COACHING: Quality not Quantity

I am usually all for growth in all of its forms, whether it is a larger church, better attended Bible studies, or a greater quantity of small groups in the church. But when it comes to coaching, I have been convinced of the opposite; there is great virtue in starting small and not going for it all in one shot.

Bob Logan, whose organization is helping us to get coaching started in our church has worked with many churches and denominational organizations. And one of his great learnings is that many people try to start coaching in their organization in a big way, and it is almost always a mistake. You must start small and you must achieve quality before you go forward. It is more important that you develop quality coaches, by giving them a top-notch coach training experience, than it is to train a lot of people at once.

Now the natural response of pastors in large churches, is that 'if we start small, it will take forever; do you know how large our church is?'. This is natural, but it is a mistake. Coach training takes time to learn well, and it takes very close and intense learning with a coach who already knows how to do it. It is such a subtle art, that it is too easy to think you've 'got it', when you really don't. Coaching is not like consulting, nor counseling, where you can say whatever is on your mind. The true beauty of coaching is that you are trying to help the coachee to say what is on his or her mind. The Proverbs say that a man's thoughts are deep waters, but a man of wisdom will draw them out. That is the challenge and beauty of coaching. It must be learned well.

So here is what we are doing at our church. We have a church of 750 people, but just three of us received off-site training in coaching. From there, we are developing an in-house coaching experience in our own church. But we are starting with just 7 other people. So, if we are successful in our coaching efforts this year, and we have no attrition, we will have 10 trained coaches at the end of this year. (Our coach training is 9 months long.) So we will have just 10 people out of a church of 750. The goal is quality not quantity. But if you do the math, you can see that if each of these 10 newly trained coaches train two others, that we will begin to develop some good coaching momentum in just a couple of years. And it is very important to keep quality control over the whole experience, or else the coaching movement in your church will break down due to poorly trained coaches.

That is the major goal for us: quality not quantity. We are willing to pay the price, because we believe that if those being coached, experience the true power of coaching in their own lives, and the natural life transformation which is caused by quality coaching, that they themselves will also be more committed to providing a quality coaching experience for others. And if we can touch the lives of God's church in a quality way and bring about life change, the whole church will be stronger and healthier. And that will bring glory to Christ.

In His Service,
Dr. Bill