SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #6: What should small group software do for you?

Hi all,
Just a reminder that this blog is about what I am learning right now.  So we are continuing this series on small groups, based on things which I have learned and am still learning.  Many churches have a dream of "being a church of small groups",  but they often fail to make this happen.  What goes wrong?

We've looked at a lot of different elements necessary for a successful small group ministry in your church.  To be successful, you need to understand the power of Christian community so much that you are committed to it as a church.  You need to apply the four core parts of small group life.  You need to follow the Old Testament principles for long-term group care.  You need to make some functional infrastructure changes in the way you do small groups in your church.  And last week's blog was really important; you must have coaches, and appropriate spans of care, and - most importantly - constant care and attention, like a gardener.

This last point is really important.  When you are running a decentralized ministry like small groups, you must have somebody (or some bodies) who are responsible to simply oversee the whole process.  If everybody is so busy leading their own small groups that they cannot look after the small group system, then the entire structure is likely to fall apart.  Now in most cases it won't collapse instantly;  it will simply begin to fray at the edges, and then people will start to drop out of groups, and then leaders will drop out and not be replaced, until the entire system has fallen apart, and you no longer function as a "church of small groups"; you are simply a church with a few disparate small groups scattered helter skelter throughout the body.  That is not what you want to have happen.

The way to prevent this from happening is through constant care and attention.  As I've said, somebody must be responsible for the care and oversight of all the small groups and leaders.  And once you have that person, you need to equip them with the tools to help them succeed.  Now the tools for success will begin with good training curriculum, regular group meetings, and some sort of small group tracking software.

It is the small group tracking software which I want to focus upon.  Here's why:  when I was serving as Pastor of Disciple Making at Wheaton EFC in Wheaton, IL, I was responsible for building up the small group ministry.  It was a church of 1,000 people with a very strong Adult Bible Fellowship system in place.  They had a handful of small groups but wanted to have more.  So we started working at it, and eventually had 25 groups before responsibilities took me elsewhere.  So these were 25 small groups in addition to the dozen or so ABF's, all of which I was responsible for.  It didn't take too long to begin to lose track of which people were in which groups.  Or which groups were still meeting consistently.  Or who was the current leader of one of the ABF's this week.  Oh, we could muddle along, but that didn't feel like excellence to me.  I thought it would be important as a caring shepherd to know what was going on.

Here's a verse that relates to this:  Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds.  (Proverbs 27:23).

A good small group software tool at that point would have been very helpful.  Now, no group software can replace good leadership oversight; but it can make the job easier.

So what should small group software do for you?


It should ease the burden of oversight in the following ways:
Small group software should:

1 - Give you a quick overview of EVERY PERSON WHO IS LEADING a group in your church

It all rises and falls on leadership.  Your leaders are the shepherds of your sheep.

2 - Give you the names of EVERYONE in a small group in your church

This is important, but it is also kind of a preparation and set-up for the next point.

3 - Give you the names of everyone NOT IN A SMALL GROUP in your church

If you are not constantly being reminded of who is not yet in a small group, your people will fall through the cracks.  This is where the health and growth of your church is determined.  You need to help the people who are not in a group to find a group.

4 - Easily communicate with all of your small group leaders at once

Communication is important, but it can be time-consuming.  A good small group software should let you contact your leaders directly from the software.  

5 - Easily communicate with an entire small group

If you distribute your group software to the group leaders, then they can just contact their group as they are updating the group contact information, or filling out the monthly report for the small group coach.

6 - Track a history of each person's small group involvement

We quickly forget what someone is capable of, or what they have learned, or achieved, unless we have an easy way to remember.  Good small group software will show you a history of which groups your various members have been a part of.  This also assists your efforts to link people relationally or to provide pastoral care.  If you know what other groups they have been in, you will know who they know and can continue fostering those relational connections in times of need.

7 - Easily move people from group to group en masse

Rather than having to go to each person's record individually, and marking them as in a new group, small group software should be able to do this in one action.  If the entire class completed a course and then all moved on to another one, you should be able to easily "promote" everybody into the next class with one click.

8 - Track whether or not prerequisites have been completed before assigning someone to the next class in a course

If your church uses a small group system which requires completion of certain prerequisites (101 before 201, for example), then your software should prevent people from registering from one class if they have not completed the previous class.

I've been thinking a lot lately about small group software, and what it should be able to do.  There have been some churches helping me to work this out, and we have now nearly completed the work on Shepherd Care Group Discipleship Software.   We'll let you know when we get it done.

What about you?  If you lead or manage small groups, I would love to hear from you about what you need or want in small group software.   Send me a reply if you can.

