by Gary Reinecke | Oct 31, 2016 | Uncategorized |
What do you provide those you lead?
When you coach those you lead, you have the opportunity to help them focus. Whether you are helping them:
- see where they fit in a larger vision
- understand where they are in the mission God has entrusted
- take the next step to help them clarify a vision God is revealing to them
Focus is the gift you give to those you are developing, influencing, empowering.
I am in Hong Kong as I write this blog – training leaders who are making disciples and planting churches in under-served and under-reached regions of our world. These leaders are learning how to coach leaders and spark discipleship making movements (DMM). My job is to help them understand how coaching compliments their disciplemaking efforts.
I like to use the analogy of a train track. Think of one rail representing the “strategic” (DMM in this instance) aspect and the other rail representing the “relational” (coaching) aspect. Together, these two rails provide a path for leaders to travel – keeping the focus on fueling a movement of making more and better disciples. When you have an effective strategy in conjunction with a comprehensive coaching process, you can help keep leaders focused.
Remember the gift you are giving away. What systems do you use in conjunction with coaching?
by Gary Reinecke | Oct 25, 2016 | Uncategorized |
How many times have you heard leaders share that they are considering a “new ministry” opportunity. Sometimes, it is a natural response to the monotony of life and other times it is a case of the “grass is greener” fallacy. In other circumstances, a leader might find themselves in transition. When I speak to leaders about transition I like to explain three phases: Pre-transition, Transition and Post-transition.
When coaching leaders through transitions I’ve used three helpful questions:
- Where have you been?
- Where are you going?
- How will you get there?
I remember when I first came across a process that addressed these questions, I was a third year seminary student. My instructor, Dr. Gordon Klenck had returned from a 30-year stint as a missionary in Europe. During his doctoral work at Fuller Seminary he took a course entitled Leadership Emergence Theory from Dr. Robert Clinton. The material was in the formative stages but the process helped me turn the corner on what I eventually did following graduation and set me on the trajectory that I continue to this day. The Focused Living Retreat Workbook is a reformulation of that process and does an effective job helping a leader:
- Look back – Personal Time Line
- Look forward – Personal Calling Statement
- Look around – Mentoring plan
I’ve used this resource in a number of different settings with a high degree of effectiveness e.g. graduate leadership courses, small group gatherings and 1-1 coaching. The process of discerning God’s will is not formulaic, nor is it linear; it is more like spaghetti. Imagine twirling your fork in a pile of noodles, finding a few that land on your utensils and into your mouth. This illustrates how the discernment process works. Once a leader has a sense that she/he is in transition, they begin the journey of twirling their fork. Going through this process in collaboration with a coach can help a leader move intentionally and fruitfully through a transition period.
What tools have you used to help leaders navigate transitions in their life and ministry? Please share your ideas below.
by Gary Reinecke | Oct 17, 2016 | Church Growth, Church Multiplication, Disciplemaking, Uncategorized |
In 1988 I was a young seminary student engaged in church planting when my life intersected with an even younger college student named Tim Vink. Tim and I met as short-term missionaries with Youth With a Mission in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We participated in street evangelism, ministered to young adults in night clubs and connected with a variety of people in the famed Red Light District to share the life-transforming message of the Gospel. Many late nights were spent discussing the adventures of the day, challenges of the unique spiritual dynamics in the city and our dreams for the future. One conversation stands out to me. When asked what he felt God had called him to do with his life, Tim’s response was to lead a church multiplication movement (his actual answer was to “disciple a denomination” but I didn’t have a category that fit that vision).
When I caught up with Tim in 1999 he was leading a church that was in the early stages of planting new churches. Tulare Community Church is a church planting church. Presently. Tim serves in a national capacity for his denomination where he is helping leaders embrace a church multiplication DNA. I asked Tim recently how many churches Tulare has planted, and as of Spring 2016 the number was around 35 – and still counting. Some of the churches that Tulare has planted are planting into the third generation. As a network, the denomination has planted over 360 churches to-date.
Tulare Community Church is a Level 5 Church – bent on multiplying, releasing and sending.
