Transforming Church

Over the past few years, I have been part of several coaching groups, and it has made a significant difference in how I envisioned my own gifts and grew as a leader. I also have been able to be a mid-wife, colleague, and friend, as people I value were able to grow more deeply into who and what they wanted to be as their lives unfolded.

Coaching is like any athletic coaching process at its best, with those who are new to the church, new to the "game", being given the support and encouragement they need to build their own skills. Adults truly new to the church, or to positions of emerging leadership, are often at a "Little League" level of knowing how we "do church". Coaching enables the leadership of a church to self-replicate; to generate strong new leaders for this time when the church desperately needs gifted leaders. When the individual players on your congregation’s leadership team are given the self-knowledge and opportunity for personal growth as God’s persons themselves, amazing things can happen in their lives and in congregational life.

The international business world began to realize some years ago that a new generation was coming to them. This generation needed to be mentored, fostered, and supported in the process of becoming leaders in rapidly changing organizations. To those who know them, this generation does not learn, perhaps even refuses to learn, in an environment bounded by policy and procedure. They have less loyalty to the organization. They have a much greater sense of their own life’s journey being more important than any of the institutions they serve. While some of them may be seem to be selfishly motivated by an attitude of "what’s in it for me", perhaps the vast majority believe that each person’s life is a spiritual journey, and that each of our lives is a work in progress. In that core belief, tied to their understanding of their own spirituality, the church can make a strong connection with them.

Most of us agree that the biblical view of God’s purpose in creating us is to make us stewards of creations and in some real sense, co-creators with him. Christians teach that the Spirit uniquely gifts us each, and each have meaning and purpose in God’s eyes. If one sees the popularity of books like Rich Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, it is clear that there is something beyond self-help books and easy platitudes that the church can give people in their quest for meaning. More than that, the church, when it is being faithful, knows that "God sets the solitary in families".

We are not made for life alone. From ancient times, families and tribes have told the stories, provided the rites of passage and mentored each generation so that the values of clan and hearth might be passed on to the next generation. There is a vast and deep current of faith that runs through the great religions of humanity that teach each generation that life has deep meaning and purpose, even when the daily evidence might seem otherwise. But how do we make those connections for the new and young among us in Christian community. Preaching and teaching have traditionally worked, but today we need to be able to provide more intimate and specific connections for people, not imposed, but elicited from within. And that is where coaching excels as a way to grow and be grown! Coaching provides a way to make the connection between what we believe about God, and the spirituality that takes so many forms in this generation.