Thanks and God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill
HighPowerResources.com
SermonBase.com

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #5: Critical elements for small group success

Hi All,
Many churches have a dream of "being a church of small groups",  but they often fail to make this happen.  What goes wrong?

Keeping a small group ministry running well is a full-time job.  What makes a small group ministry distinct from other church ministries is that it is decentralized.  You could run a youth group, or a children's ministry, or a men's ministry, and basically have everyone together in the same room for teaching or worship.  But a small group ministry, by its very nature, is going to be spread out all around your city or county as people meet together in their living rooms.  The role of a small group director does not involve the same skill set as that of some other program director.  S/he needs to be much more of a nurturer, or gardener, rather than a rancher.  It involves carefully inspecting each small plant or bush, and seeing how it is progressing or growing.  The work which needs to be done is best accomplished with a small gardener's implement; not a backhoe.

So a good small group director needs to be constantly in contact with his or her various leaders.  Now, depending on the size of the church and ministry this may mean that the Director has contact with each small group, or what is more likely, the Director has contact with Coaches, who then oversee and help each specific small group.  But the point is, that since small group ministry is a decentralized ministry, you need to make accommodations for an appropriate span of care.

What do we mean when we refer to a small group coach?  A small group coach has a responsibility to oversee from three to six specific small group leaders.  The Coach needs to be there to help with problems, come up with creative ideas for outreach or service, help with 'strays', and to provide accountability.  A small group coach does not lead a small group.  His or her job is to shepherd the small group leaders within his/her span of care.  If the span of care is too large, then the Leaders aren't cared for properly.  If it is too small, the Coach may try to squeeze in another ministry focus, and then the small group focus will suffer.

If you want to know how to train the small group coaches, a good place to start would be my four-part series on coaching from earlier in the year.

So the key idea is this: if you want to have a successful small group ministry in your church, then your small group leaders will require constant attention.  This means that either you hire a staff person to oversee your small groups, or you assign a high capacity volunteer, who is not involved in any other ministries in the church, to oversee your small groups.  

And of course, the senior pastor must be involved in some significant way.  This would mean at least two things:  First,  the senior pastor is in a small group.  Second, the senior pastor must, in some small but important way, be a part of the small group leadership meetings.  It could be just a greeting, a devotional, or a teaching, but the shepherd needs to keep a close eye, and have a good relationship with the under-shepherds who are helping to care for the flock.

Next to the role of quality Biblical preaching, the health of the small groups within your church, is a deciding factor on the health of your church.  And the health of your small groups is impacted by the spiritual health of your small group leaders.  So, how are you caring for them, recruiting them, training them, and coaching them to succeed?

So, some of the critical elements for success in your small group system are:

• Decentralized Ministry Skills
• Appropriate Span of Care
• Coaches
• Constant Attention
• Senior Pastor Involvement

In summary, this is a lot of work!  But it is important work to the heath - and growth - of your congregation.  So see that it is done well.

And please, please, don't deceive yourself into thinking that things are going 'just fine' and people will talk to you if there are any problems.  Things may not be going fine, but you wouldn't know, if you don't have a good care system in place.  And people will eventually talk to you about problems, but usually not until it is too late.  That is what good small group coaches should be helping you with.  They should catch a hint of trouble early so that you can deal with it before it gets out of hand.

When your church gets to a certain size, then some good tracking software would help the task as well.  The small group director needs some tools to help oversee the flocks well.

So, I've just touched on a few of the key elements for small group success.
What else have you found is critical for success?  Send me a note.

In the mean time, God's best to your small group ministry,

Dr. Bill

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #4: Can we really be a church of small groups?

Hi All,

Many churches have a dream of "being a church of small groups" but often fail to make this happen.  What goes wrong?
The dream is admirable.  There are some definite benefits to being "a church of small groups."
But what do we even mean when we say that?

I came across this factoid about small groups at the Church Growth Factoids section of HighPower:

“Based on lots of research over the years, there are some standard guidelines.  Ideally, you have a minimum of 60% of your adult worship attendees involved in either classes or groups.  If you can get more than 70%, you’re excelling.  Between 50 and 60% is fair, and less than 50% is poor.”

(McIntosh, Gary.  OutreachMagazine.com.  Sept/Oct. 2007.)

So the goal is to have more than half of your adults in small groups, and preferably more than 60%.  In fact, I doubt that you can even make the claim that "we are a church of small groups" unless more than half of your adults are involved in small groups.

And they question I want to ask, is 'Why limit it to adults?'  We have both our youth and our children involved in age-appropriate small groups at our church of 700.  This sets people up, and prepares them for a lifetime expectation of being in true Christian community with others.

So how many of your adults or people are in small groups in your church?

What are the Benefits of being a "Church of Small Groups"?

