Knowledge in service of character development

Knowledge in service of character development

Jesus only trained people up to the point where they were already living out what they know. He gave his disciples a little bit to go on and expected them to act on it. (See Mark 9:14-29 or Luke 10:1-24 if you’d like an example.) Training people beyond their obedience...

The conservatory model

I was involved in a leadership network meeting with Peter Drucker back in the 80s. There were various practitioners there making presentations, and Peter added his commentary. After I gave my presentations, he got up and started talking about the rise of...

Walk before you run

Here’s something I’ve learned:  When you’re doing coach training, don’t try to train them in an application area (e.g. coaching for church planting, coaching for discipling) at the same time you’re training them in basic coaching skills. If you try to have people...

Broadening the workforce

I once asked a seminary dean the question, “When students graduate from your program, what can they do?” He later told me that question kept him up at night for a couple of months.  When we look at the ways we’ve traditionally trained people, there isn’t a strong...

Don’t dump the whole truckload at once

I was field-testing a training process recently. As I reflected on it, I realized we were answering questions that the people at the training event wouldn’t even be asking for at least two more years. Sure, I might know they would be asking it in two more years, so...

Holistic delivery for deep and lasting change

We all have our favorite styles for learning: lecture, small group discussion, reading, hands-on experience. When we’re the ones doing the training, we need to take a balanced approach for different learners. Try orientation, clusters, individual coaching, networks,...

The cyclical vs. front-loading approaches

Have you ever looked carefully at the structure of 1 John? The first time I read it I thought the author was just repeating himself. Yet on more careful examination, he is working through the same three themes more and more deeply with each round so that it becomes a...
The power of reproducible tools

The power of reproducible tools

By guest blogger Dave White Part of a week-long series I’ve always created or adapted various tools for ministry—training materials in particular. I stumbled across some concepts that worked and the trainings seemed to go well. Because I created or adapted them, they...