I’m thrilled to share some extraordinary news: I’ve been invited to attend the 2024 Lausanne Congress in Seoul, South Korea! Initially offered a virtual spot, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join thousands of global leaders in person.
For those unfamiliar, the Lausanne Movement, birthed by Billy Graham in 1974, unites Christians worldwide to fulfill the Great Commission. Imagine 5,000 passionate believers from every corner of the globe converging to ignite a global movement of discipleship and evangelism. This gathering promises to be a pivotal moment in Christian history.
Attending this congress is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to:
Equip my local church: I’ll bring back invaluable insights to help The Refinery Church reach more people in the Temecula Valley through effective disciple-making and spiritual formation.
Address national challenges: The alarming rates of marital failure and young people leaving the church demand innovative solutions. I’m eager to explore strategies for strengthening families and retaining our next generation.
Advance global impact: Building on my experiences in Amsterdam, I aim to expand our Christian coaching initiatives to empower leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. Lausanne will provide a platform to connect with like-minded individuals and forge strategic partnerships.
To make this dream a reality, I need your support. The congress is just over a month away, and I must raise $5,000 by September 28th. I know this is a tall order, but with faith, I believe we can achieve the impossible. Just as the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 demonstrated God’s boundless provision, I trust He will multiply our efforts to achieve His purpose.
Your generous contribution will enable me to attend this life-changing event and make a lasting impact. Thank you for considering partnering with me in this exciting endeavor.
In His Grip,
Gary Reinecke
Please consider supporting me to attend the 2024 Lausanne Congress in Seoul, South Korea.
When you are coaching a leader who is navigating a really challenging issue, where do you begin? What kinds of questions do you ask? How do you remain in the coaching role and not morph into the role of consultant, especially when you have experience and/or expertise in the problem being solved?
In the best scenario possible, I have found that when I can ask curious questions that are not tethered to an agenda, other than helping the other person, I can be helpful. When I let my bias contaminate the questions, then I risk losing the leader’s trust.
When coaching leaders in the ministry space where I spend my working hours, I have discovered the VUCA 2×2 can apply.
The notion of VUCA was introduced by the U.S. Army War College to describe the more Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous multilateral world which resulted from the end of the Cold War.
The “V” in the VUCA acronym stands for volatility.
The “U” in the VUCA acronym stands for uncertainty.
The “C” in VUCA stands for complexity.
The “A” in VUCA stands for ambiguity.
Consider a real issue: a leader comes to you and is searching for ways to engage people in the church. You have two “buckets” you are thinking of when you envision engaging people. These overlap, but for argument’s sake, think of these two buckets as the discipleship/spiritual formation bucket and the leadership development/service bucket.
Note – the VUCA 2×2 above was initially intended to assess and diagnose an event; however, for our purposes let’s apply this to discipleship and leadership development.
Thinking about a church plant scenario that I serve in, come with me as I apply the VUCA 2×2. We are constantly wrestling with people’s engagement in these two buckets. Gina (my wife) and I serve on the Welcome Team at our 2-year old church. We have grown to 200 in our community, and last fall launched a second service. Our Welcome Team members often are serving at two services beginning at 8:30 am through the start of the second service and tear-down, which finishes around noon. You can see the problem. Burn out!
Knowledge about the Welcome Team
(Horizontal Axis)
We need to build our capacity = grow our team. That is easier said than done given a couple of key variables:
Connections to People – new, newly established, or long-term attenders
Bandwidth – people are busy
Leadership Capacity – Gina and Gary’s margins to recruit and train more team members and leaders
Predictions of Outcomes for the Welcome Team
(Vertical Axis)
Current Team members will become tired and disenchanted
New people will be excluded from a place to serve
People will not have the opportunity to use their gifts and be part of the community our team offers
Just from the analysis above, the situation has become clearer. We know what we need to do; now we just need to execute.
One of the big developments for us in our church is the addition of a new staff position under the title of Operations Director. Eventually, this person will oversee the Connections process where people are asked to take a spiritual gifts assessment, meet with a coach, and find ways they can use their gifts by taking the next step in their journey. However, we are not quite ready to launch this platform and process quite yet. In the meantime, our Operations Director is contacting people new to the church community to follow-up with them from a campaign our lead pastor launched to engage people in ministry. The initial signs are encouraging; we are receiving “hot leads”, people who have indicated an interest to serve on the Welcome Team. This has put light on our path by creating a pipeline for newer people to find places to serve. For the Welcome Team, this has addressed some of the issues listed above. We are quickly moving to a better place to staff both services with separate teams and rotate people so no one burns out.
