I was in Palm Springs recently when I had the opportunity to meet with Dave DeVries  of OC US Ministries.  Dave has been a church planter and today coaches church planters around the world.  He has extensive experience as a certificated coach so I asked Dave in this short video to give us some practical insights on coaching those we lead.  You can follow Dave on Twitter @davedv and check out his blog at www.missionalchallenge.com  Before you push play on the video make sure you get out a pen and paper so you can take notes!

Untitled from Maclake on Vimeo.

I sat down with MindyCaliguire on a recent trip to Chicago and had the opportunity to talk with her about small group coaching.  Mindy is the founder of Soul Care and author of several books such as Discovering Soul Care, Simplicity and Spiritual Friendship.  She has a huge passion for small groups and for the health of leaders souls.  In this video I asked Mindy why the role of the small group coach is so important.

Mindy: Coaches role in Soul Care from Maclake on Vimeo.

Question:

I had the opportunity to hang out with Bill Donahue in a recent trip to Chicago.  Bill has worked with Small groups at Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek Association since 1992.  He is the author of several books including Leading Life Changing Small Groups and Coaching Life Changing Small Group Leaders.  More than anyone else Bill has shaped my thinking and philosophy of small group ministry. In this video Bill gives some key principles for making small group coaching work. 

You may have heard me say before, I don’t think there is a leadership problem in the church, I believe there is a leadership development problem in the church.  While leadership development is messy and always will be, I do believe there are things we can do that will make our leadership development efforts more effective.  For this reason I’d like to invite you to join me in a Leadership Development Collaborative Coaching Group.  I call in “collaborative” because I believe all of us are smarter than one of us and together we can uncover some best practices in leadership development that can benefit the churches we lead. 

• If you’re responsible for leadership development at your church,
• if your senior pastor is supportive of you being a part of this effort, 
• if you are willing to commit to meet at six times over the  next few months,

…then email Jessica at jessicacarpenter@seacoast.org and  maclake@seacoast.org , she will email you an application.  We will be taking applications through Monday, September 28.  In order to maximize the effectiveness of this group I will have to keep it limited to six people.  Being a part of this group will include reading assignments, project assignments, and particpation in video conference calls at least six times over the next few months.  There is no cost other than your commitment and energy.

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I find that everyone is fascinated by the concept of mentoring, but few feel capable to actually mentor someone.  Too often the extent of our mentoring is giving someone a book or a CD and telling them to listen to it so they can “learn” to be a leader.  But simply dispensing information like this does little to produce transformation.  So let me give you Three Easy Steps for Mentoring.

EXPLORE – The first thing you want to do is get your mentee to THINK about a specific leadership skill or principle.  You can do this by giving them something to read, watch, research or listen to. Give them some time to explore and think about the material you’ve given them.
EXPERIENCE – Next you want the mentee to TRY it.  Just reading about a leadership principle doesn’t mean you really get it.  We learn best by putting something into practice.  So take one of the leadership principles they learned from their reading or listening (Explore) and give them a challenging assignment that will give them the opportunity to put that prnciple into practice.
EVALUATE – Finally you want the mentee to TALK about their experience.  Once they have tried the new skill they need the opportunity to discuss how it felt, how it went, what they learned. Ask them questions like:  What did you do well?  What would you do differently?  What kind of response did you get from others?  What did you learn from the experience?

This process is so powerful because it’s more than dispensing information, it actually produces transformation. 
EXPLORE + EXPERIENCE + EVALUATE = TRANSFORMATION

Who will you try this with this week?  Check back in tomorrow because I am going to actually give you a mentoring session that follows this format you can use with your mentee or your team.