• 1.  True Christian Community

My first blog post in this series talks about the elements of Christian community (Acts 2:42-47) which are available through small group participation.  Imagine having a whole church of people who truly experience what it means to live in Christian community with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

• 2.  Pastoral care for everybody

Every pastor who loves his people wants them to be cared for properly.  But he also realizes that he and even the whole staff are not sufficient to meet all the needs people have in their lives.  This is the power of small groups.  Small groups do not have to be assigned pastoral care, or told to care for their people; they do it naturally.  It just happens.  And so a "church of small groups", is a church of good pastoral care.

• 3.  Personally applied discipleship

Small groups apply Christian discipleship in a very personal way.  As the group works through a Bible study, or discusses the pastor's sermon, they find ways to make it relate to their lives.  It is the best application of the Word, in the context of a small group who can talk about how to make it real in their lives.

Why the dream goes awry:
But if the benefits of small groups are so great, then why does it not always happen?  What stops the dream from becoming reality, or from not being completely fulfilled?  I see three primary reasons, and if one doesn't stop a church, the others do.  They are interdependent, and intertwined as to how they prevent a church from achieving this dream.

• 1.  Saying it, but not doing it

Lots more churches say that they are a church of small groups, than really are.  "Having" small groups in your church is not the same as "being" a church of small groups.  There needs to be real intentional effort.  This is indicated by either having a staff person or a volunteer whose sole job is to oversee and guide small group creation and maintenance.

• 2.  Doing it, but making it optional

If a church begins doing small groups, but just lists it as an optional item on the menu instead of the main course, they will not achieve the goal of "being a church of small groups".  But when we say "optional", we obviously can't force people to join a small group if they don't want to.  But you can design your church infrastructure such that it is very difficult to avoid them.  Larry Osborne has a great book out, entitled "Sticky Church", in which he talks about how they focus so much on small groups, that people don't have a lot of other options if they want to meet some people or get some personal discipleship.

• 3.  Requiring it, but not streamlining programming

Third mistake which prevents the dream of "being a church OF small groups" from becoming reality, is to offer small groups and even strongly encourage it, but then also offer too many other choices on the menu.  It is difficult to choose the main course, when there are so many salads, appetizers, and desserts also available.  Take a look at all the programming in your church, and make a list.  How many other choices do you have in your church besides joining a small group?  Too many, and that's a problem.  Most churches in American are over-programmed.

How to fix it:
OK, so you want to "be a church OF small groups", and you see some of the problems in your own church, so how do you fix it?  Here are just three ideas I have, which is based on comments of experts in this field.

• 1.  Pastor must lead

This is the number one, must have, can't avoid it, requirement to become a church that truly values small groups.  Until and unless the Senior Pastor is involved in a small group it will never happen in your church.  If he gets involved, two things will happen:  First, everyone who cares will take note, and begin reshaping their own values in that direction.  Second, s/he will make reference to his/her small group in sermons and begin sharing stories of this or that, and people will hear how helpful the group is in the pastor's life, and this will make an impact.

• 2.  Infrastructure must support it

Second step is that your church infrastructure must support small groups, not work against it.  What do I mean by that?  First, as mentioned, you need to either require it, or strongly support it.  In my Chicago church plant, we made small groups the place where you became a member of the church.  If someone wanted to join the church, they had to take the membership class (which most all churches require), but then THE SMALL GROUP LEADER HAD TO LISTEN TO THE TESTIMONY AND SIGN THE MEMBERSHIP FORM.  So they had to join a small group to become a member.  How does your infrastructure support small groups?

• 3.  Dump the good for the best

As mentioned already, Larry Osborne in the book Sticky Church makes some great comments about this.  You need to get rid of a lot of other ministries to really focus on small groups.  What if you've been around for a long time as a church, and you already have a plethora of various miscellaneous ministries clogging up the discipleship system?  You will have to practice benign neglect and let some of them die, so that small groups can gain a more central focus.

Can we really become "a church OF small groups"?  Yes, I think you can, but it will take work and will not happen by accident.  You will have to be intentional, and smart, and persevering to make it happen.  (And when we finish "Shepherd Care Discipleship Group Software", you will be able to use that to help make it happen at your church.)

I would be curious to find out:  What have you seen work, or not work, when trying to apply this model?  Drop me a comment and let me know.   Thanks!

Wishing you God's best for your ministry!

Dr. Bill

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #3: The Old Testament Pastoral Care Plan (Exodus 18)

Hi All,
This story in Exodus 18 known as "The Jethro Plan" has always fascinated me in terms of its potential for successful small group ministry.  God has revealed the plan for providing care for all the people, without burning out the pastor, and yet it seems that many churches have a difficult time putting this plan into reality.