Anticipating the potential outcomes balanced with a clear understanding of our current reality helped us address the Welcome Team’s capacity problem which we have been facing for the last 12-18 months.
Here are descriptions of each aspect of VUCA with a key question that will help you coach a leader through.
Volatility: The challenge is unexpected or unstable and may be of unknown duration, but it’s not necessarily hard to understand; knowledge about it is often available.
Key Question: How long has this problem been occurring?
Uncertainty: Despite a lack of other information, the event’s basic cause and effects are known. Change is possible, but not a given.
Key Question: What would it take to improve the situation?
Certainty: The situation has many interconnected parts and variables. Some information is available or can be predicted, but the volume, or nature of it, can be overwhelming to process.
Key Question: What things can you influence?
Ambiguity: Casual relationships are completely unclear. No precedents exist; you face “unknown unknowns.”
Key Question: What things are you unaware of right now?
Four Key Questions to Coach Through VUCA:
How long has this problem been occurring?
What would it take to improve the situation?
What things can you influence?
What things are you unaware of right now?
Here are two VUCA blogs that were originally posted that will give you more insight to navigate complex situations leaders face:
I want to share about a key upcoming opportunity about which I am very excited. My colleagues, Micah Dodson of Thrive Church Planting and Kevin Robert of Lockstep Ministries and I are hosting a free one-day webinar on the Five Habits of Effective Disciple-Making. We call this the “Discipleship Collective,” and it is happening August 5th from 10am-3pm PST, completely free. Register HERE.
In the webinar, we will emphasize how you can engage in making disciples of pre-Christians and seeing that process multiply for generations of disciple-making. As we focus on building a prayerful dependence, we are confident that you will see fruit from this webinar.
Following this webinar, we will be offering five coaching sessions that will serve you as you seek to make disciples that make disciples. This coaching is designed to help you architect and implement your discipleship cycle that will lead to generations of disciples being formed. A cost of $475 is required with this portion, which will include 5 coaching sessions from top- notch coaches. This normally would cost $1,250 per person. You can register for the coaching sessions HERE.
Agenda
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Missional Value – Hard places demand that you know why you do what you do.
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Active Prayer – Taking prayer from the safety of the Christian bubble into the world requires courage.
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Relational Connections – Leaning into the tension of having relationships with insiders and outsiders.
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Disciple-Making Cycle – Mission of Jesus: Clear Simple Reproducible
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Strategic Partnership – Leveraging the right relationships for Kingdom fruit
Interested in learning more about raising up disciples using a coach approach? Check-out the FREE Discipleship Webinar!
I want to share about a key upcoming opportunity about which I am very excited. My colleagues, Micah Dodson of Thrive Church Planting and Kevin Robert of Lockstep Ministries and I are hosting a free one day webinar on the Five Habits of Effective Disciple-Making. We call this the “Discipleship Collective,” and it is happening August 5th from 10am-3pm PST, completely free. Register HERE.
In the webinar, we will emphasize how you can engage in making disciples of pre-Christians and seeing that process multiply for generations of disciple-making. As we focus on building a prayerful dependence, we are confident that you will see fruit from this webinar.
Following this webinar, we will be offering coaching triads that will serve you as you seek to make disciples that make disciples. This coaching is designed to help you architect and implement your discipleship cycle that will lead to generations of disciples being formed. A cost of $475 is required with this portion, which will include 5 coaching sessions from top- notch coaches. You can register for the coaching sessions HERE.
Interested in learning more about raising up disciples using a coach approach? Check-out the FREE Discipleship Webinar!
What if your vision has reached a point that leaves your people frustrated? You have launched your ministry – a new church, a network, or an organization (coaching, or a business as mission). Or you are in an established ministry and you are stuck! The initial excitement has begun to taper off.
You have trained leaders in coaching. The first round there was a lot of excitement. Those coaches have seen encouraging signs in those they are coaching – disciples are being made, leaders developed, and new ministries ignited. But now what?
One of the realities of momentum is that there is a constant need for innovation. When you are the primary vision caster for a movement, the need for more coaches is always front of mind. But the urgent overshadows the important! You might be wondering why your leaders are not excited and seeing fruit. But when you reflect, the answer is clear. Leaders without a coach will eventually hit their lid and stop growing. That is why you must always be developing more leaders in their capacity to empower others through coaching.
