The Great Commission IS Coaching?!
Matthew 28:19 is commonly referred to as the Great Commission. You know the verse,
"Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
So - what's that got to do with Coaching?
Other versions of that verse say, "Go and make followers of all the people..."
What Disciples and Followers have in common is that they are not stagnant. Followers by definition take steps and the word disciple shares the same root as the word discipline.
Discipleship = forward movement. Being a disciple is not a one-time decision, it's a series of yes's as we connect with God and His pathway for our lives.
It's not easy though. Being a disciple, or follower, means being intentional about discerning and then moving toward whatever God has for us personally. It's hard sometimes.
While forgiveness and salvation are free to us, whatever God wants for our lives moving forward will likely involve a cost. We may need to forg
...Paul Used Questions Too...
Chapter 2 of Philippians starts with a list of questions.
Does your life in Christ give you strength? Does his love comfort you? Do we share together in the spirit? Do you have mercy and kindness?
This verse always makes me pause and think. Does my life in Christ give me strength? In all honesty, sometimes I don't feel strong. I feel like I am not up to all that is on my plate or on my mind...
Then I look at the comfort question - I'm challenged there too. I'm one of those people who doesn't spend too much time thinking about how I feel, but then I spiral into overwhelm because I didn't read the warning signs...
What Paul could have done was just make statements. That would have gone something like this:
You should be strong because life in Christ gives you what you need. You should feel comfort and share in the Spirit, as well as have experience receiving and giving mercy and kindness.
I'm quite sure that if that verse was presented like that I would not pause and think t...
Is Coaching Even Biblical? [Final]
We've been talking about coaching and the biblical model for growth.
We started with how God wants to interact with people directly.
Next we talked about adult learning, "Aha" moments and discipleship.
And finally, today, we will focus on how God made each of us differently.
We are really big on this at Bridges, we even have an entire course on discovering your Destiny by Design!
1 Corinthians 12 is one place we see God sharing about our individual design.
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but they are all from the same Spirit. 5 There are different ways to serve but the same Lord to serve. 6 And there are different ways that God works through people but the same God. God works in all of us in everything we do.
There are many more places in the Bible that talk about our individuality. Some of us are more evangelistic and some are more inclined to teach or to serve. Later in 1 Corinthians 12 people are compared to being different body parts and accepting who they...
Are You One of These 5/6 Types of People?
Are there professional life coaches? Of course!
But the majority of people who take coach training are:
- Businessmen - looking for leadership develpment
- Ministers - wanting to make disciples, not foster dependents
- Parents - of both young children and adult children
- Friends - who people come to with their stuff
- Followers of Jesus - who are hoping to make a kingdom impact
I guess what I am saying is you don't have to want to be a professional coach to consider coach training!
Do you have an ed allowance? This could be the right investment!
Would you like truly help others help themselves? This course will give you the conversational tools to do so!
At every last class I love hearing how the course has affected people. Some of my favorites are the double dippers. I've had more than one businessman take the course to level up their leadership and experienced a change in their relationship with their adult children. We've seen ministers take the course to better serve their con...
How Is "Benevolent" Detachment Actually Benevolent? BD #3 of 5
The definition of benevolent includes words like kind and well-meaning. They sound like Jesus words to me, but how can "benevolent" be paired with "detachment" and still be kind and well-meaning?
Think of it this way.
Someone calls our church with a need for rent money. We have a certain protocol we walk through before helping out and one of the questions we need answered is whether or not we have helped in the past. Imagine if someone could just call every month and we just paid their rent for them. Would that be good for them?
Instead, we offer financial coaching. We want to help people have gainful employment, manage their finances, and set them up for a more secure future.
We want to help them learn to fish instead of just giving them a fish.
We are playing the long game.
It's easier, and in truth feels more rewarding, to just give the fish, pay the rent, meet the need, make the decision, give the guidance, soothe the pain...
It's better, and in truth IS more rewarding, ...
Ten Tips for Great Mentoring Relationships
As a former Bible college dean, I’ve had many young people ask for mentoring. For clarity’s sake, I learned to ask back what exactly they were looking for in a mentoring relationship.