It is a key method, not only for protecting leaders from burnout, but for applying to your church's small group ministry and care plan.

Now, here is how NOT to do it.  Many people, in reading this plan, simply decide that "what we will do is to simply divided the congregation into six or eight or ten groups (depending upon how many leaders we have in our key oversight board), and everybody will be responsible for a set number of people to call and check up on."  Has that EVER worked for anyone?  I've never seen it work.  Why?  Because it is not ORGANIC.  It is not natural; it is not in harmony with the natural human need to connect with others through a true and living relationship.  It often turns into a perfunctory phone call from one relative stranger to another relative stranger to talk about how things are going.  How successful do you think that will be?

What people often forget when they read Exodus 18 and then try to apply it to their church by this kind of artificial division is that all throughout the pentateuch, as the children of Israel were wandering around and trying to live their lives, is that they did everything in the context of family relationships.  The people were grouped by tribes, and the tribes represented actual bloodlines of relational connection to each other.

Now we obviously can't do that in the local church, but we can follow other relational connections.  For example, there is no natural relational connection between everybody whose name starts with A through D, for one elder, and E through L for another elder.  But you can begin to get some hope of relational connection if you organize the oversight of your people through your small group relationships.  At least there, we know that the people feel a connection for each other.

So organize your small group system this way.  That is, not only does each small group shepherd care for their own group, but you have some other overseers, or coaches, who care for the small group shepherds.  Who cares for your small group leaders?  What kind of span of care do you have?  That is, how many small group leaders is each one of your coaches/overseers responsible for?  Span of care is a huge issue if you want to successfully oversee your small group ministry.  When Carl George wrote his books on small groups years ago, he recommended a span of care of 5 groups per oversight shepherd.  However, Bob Logan, in the context of his coaching ministry recommends a span of care no greater than three, and often two.

Here's why:  if you want to have a successful small group ministry, which helps your leaders to overcome their problems, provide care for their people, teach, visit, outreach, etc.  then you must implement a leadership coaching plan.  That is, you must have trained coaches whose sole job is to come alongside two or three small group leaders and coach them to success.  And these coaches have to make this their primary ministry in the church.  If they try to squeeze it in with everything else they are doing it will not work.  The reason is that it takes a lot of effort to do it well.

So, the span of care needs to be small enough to work, and these overseer/coaches must be trained on how to be a good coaches so that they help the small group leaders to be stronger and better group leaders.  What you don't want to have is a case of reverse delegation going on, such that the overseer/coaches think that their job is to solve the small group leaders problems.  It's not.

So, put this all together and what do you have to provide a good pastoral care plan for your church, using the Jethro Plan of Exodus 18?

• 1st - you must have organic relationships between leaders and people.  

That is, no arbitrary lines can be drawn (at least with an American church); there must be actual relationships.

• 2nd - you must implement overseer/coaches for your small group leaders

• 3rd - you must have a small span of care of about two or three leaders per coach

• 4th - the overseer/coaches must be trained in proper coaching techniques

In my experience, I believe that these are the four principles of implementing an effective Jethro Plan in your church's small group system.

If you want to see a Bible study on small group principles from the Scripture, I have a free "Small Groups in the Bible" study in the Coaching section of HighPowerResources.  Just go to the Coaching section, and find the category on the right entitled, "Small Groups".  You will see several free resources there to help you with your small groups, including an SG Covenant, and a guide for communion in your small groups, as well as said Bible Study.

What do you think?  Is there anything that we can learn from the Jethro Plan for our churches?

By the way, our Shepherd Care Discipleship Group Software is going to be released soon, to help with this oversight process.

God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #2: How Necessary are Small Groups?

Was C.Peter Wagner right or wrong?
I had the privilege of receiving most of my doctoral courses from Dr. Wagner, and I, like many others, have read and consumed his many volumes on church growth.  One very influential book which he wrote was entitled, Your Church Can Grow.  It was originally written in the '70's and then revised in the '80's, and republished in 2001.  It is a GREAT book.  It covers the seven vital signs of church growth.  It has wonderful church growth principles in it.  It was in that book, and probably some of his others in which he talked about the need for a C-C-C church structure.

This is a reference to the three key structures necessary for a healthy church:

• C - Celebration

This is your typical Sunday or weekend worship services where everybody gathers together to worship.

• C - Congregation

This is your mid-sized group; typically a Sunday School class or Adult Bible Fellowship.  Please note that even though he uses the word  "congregation" he is not talking about the church worship service, but a gathering of part of the church.

• C - Cell

This is the small group.