What to do when the urgent overshadows the important!
Slow down
Reflect on what’s important
Remind yourself what helped you get where you are
Refocus and prioritize training
Focus on the issues that matter most
Recruit a new cohort of leaders to train in coaching
Create a plan with your key influential leaders
How do you proceed to train the next generation of leaders in coaching?
You will have leaders that are now experienced in coaching, and leaders who have been coached. These are the two groups you should look at first to conduct a new round of coach training.
Experienced Coaches
From this pool you would consider your highest-performing coaches. These are your potential coach mentors to train the next generation of coaches. We recommend that you assess your coach mentors using the Christian Coach Assessment for an objective evaluation of your high performers based on the 9 competencies of a Christian Coach.
Leaders who have been coached
This is the pool that you can assess to become coaches. Based on the feedback you receive from the leaders that have coached them, you can identify those who are ready for your next round of coach training.
How do you train coach mentors?
This is a pressing need for those who are training leaders in coaching. You want leaders who are competent coaches, plus, have the capacity to train others. Not all competent coaches are competent mentors. Here are 5 questions to ask about training coach mentors.
Five Questions to Reflect on how to train Coach Mentors:
What is my vision for raising up more coaches in the next 3-5 years?
How can I train leaders in coaching to attain that vision?
How many coach mentors will I need?
How can I objectively assess who will be excellent coach mentors?
How can I train a coach to become a mentor to train other coaches?
Where do apprentices of Jesus need to use a coach approach?
Making more and better disciples
Cultivating leaders
Planting churches
Interested in learning more about raising up disciples using a coach approach? Check-out the FREE Discipleship Webinar!
Do you love to engage with people on their spiritual journey, watch others grow in their faith, develop leaders, and catalyze disciple-making movements? Are you growing and learning how to improve as a leader? Do you enjoy examining how different streams of the Christian faith have created disciple-making movements, developed leaders, and planted churches?
If your answer is “yes” to these questions, then you will enjoy studying the historical Celtic movement dating back to the 500s AD and the ministry of Columba.
Columba’s Early Beginnings
Columba was born in 522 AD to parents of royal lineage. One of Columba’s teachers was Finnian of Clonard, best known for making the Bible the foundation for all education. This had a profound effect on Columba, who, after a period, left Clonard to plant churches and set up mission stations wherever God led him. Historians describe him as being incessantly active and perhaps this intensity of energy and a fervent zeal for the truth led him to plant over 300 churches and to found a great number of Bible training schools.
Columba’s Mission Strategy
The Celtic Way was to establish a thriving, self-sustaining mission outpost to develop people of deep faith. Part of the mission outpost was a Bible training school attached to a farm, a bakery, and large gardens. A church was birthed as part of the Iona community.
Columba’s Holistic Approach
The Celtic Way blurred the lines between insiders and outsiders. By virtue of living on the island of Iona, or being on pilgrimage visiting Iona, you became part of the community. Last summer, I traveled to Iona and experienced the ongoing life of the Iona community; a trip that forged a lasting memory. Watch this video if you would like to learn more about Columba and the Celtic Way.
Challenges from the Celtic Way to Modern Missiology:
Christian Community
Discipleship
Distinction between insiders and outsiders
Leadership Development
Church Planting
Dissecting the Problem
Expectations for discipleship, leadership development, and church planting are unrealistically high in our current reality (in my humble opinion).
Fast-pace of life so time is not permitted for the slow work of God.
Visions are more aspirational than real.
Results are more attractive than substantive.
Measure the wrong things
Breadth over depth.
This is one reason why it is helpful to look at historical movements like the Celtic Way.
4 Questions to consider in your methodology to make apprentices of Jesus:
Is your vision too small?
The Celtic Way was focused on the whole of life and community transformation to bring the Kingdom of God – here and now.
What is your starting point?
The Celtic Way began where people were at in their spiritual journeys rather than the approach many use today that invites people to the place the ministry needs them to be before you begin the discipleship process – for example, “into the church”.
What is your process?
The Celtic Way was clear, simple, and reproducible. Think of three concentric circles, mentioned earlier: the community, the church, and the monastery.
Do you have a complete picture of an apprentice of Jesus?
Much can be learned about the Celtic Way. If you would like to participate in a conversation around these principles, I would invite you to consider participating in our Discipleship Collective. During the FREE Discipleship Webinar, we will identify the principles that have been foundational to disciple-making movements for centuries.
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