Previously, I introduced the book “Becoming a Level FIVE Multiplying Church Field Guide” (by Todd Wilson and Dave Ferguson with Alan Hirsch) and five levels of church multiplication as follows:
- The primary characterization of Level 1 churches are “subtraction, scarcity, and survival.”
- The primary characterization of Level 2 churches are “tension, scarcity, survival, and growth.”
- The primary characterization of Level 3 churches are “addition, growth and accumulation.”
- The primary characterization of Level 4 churches are “discontent, new scorecards and reproducing at all levels.”
- The primary characterization of Level 5 churches are “multiplying, releasing and sending.”
I found the book with the self-assessment helpful to determine where congregations are on the multiplication continuum. Read “Becoming a Level FIVE Multiplying Church Field Guide” and administer the self-assessment to determine where you are on the multiplication continuum. Here are a few questions to help a Level 5 church reflect and reproduce church planting movements:
- What changes can we make to raise the bar on discipleship and lower the bar on leadership?
- What aspects of our disciple-making and leader development processes are easily reproducible?
- What aspects of our disciple-making and leader development processes are challenging to reproduce?
- What steps can we take to reproduce disciples more effectively and efficiently?
- What steps will we take?
I’ve observed that when leaders have the right DNA and are willing to remove human barriers to church multiplication, the Holy Spirit is able and willing to move rapidly in people’s hearts so that His church is empowered to fulfill the mission to disciple the nations.
by Gary Reinecke | Oct 9, 2016 | Church Growth, Church Multiplication, Disciplemaking, Focused Ministry, Leader Development, Uncategorized |
You are probably familiar with a Level 1 church. It is a church bent on survival. In 1988 I began a long and arduous journey with Historic First Church in Phoenix, AZ. The only way out of the dismal decline, from my perspective, was to plant a new and vibrant church with the intent of revitalizing the parent church. To work within the denominational polity we were led to plant a church within a church – aka “venue”. Some 25+ years later that new congregation has evolved into an urban, multi-ethnic community of faith call Urban Connect relocated in the revitalized warehouse district. Lot’s to report from that experience but for now, this Level 1 church serves as a good example of a church that has taken the leap to become a Level 4 church – read more below.
Previously, I introduced the book “Becoming a Level FIVE Multiplying Church Field Guide” (by Todd Wilson and Dave Ferguson with Alan Hirsch) and five levels of church multiplication as follows:
- The primary characterization of Level 1 churches are “subtraction, scarcity, and survival.”
- The primary characterization of Level 2 churches are “tension, scarcity, survival, and growth.”
- The primary characterization of Level 3 churches are “addition, growth and accumulation.”
- The primary characterization of Level 4 churches are “discontent, new scorecards and reproducing at all levels.”
- The primary characterization of Level 5 churches are “multiplying, releasing and sending.”
I found the book with the self-assessment helpful to determine where congregations are on the multiplication continuum. Read “Becoming a Level FIVE Multiplying Church Field Guide” and administer the self-assessment to determine where you are on the multiplication continuum. Here are a few questions to help a Level 1 church reflect and move forward, based on a self-assessment the authors created:
- Are we content being a Level 1 church?
- What options do we have to grow and reproduce?
- What level can we, by God’s grace, realistically become?
- What steps can we take to get from here to there?
- What steps will we take?
In the upcoming blogs I will take a closer look at the 5 Levels of Multiplication to illustrate the characteristics above with questions to coach your team to the next level.
by Gary Reinecke | Sep 25, 2016 | Uncategorized |
Over the tenure of my ministry I can think of a number of church planters who struggled financially. That is the nature of the work. I also know of many church planters that struggle connecting with people who are not currently attending a church because there is a clear disconnect with people who work 9-5 vs. the life of a self-supporting worker. It sometimes surfaces in a question like: “what’s your real job?”
The challenge of bi-vocational ministry is the demand to balance both well.
With respect to all missiologists everywhere, I think business-oriented missionaries have it wrong. BAM stands for Business as Mission. An example is a church planter or missionary running a small business (micro-enterprise) as a means of engaging culture, financially supplementing or fully supporting the ministry and creating job opportunities in certain places around the world where unemployement is high. In conversation with missionaires while traveling to a number of countries where BAM is utilized the comments I hear range from: BAM is often distracting at best, to all consuming (to the neglect of the primary work).