Wagner's contention is that you need all three of these to have a healthy and strong church.  And he is, no doubt, right as usual, for most churches.  (Although I have read some who contend that it is very difficult to find a church which does all three of these well.  For example, when I was serving a major suburban church in Wheaton, IL, they had a very solid ABF ministry.  It was completely a part of their church culture, so much that anytime you met someone new, the second question after asking their name, was "Which ABF are you in?"  But they had a rather weak small group ministry, for a church of 1,000 people.  Even a strong effort to start small groups was met with limited success.  And the reason was that most people's social needs were met through their ABF's, which functioned as mini-congregation's within the church.  Why did they need a small group?  They had their worship, Bible teaching, fellowship, and outreach needs  (all four elements of true Christian community from last week's blog)

But my question about him being right or wrong, is specifically this:  Is that middle C (the 'congregation') absolutely necessary for church growth?  A lot of churches have pretty much focused just on the main worship service and small groups, and have done just fine.  Many of them pursue the 'two-winged' model of church, where Celebration is one wing, and Cell is the other.  And their church is able to fly quite well, thank you.  

So, is there any guidance from Scripture on this?
Well, here is one verse that makes me think:

Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.  (Acts 5:42)

This is a great verse that highlights the balance experienced by the early church between large group life ("in the temple courts"), and small group life ("from house to house").  This clearly points to the Celebration & Cell concept, but doesn't do much for supporting the need for the mid-sized Congregation group life.

Small groups are clearly a powerful tool for people to experience Christian community, as I mentioned in last week's blog, and they are a critical element in church structure.  So is the middle-C, that is, the mid-size Congregation even needed?

But perhaps there are many churches out there who do just fine without small groups?  I'd like to hear about churches that are able to fulfill their mission without small groups.  Maybe they only need the Big C, and the Middle C?  What has worked for you?  

We will continue talking and thinking together about small groups next week as we look at the Old Testament plan for pastoral care.

Until then,
for Christ and His Kingdom,

Dr. Bill

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #1: The Power of Christian Community (Acts 2:42-47)

The Power of Christian Community (Acts 2:42-47)

I have a suspicion that most Christians have never experienced the power of Christian community.  And this is a big problem if you are trying to create a robust small group ministry in your church.  If most people have never experienced deep Christian community, they are not likely to easily jump into the small groups that you are offering.

What percentage of people in a typical church participate in small groups?

I went to the HighPowerResources.com Church Growth Factoids page, entered "small groups" in the search field and found this:  In 1992, Leith Anderson of Wooddale Church in MN said the following:

"Small groups are not for everyone. Even those churches that heavily promote them often do not exceed 50% of their overall constituency who regularly participate in small groups."  (A Church for the 21st Century)

But I recently finished the book "Sticky Church" by Larry Osborne (see my blog post on "Sticky Church vs. Simple Church").  And in that book he speaks quite a bit about how many adults are involved in his small group ministry (partly because they apply Simple Church concepts).  Here's what he says, 

"Without cutting the competition so severely, there is no way we could have reached an 80 percent participation rate in our small group program. And without keeping things trimmed back, we wouldn't have been able to sustain it, either"  (Sticky Church).

So we have two viewpoints here.  One pastor says 50% small group involvement is tops and another says that they have reached 80% small group involvement.  I would guess that Anderson's comments about 50% is probably closer to the average success experienced by most churches, and Osborne's numbers at 80% are an exception that proves what you can do if you stay focused on it for decades as he has in his church.  But please remember that these are the best rates experienced by these churches.  What this means is that for most churches, a very large percentage of their adults, probably more than 50% have not been in small groups.

But what is it that we want them to be experiencing when they get into a small group?  Christian community.  That ideal, as I see it, is best expressed in Acts 2:42-47:

2:42   They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.  45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,  47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.   (Acts 2:42-47)

And as you know, most people see four key elements of Christian community here:
1.  Biblical study  ("devoted to the apostles' teaching)
2.  Fellowship
3.  Worship & Prayer
4.  Outreach ("And the Lord added to their number")

This is the church in microcosm.  I really believe that if we can get most people together into their living rooms to really BE the church together, they will be hooked; they will choose to stay together in Christian community because it is so fulfilling to their souls.

In my personal experience of being in small groups, I have felt more love, affection, both given and received, when in the company of a small band of brothers and sisters who take the time to get to know each other, and share honestly about what God is doing in our lives, than in most other contexts of church life.

I believe that if the pastor believes in the power of small groups, because s/he has personally experienced it, then much of the Body will follow.  Of course, as Osborne has indicated, you as the pastor also need to be making some good programming choices for your church to make it easy for them to get into a small group.

Q:  What do you think?  Do you agree or disagree that most Christians have not experienced the power of Christian community?  How about pastors?