Here’s some of the answers I received:
- I don’t know what I’m looking for, isn’t that what you are supposed to decide?
- Well, I just know I am supposed to have a mentor, so whatever you think is right is good by me.
- I need someone to tell me how to grow spiritually.
While I applauded their initiative for spiritual growth and there was some value in their ideology, in this paradigm the responsibility for their development was all placed on me. I felt I was supposed to design a pathway for their spiritual growth. They wanted me to discern what their next steps would be. And in some cases, there was a hope that I would use my influence to connect them with a ministry position. Their perspective was one where I would be the leader, the teacher, and the guide and they would come willing to receive.
Thi...
And just like that, I have ASD...
I first heard of ASD when I was working at a children's home. I was watching a soccer game and trying to get the attention of one of my own daughters. I kept calling out to her. She was playing too close to the road for my comfort.
"What is wrong with her?", said a young boy placed in our care who had likely heard that phrase too many times.
Without thinking I told him my daughter had Audio Selective Disorder.
"What's that?", said Tommy. I told him, "She can only hear me when she wants to."
He thought for a minute and said, "Oh, I think I have the same thing."
It hit me recently that many believers, myself included, have ASD sometimes. We can only hear when we want to. For me personally, I struggle with hearing God in the small things. I ask for direction on big things but can miss out when He is calling to me in my everyday life.
Maybe He is warning me not to "play too close to the street" when He sees me complaining about my circumstances, or judging someone else's viewpoin...
? Discipleship, Leadership Development, Coaching and Spiritual Formation ?
How should we grow? How will we know?
This is a time of redefining norms for our world and for the church.
As we move through this season - people are coming back to church in person, or not. People are getting back to relationships they once invested in, or not. People are sticking with new habits they formed, or not. People are pursuing plans they once had, or not.
There's a lot to navigate.
For me personally, I would love it if God just gave us a step-by-step plan that we could follow, and then we would KNOW we were doing "it" right!
I would love that full confidence and embrace the challenge to do all the things.
Turns out that is not how He designed our faith walk to be.
Well, not exactly.
The truth is He does have a step-by-step plan for us, but it is an individual path. You probably know the verse as well as I do, but Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path."
I wish He would just give us a list and we could check stuff off item...
Saboteurs Whisper To Us All... Can you identify their voices?
Saboteurs whisper to us all, they sound like friends, they seem wise, but they infiltrate our minds like a poison that tastes sweet.
Discipleship saboteurs say things like,
- if you don't tell them what to do, they will mess things up, it's just the responsible thing to do
- it will take too long for them to move forward with coaching, they would be better off if you just tell them what to do
- it's wrong for you to withhold your story if you went through whatever they are going through, they should learn from your mistakes and do it just like you
The best poison is only a small percent deadly, but if you take it in you will eventually die...
Using coaching as the Biblical way of discipleship helps people build their own relationship with God.
Coaching builds disciples not dependents.
Coach training can teach you how!
Saboteurs whisper their hopelessness on the other side of coaching as well. Coaches have helped me discern many of the following as limiting beliefs that needed t...
The Skinny On Bridges Coaching! (and a quick dependence quiz)
Bridges Coaching exists to make disciples, not dependents.
We do this through:
- training leaders in the Coaching Culture
- guiding people to understand their Destiny by Design
- personal coaching
- guided workshops: Soul Care Personal Retreat and the Life on Purpose Workshop
- self-guided coaching journal book by Cindy called Traction
It's easy to go through life unintentionally not engaging in what God has for you personally.
It takes clarity and intentionality to move with purpose engaging in God's unique best next step for you!
Most people don't mean to be dependent but here's how you could tell if you are tending that way. Give yourself 1 point for a positive response to any of these 10 markers.
___ I would prefer if someone would just tell me what to do.
___ If only things would come together for me as they do for everyone else.
___ I can't be expected to adult, I just never got the tools.
___ If the right leader would just mentor me, then I could really become all I coul...