Coaching in Austin
Last Thursday I took a nice drive down to Austin, TX with some old friends and some new faces to gather for a Texas-wide organic church planter’s conference on coaching.
In terms of moving people deeper into realizing their potential in God’s Kingdom, I think coaching offers a healthy alternative. Rather than top-down training programs that command and control the blossoming church leader, the coach simply learns to ask questions to the coachee in hopes of raising their awareness and responsibility towards a certain topic that the coachee is interested in growing in. The “leader” is the one being coached, not the coach himself. This is a big paradigm shift for me, because it means that I must have faith that God can be trusted with the other person’s life; it is not all up to me to see discipleship happen in others.
As the weekend went on, we Abilenians built closer relationships with each other, and shared stories about the particular communities and house churches we were involved in. It was inspiring to hear about the diversity found in the Jesus Family Network, and at the same time to hear about the common dream to see Christ formed among natural relationships in our city! Over lunch, just before our return to Abilene, the 6 of us sat around the table and challenged each other to take new steps in creating a more cohesive church network in our city. We talked about the need to raise awareness in our individual house churches – sharing what God is doing around the city. We encouraged each other to begin coaching relationships with people of similar giftings. It is simply amazing to see what can happen when you put two pastors in the same room and give them opportunity to learn from one another. I’m hoping and praying that as the network of simple churches in Abilene develops, more and more people of similar gifting will find each other and began to rely on each other for resources, encouragement and coaching.
In a lot of ways, it all revolves around stories. I get so encouraged hearing about the ways God is working in parts all over Abilene, outside of my little world. I came back from Austin so excited that I mapped out all of the house churches in the city, as well as the families that are interested in starting one soon.
I think one of the biggest potential dangers in house churches is the tendency to isolate ourselves from the larger family of Christ. The more my wife and I begin to move into this way of living, the more we are hearing of others who are doing the same. Wouldn’t it be foolish to avoid each other?
At the very end of the conference, Kent Smith gave the “invitation”. No, not for someone to come forward and be baptized, (although I DO wish we had ended the afternoon with “Just as I am,”) but rather the DAWN invitation. Basically, it is a broad overview of what DAWN (Disciple a Whole Nation) is all about (a flat-structured organization that promotes church planting awareness and training all over the world, including North America), as well as an invitation to join the emerging coaching network in the United States. DAWN realizes how many people are out there truly working at planting a healthy church in their living room, but also is realistic about the fact that many of these Christians are going to need some encouragement and coaching. Kent asked us as church planters from all over Texas to consider joining this network of coaches, and to invite others as well. While I don’t want to be overwhelmed with “another responsibility”, it really sounds like this coaching network is there mainly for each other’s general encouragement and provides great opportunities to remain connected to others who are doing the same things you care about. Very cool.
