly line. Good coaches are more...

Train in a way that’s consistent with your philosophy

Coaching

Here’s a case study for you:  A ministry that focused on training people in doing relational ministry started with coaching, a hands-on learning process, and focused attention on individuals. Its popularity grew. As the ministry gained more and more people to process...