For the Kingdom of Heaven,

Dr. Bill

Book Review: "Focus" (Willowcreek Study)

Hi All,

Recently completed the book "Focus" by Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson of Willowcreek.  The sub-title of the book is "The Top Ten Things People Want and Need from You and Your Church".  The book is the third in a series based on the Reveal study.

The Reveal research is based on responses from hundreds of churches and many thousands of church members.  When Willowcreek 'revealed' their initial findings from the first book, entitled (surprise!) "Reveal", it created quite a stir.  The reason for this is that Willowcreek made some changes to their philosophy of ministry, to a slightly more traditional approach, as a result of what they learned in the first Reveal study.  Some people were very quick to attack them and use the results of the study as proof that Willowcreek had been wrong all along with their seeker approach.  From my perspective, I see it that times and people and culture have changed and Willowcreek was pursuing its usual course of excellence by trying to find the very best way to do ministry in the current culture.

I've read all three books, Reveal, Follow Me, and now "Focus".  Each have been helpful at increasing my understanding of some aspects of disciple making in the local church.  The findings in the "Focus" book were helpful from the perspective of what people both need and want from the local church, but especially from the senior pastor.

I found the most interesting chapter to be "What do people want - and need from the Senior Pastor?"  They listed six common expectations which people have of senior pastors:

• Serving Advocacy 
• Spiritual Challenge 
• Pastoral Care 
• External Focus 
• Preaching & Vision Casting
• Unity & Stability  

Of these six, the one which was valued the most as a "driver of satisfaction" of the senior pastor was Preaching & Vision Casting at 51%.  External Focus didn't event register on the list, and the lowest factor which did register was, surprisingly, Pastoral Care.  That is, Pastoral Care & External Focus were not even significant factors in helping people to feel satisfied or happy with their senior pastor.

When they asked the question, "What do people NEED from the Senior Pastor?"  (Not just what do they WANT), the answer chosen was Spiritual Challenge.  In fact, Spiritual Challenge was significantly higher for every Christian at every stage of Christian growth.  A couple of interesting conclusions from Willowcreek's study were that "Spiritual challenge is the senior pastor's most significant driver of spiritual growth"  and also that, "Pastoral care does not contribute to spiritual growth".

In terms of what people are looking for when the pastor is preaching, the primary answer is "Spiritual Challenge".  Spiritual Challenge, according to their study includes the following three elements:

• BIBLE: provides sound doctrine rooted in biblical accuracy
• MODELS: and reinforces how to grow spiritually
• CHALLENGES: me to grow and take next steps

And then when the question was asked of whether people would rather have amazing teaching in the weekend services, or solid leading in the church, from their senior pastor, the surprising result is that people would rather have solid leadership of the church.  They include a chart on p. 81 that shows that when comparing what people value in their senior pastor, 80% would rather have spiritual guidance of the church, compared to just 20% who are looking for great teaching in the services.  This is kind of surprising since the role of the great preacher/teacher is often promoted in Christian media.

The best advice from the book was found in the final chapter, p. 87, with this statement:
"As church leaders, we need to give people a place to belong and a pathway that guides them on their journey toward intimacy with Christ."  
This statement deserves an entire blog commentary by itself.  But for now, let me just say that if we as church leaders can help people to belong, and give them a pathway for spiritual growth toward Christ, we will be experiencing success in our mission to make disciples.

The book is helpful; I just wanted to hit a few of the highlights here that impressed me.  Trust you will find it useful to your ministry.

In Christ's service,

Dr. Bill Miller
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COACHING BASICS: HOW to start a Coaching Ministry in your Church

Hi All,

Coaching is a powerful tool to assist in the task of making disciples in your congregation.


The final installment in the "Coaching Basics" series relates to HOW?  We've already covered the WHY you need a coaching ministry and the WHAT coaching is.  Plus, last week I gave you that inside look at one recent coaching session which I completed.  So, now...HOW do you get a robust coaching ministry started in your church?  I'm going to be sharing with you much of what we did at our church, and hopefully you will find some of it useful for yourself.

There is a great Christian coaching ministry out there called "Coachnet.org".  It is headed up by Bob Logan, who is the author of "Coaching 101".  This book is a great primer on how to do non-directive coaching.  Non-directive coaching is very effective, because the three rules of non-directive coaching are: "1. The client does the work.  2. The client does the work.  3. The client does the work."  The book focuses on the five stages of coaching, as Logan uses them, of:  Relate, Reflect, Refocus, Resource, and Review.  And the Coachnet. org website is filled with great and awesome tools to help you coach well.

So, the first thing I would say is connect with Coachnet.org, and check out the site.
Second, sign up for some training, which Logan provides.
Third, read the book "Coaching 101".