Biblically there are arguments for both support-based ministry and BAM. Paul was a tentmaker, Jesus was a carpenter. Both also experienced seasons when they received financial gifts, food and shelter in exchange for the ministry they provided. Both models are valid. Both have pros and cons.
A challenge with Bam is where the emphasis is placed. Sometimes out of necessity, Business (capital “B”) may take over as the primary concern of the mission (lower case “m”). What if the emphasis changed to MAB, or “Mission as Business”.
- What if the mission were structured to do business in a robust manner – where missionaries flourished?
- What if the business was strategically integrated into the mission to make more and better disciples and shared a synergistic relationshiup?
- What if the fruit of the business were churches being planted.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
Wrong, MAB is happening in the US through dozens of independent health coaches. My wife Gina Reinecke has been a health coach for the last 7 years. While she is not personally engaged in church planting she IS doing ministry. What I’ve observed with Gina’s health coaching is that most of her clients want something more out of life, desire greater balance and significance. Health coaching can open the door to spiritual conversations. Dozens of pastors and church planters have caught this vision and are ministering using health coaching as an avenue to connect with people AND supplement their income.
I’ve observed that health coaching is a vocation, uniquely positioning people on mission to: accomplish the task of making disciples by intersecting with pre-Christians, providing practical skills to help them become healthy AND follow Jesus.
Who do you know that might want to test if this strategy? Someone who is “all in”. Someone who is seeking to bridge the gap between life and ministry.
If you know someone who lives at the intersection of business and mission, I invite you to connect them with my wife, Gina. She would be more than willing to share this opportunity in greater depth and answer any questions they have.
I wonder if this might be a vehicle that God would use to create a viable path, alongside the more established ways to support church planters and missionaries – here in the US and beyond. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a fully integrated approach to do MAB? A new way of doing mission that legitimizes the task of the church planter and missionary, without compromising the primary task of making more and better disciples through the planting of reproducing churches.
If you have other models that have the kind of potential the health coaching has – please share below.
by Gary Reinecke | Sep 19, 2016 | Church Growth, Church Multiplication, Coach Training, Disciplemaking, Focused Ministry, Leader Development, Personal Development, Uncategorized |
“The Coaching 101 Handbook” was published so that church planters, pastors and church multiplication network leaders would be equipped to empower missional leaders (2003). Since then, the handbook has been translated into a couple of languages, hundreds of leaders have been trained and are coaching using the process known as the Five R’s. The purpose Bob Logan and I co-authored this resource was to offer a comprehensive coaching process that is spiritually anchored in Christ.
I’ve done a bit of reflection on the basic skills of coaching since then. As a result, I’ve altered the language slightly under the third area, from giving feedback to “Timely Advice”. It focuses on the the “timeliness” of the feedback Of course, advice-giving is discouraged in coaching and only encouraged when the person being coached has exhausted her/his ideas.
Why is that? I like to put it like this:
You have a 50-50 chance that anyone will do anything you suggest; but when people discover something for themselves, the ratios change drastically (like to 95%) that they will act!
- Listening: “…it is best to listen much, speak little, and not become angry;” James 1:19
- Asking: “Then he asked, ‘Who do you think I am?’ Peter replied, ‘You are the Messiah.'” Mark 8:29
- Advising: “Timely advice is lovely, like golden apples in a silver basket.” Proverbs 25:11
I have also re-discovered that the most important discipline is at the hub of the illustration. Apart from Him, we can’t accomplish anything of value. The ability to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit and help leaders align themselves with God’s agenda sets world-class coaches apart from good coaches. This reminder gives us confidence in a Helper to accomplish the task.
- Abiding: “When you obey me you are living in my love, just as I obey my Father and live in his love.” John 15:10
Abiding in Christ is the glue that makes the three skills above “sticky” – it is a game-changer for leaders. How many times have you had people you coach come back days, weeks, months or even years later telling you that what you helped them take action on – confirmed the very thing the Lord had been prompting them to do? This is the gift that you give to people and sometimes, you receive a gift in return and experience the impact.
If you have a story of how you have helped people take action in obedience to Christ or make shifts in their leadership, please share your insights below. Until next week – keep on empowering leaders!
