LOCAL CHURCH COACHING CERTIFICATION

Crossroads Church , where I serve has just completed development of an 8-week coach certification course, in cooperation with Bob Logan and Coachnet. After sending three of us from staff to Logan's coaching training in both Chicago and Hollywood over the past year, we took that training, retooled it into an 8-week small group experience for the local church (with Logan's permission), and began training local church coaches. Over the next 6 months, those coach mentor's in training will receive one-on-one coaching from the three of us staff pastors who have already received certification. Then after they complete a final half-day seminar in May, they will be ready to coach others at our church.

We are convinced that the program will have a strong impact upon the overall health and well-being of our church. The reason is that, as Logan has often stated, the process of coaching an individual often helps them to be twice as effective as they otherwise would be. As we help people to deal with the individual blockages to their own spiritual growth, we will be on our way to developing quality Christians and future leaders of our church.

We have defined several unique end results from our efforts. The first and primary result will be "Coach Mentors" who will be certified by our church (through Logan's organization) to train other coaches, or just to coach individuals towards spiritual formation. Two other outcomes will be small group and ministry team coaches. A final outcome will be coaches who can assist Christians in a general way towards life coaching or spiritual formation.

We are keeping the numbers intentionally small and the quality high. We have been warned by Bob Logan's organization that the most common mistake for churches is that they try to coach too many people initially, and then they lose the focus on quality. So we have limited ourselves to coaching only two people at a time. So the three of us are coaching six people. By the time this year is over, our church will have 9 certified coaches. We will grow from there, and continue to focus on quality coaching experience for everybody.

I will keep you informed on the progress, but so far it has been very satisfying to see the coaches in training 'get it' and begin to understand how coaching is totally unique from other discipleship plans they may have tried in the past.

God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill

Confrontation: Speaking the Truth in Love

Most relationships, especially those of a supervisory nature, require a time for confrontation. This is a word that many people have a hard time identifying with. The Scriptures use this phrase which is quite helpful: “Speaking the Truth in Love” (Ephesians 4:15). That is probably the best definition of confrontation one could ever find.

But then the question arises, how do I speak the truth in love? Wayne Cordeiro in his great book The Dream Releasers has some great guidance for confrontation, or speaking the truth in love. (This book is available in the HighPowerResources.com book section "Church Growth books".

Four Principles of Confrontation*:

1. Confrontation must be based on relationship

2. Confront the error, not the one who erred

3. Aim for a win-win result

4. Assure the other person of their value

Let’s break that down:
1. Confrontation must be based on relationship.
That is, you cannot confront (successfully, that is) based on your position. Just because you are the ‘boss’ you may be required to confront, but if you want a successful confrontation (as a Christian), then you need to confront the person based on your personal relationship either with each other, because you care about each other, or because of your relationship with the organization (for most this will be your church), or your relationship with Christ. The person you are confronting may or may not care about you or your feelings, but s/he may be confronted about what their behavior or attitude is doing to either the organization, or to the name of Christ. If they do not care about the reputation of the church or Christ, then you have a whole other issue to deal with.

2. Confront the error, not the one who erred
This means, ‘Don’t get personal!’ Focus on the behavior displayed, not the personality flaws of the person you are confronting. Unhelpful, “You really have a problem with the way you talk to people!” Helpful, “When you speak to people in such a surly tone, it upsets them, and makes you seem unfriendly and uncaring.” Keeping the focus on the behavior helps people respond better to confrontation.

3. Aim for a win-win result
No one wants to feel like they have lost the battle or lost face. Protect their dignity while you are confronting, or speaking the truth in love. Find a way that you can get the behavior that you want, and find a way for them to feel like a success in the process.

Let’s go back to the example of our surly staff person. Maybe after some dialogue, you discover that s/he really wants to be liked by people. You can coach them on how to be more liked by people. You can help this person to speak in gentle tones and to look people in the eye, and to smile, and as a result of that you will soon be able to bring back reports of how much s/he is appreciated for their new tone. You win, by not angering the flock; the staff person wins by earning more appreciation and friends. Win – Win.


4. Assure the other person of their value
This is really the heart of it all. People want to know that they are valuable and appreciated. If the confrontation is done in such a way that the people feel undervalued, then you have over-emphasized the ‘speaking the Truth’ part, and have under-emphasized the ‘speaking in Love’ portion. You need a perfect balance between the two when you confront.

Speak the Truth in Love, and you will help your church, and help your people.

That’s all for now,
Dr. Bill

[*taken from The Dream Releasers, Wayne Cordeiro, 2002]