Those are all preliminary steps, and it is best to do it with a team.  We had a very strong start to coaching at our church, as we sent three staff people to get the training they needed.  The training consisted of several days in Hollywood (the unpopular side of town), followed by another couple days of training several months later in Chicago.  Because there were three of us, we were able to glean so much more from the training than just one.  That gave us a great foundation for going back to our church and getting it started.

The Coachnet.org actually has a coaching excellence performance test which you must pass in order to be credentialed by them and able to use their system and mentor others as coaches.  It consists of a series of on-line questions which review your behavior and how you handle the various aspects of coaching.  It is a surprisingly accurate survey, and we use it with all of our coaches in training before we certify them as Coaches or Coach Mentors.

In our system, we define a Coach Mentor as someone who has completed the 9-month training process and has passed the on-line assessment.  They are then in a position to train other coaches in our church.  A Coach is simply someone who has completed the process but does not desire to train other coaches.  They simply want to coach people in our church who are looking for help in various areas.

We are looking to train Coaches for four areas in our church:  Life Coach, Small Group Coach, Ministry Coach, and Money Coach.  The last one is a specialty area which also requires some training from Crown Ministries.  Currently we are doing the best at Small Group and Money Coaches.  The reason for that is because we have a more clearly articulated need, and a concrete process of training for each of them.

Once your coaches are trained, they must each take on two other people to be coached, the coachees.  Two is just about the perfect number because if you are going to do it right, it is a bit time-consuming, and any more than that gets to be unmanageable.  One of our staff initially started with three and it almost overwhelmed him.  Two is also just about right because sometimes, one of the coachees doesn't work out, and that way you still have one good coachee whom you are working with.

So, if you have read the book, gotten the training, and begun coaching then you are on your way.  Now, this part is very important:  Don't try to do too much at once.  Quality is better than quantity.  Logan has noted that many, many churches start with a whole crew of people, because they may be a large church and need a lot of coaches.  The problem with this is that you cannot maintain the quality.  It takes a lot of infrastructure and one-on-one meetings to maintain a high-level coaching ministry.  The number one mistake which churches make is to try to do too much.  As one of my homiletics professors said in seminary, "Start low, go slow, rise higher, catch fire".  What applies to preaching can apply to coaching as well!

We have been coaching for a while as a church now, and what we have discovered is that the hardest part is finding people who are willing to coach, and put in the time commitment.  A lot of people try to squeeze coaching in with everything else they are doing in the church.  That will not work.  You must find people who want to focus on being coached, and coaching two others.  If you start slow the first year, and each of them find quality people to coach the next year, and so on, in a while you will have a very strong coaching ministry.

We have also discovered that we very quickly needed some infrastructure and regular coaching meetings to keep it going.  So we are in the process now of training two men to be our coaching directors.  And we have just started to gather all of our coaches together for breakfast meetings to stay in touch with them.  Coaching is a decentralized ministry, but you need some structure to help hold it together.

So, that is where we are at.  This is certainly not the only way to do it, but it is how we are doing it, so I thought I would share that with you all.  Coaching is a powerful tool to assist in the task of making disciples in your congregation.

That's all for now,
Yours for the Kingdom of Heaven,
and the Church of Jesus Christ,

Dr. Bill

COACHING BASICS: An Inside Look at a Coaching Session

HI ALL,


We are continuing our third installment in the series on "Coaching Basics".  I'm just sharing with you some of the things which God has taught me related to coaching.  I've learned a lot, and found coaching to be tremendously useful in helping people to take control of their lives and experience success.  


Two weeks ago we looked at the WHY:  "How to know if your church needs a coaching ministry".  Last week, we examined the WHAT:  "What Coaching Is and Is Not".  


Now, I would like to give you an inside look at exactly what one coaching session looks like. I've asked permission of one of my coachees, if I could make anonymous reference to a recent coaching session which we have had.  So he's given me permission to summarize parts of our discussion.


The person being coached is actually in the business world.  As we began the coaching relationship recently, I asked him to fill out the Coaching Agreement form which summarized what he was hoping to achieve through coaching.  This is the Coaching Agreement.  


When he returned it, here's how he answered the two key questions about Focus and Objectives.  His Coaching Focus was related to his career.  He has been working in the same career now since college, and with the same company for 13 years; he is in his mid-forties, and he is thinking about the future.  So he wants to develop a plan to move ahead his career.


His answer to the question on Specific Objectives, included the following:  to refine his personal mission; to demonstrate value to his company, including his immediate boss, as well as the CEO;  to use his time better and more effectively; to be able to present himself as a more decisive person in both his informal conversations as well as his presentations.  

So he had four objectives.  Fortunately, he had already developed a personal mission statement at some point in his life.  But he really had not looked at it seriously for several years.  During our first session then, I asked some clarification questions about his mission.  In trying to understand it better, my questions helped him to examine his mission statement more closely, and see what made sense and what did not.  We discovered in the course of the session, that some of his statements were actually a bit redundant.  So one of the decisions he made was to re-write his personal mission statement between sessions.  By the time we met the second time, he had reduced his personal mission statement from eight separate statements down to four.  These four had a lot of clarity, and real distinctiveness from each other.  


His second objective was to demonstrate value to his company.  This has a lot of elements to it, many of which are not really measurable.  There are elements of general credibility, authority, and experience which are a bit hard to identify, but which absolutely do make a difference in perceived value.  So he began giving thought to these issues.  We realized that part of the perceived value is going to be achieved if he can make forward progress on his fourth objective, which is to communicate with more decisiveness.  So those two are linked to each other.  He also identified that some of the ways in which his job responsibilities are delineated tend to down-play his importance to the company.  Parts of this are related to the specific tasks he is asked to do, some of which have value, and some which do not;  the other part was simply related to his job title.   He realized that other individuals at a similar level in his company have one type of title, while he has a different title.  So besides redefining what he DOES, he wants to have a conversation with his boss in which he also redefines what he is CALLED.


His third objective is related to more effective time use.  During our session, he decided to keep a time log, and track those items which he feels are truly useful, and those which are actually helpful to the company and to him as an employee who wants to be valued.


For his fourth objective, he wants to be able to speak more decisively and boldly.  Because this is more of a top of mind issue, in which he simply needs to aware of when he sounds indecisive, we asked for some help from his wife.  Her job was to let him know, just in the course of day-to-day conversations at home, when she perceived that he was having a hard time making a decision, or sounding indecisive.  By the time we met for our second monthly session, he said that he was already much more aware of his conversational habits.


So, that is just a very brief summary of our one hour coaching session.  We meet via the phone every month, and keep working on his objectives and goals.  So far, he has a more concise mission statement, and he has been developing action steps which are consistent with his long-term career objectives.  


And the key to understand here, is that 90% of the ideas and actions developed during the course of our coaching session, were conceived by the coachee.  I, as the coach, simply helped him to think clearly, plan objectively, and be accountable for his own stated goals and intentions.  He owns his own plans, and executes them, because they are his plans.  That is the power of coaching.


That's all for this week.  Next week we will finish this series on Coaching Basics, by addressing the matter of HOW; how you can begin a coaching ministry in your church.


For Christ and His Kingdom,


Dr. Bill Miller

COACHING BASICS: What Coaching Is & Is Not

Hi All,

Continuing from last week, where we talked about WHY you might need a coaching ministry in your church, we'll talk about WHAT exactly coaching is and isn't. Let's start with defining what Coaching is NOT.

--Coaching is NOT Counseling.
Coaching is not about focusing on the emotional trauma or difficulties of life. It is not about a focus on the problems of the past, but the opportunities of the future. Coaching is not about the past -- it is about the future.

--Coaching is NOT Consulting.
The definition of consulting is bringing in an expert who tells you what to do. And we know what the definition of an "expert" is: An "X" is a nobody, and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure! Coaching is not about telling others what you know -- it is about asking another what they know.

--Coaching is NOT Mentoring.
This is probably the hardest one to understand. But mentoring is defined as someone who has gone on before & has greater experience, and now comes alongside someone in the same career field and shows them the way.

But that is not what coaching is about. Coaching, when done right, does not require specific knowledge about a certain career field. I have coached people who have worked for IBM, as technical consultants; I've coached people who lead businesses, or are moms, or serve as media specialists; and I've never done any of those things.

Coaching is about drawing out from someone else what they want to do & need to do. They need to know their job; I don't. My job is to help coach them to their best choices. Coaching is not about leading someone, but drawing out from them.

There are two keys to Christian coaching:
First, asking powerful questions which help people to discover their true calling, motivations, goals & actions.
Second, Christian coaching includes a spiritual, upward focus in which we help people to ask God to show them His specific will for their lives.

OK, so we have defined what coaching is NOT, and what are the two keys of Christian Coaching. So let's try to put it all together in a working definition: "Christian coaching is helping people to discover God's specific will for their lives in the day-to-day responsibilities of work and life, by asking powerful questions which help people to discover their true mission, motivations, priorities, and actions."

So, in review, last week we covered WHY you might need a coaching ministry in your church, and now this week WHAT coaching is and is not. Next week, I'll take you through a sample coaching session so that you get a feel for it. Then we will finish up with HOW to get a coaching ministry started in your church.

God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill