Part 6

If you want to be a good leader, you must
learn to be a good coach.  –Gary Collins

COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION

     I have come to understand more clearly than ever that survival is not the same thing as success.  Neither is success defined by merely being a little ahead (or just a little behind) of last year’s numbers.  Before you can measure success, however, you have to have something to measure.  And without specific goals, there is no way to determine the measure of your success. 

     For too long the only factor the district has been measuring is numbers.  I believe it is time that we begin to seriously measure church leadership performance and strategies as well.  It is evident that New Testament leaders were not hesitant to deal with these issues.  Weren’t Paul’s epistles essentially consultations with local congregations about things they had done well or aspects of ministry where they had performed poorly?

     Paul wasn’t timid about assessing these New Testament leaders and congregations and holding them to a standard.  He basically told one that they were doing things differently than he did when he was with them.  To another he declared that even those outside the church did not do what they were doing.  There seemed to be the customary expectation that congregations and their leaders would measure up to, and be evaluated by, regarding their particular mission.

     Paul Borden says,

     The key ingredient needed for change is leadership.  Rather than persons appointed by a bureaucracy into leadership positions, I am describing persons who are leaders because people are following them and as a result positive systemic change is occurring.  We have observed that the biggest human factor in the process of transforming a dysfunctional congregation to a healthy one is the leadership ability of the pastor.  This factor is also characteristic of church planters.  The most effective plants are ones with the most effective leaders.  This also means that we need to rethink what it takes to be a leader in a [district].  We should think differently about what kind of education, experience, and perspectives are needed to be not only a leader but also an agent of change and transformation.  [Districts] need courageous risk takers who are [persons] of vision, who think missionally, and who can articulate and implement strategies for effective and systemic change.  It means finding good leaders who have the courage to perform, the wisdom to know what principles need to be adopted and the insight to implement effective strategies.

     [District leaders] need to be known for empowering pastors and lay leaders to become agents of change and transformation within their own local congregations.  This means helping and protecting those leaders and the congregations that are willing to take risks and be different.  It means learning how to train, coach, and mentor leaders.  It means functioning in the roles of broker and networker.  It means learning to treat each congregation as a micro-culture that must deal with transformation and health in its own context. (17-18)

     My long-term objective is to produce a sturdy, Spirit empowered, and increasingly large leadership base to assure future district growth.  I am convinced that the more passionate leaders I can train to replicate themselves, the more opportunities there will be to develop healthy, growing congregations.  Hopefully the fallout of accomplishing this goal will result in a vision passion for planting new, healthy, and growing congregations throughout South Carolina.  This, I believe, is the way to achieve ongoing district transformation—establishing a strong core of equipped leaders who will then reproduce their goals and passion in the lives of others. 

DISCIPLE MAKING

     The new district team-based model and the resulting culture will adopt a new vocabulary with words like mentor, coach, and consultant.  I want to take a moment here to delineate what I mean by mentoring, coaching, and consulting.  In a broad sense they are all about disciple making.   As the district’s structural transformation progresses—moving from a hierarchal, top-down organizational model toward a team-based model—disciple making will be a very important element.  What we must remember is discipleship goes beyond the mentoring of new believers.  I see my recent Masters Cohort experience as a personal disciple making experience—my personal leadership transformation.  Therefore, I believe that developing a broad based team of district mentors, district coaches, and district consultants is a necessary part of the district’s responsibility.  According to Dr. Wayne Lee, “The major goal of the discipling process is reproduction.  Disciples must grow to maturity and must be able to multiply themselves in others” (Lee).  Jesus’ church exists to bring people, whether ordained ministers or new converts, into a life changing, personal, healthy, growing relationship with Him.  That’s its biblical purpose.  Period! 

     According to Bill Easum, it is also the responsibility of leaders to:

     Create an atmosphere in which people are encouraged to mature by discovering and living out their spiritual gifts.  God gives each person special gifts to be used on behalf of the Body of Christ.  Believers can discover their destiny when they are equipped to use their gifts on behalf of the Body of Christ.  “Disciples are grown…. Making disciples who make disciples is the heart of leadership” (99).

     Jesus didn’t collect followers; he grew the leaders of tomorrow.  His primary goal was not to change but to equip a group of people who, in his absence, would change the world.  His emphasis was not on what he would do but on what others would do because of him (100, 101).

     The primary paradigm shift today in the area of church staff is the movement away from staff doing ministry to staff equipping others to do ministry.  Instead of going to work thinking about what one must do, the staff goes to work dreaming about whom they might meet, transform, and mentor. (105)

      The leader of the future will ultimately shift from doing it all himself to finding others whom he can train to do it better than he can. 

     I believe it is ultimately the responsibility of district leadership to become a catalyst for congregational transformation through leadership formation.  Once a majority of our district congregations have moved from organizational dysfunction to organizational health, the district’s leadership role will become that of a catalyst to encourage healthy congregations to plant new reproducing congregations.  While it is clear, or should be, that not all congregations are healthy, all healthy congregations should be growing—making new disciples for Jesus Christ and planting new congregations.

     In the book Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need To Succeed In Life, Paul D. Stanley and J. Robert Clinton describe disciple making as “intensive mentoring” (47).  They suggest that there are three types that comprise the intensive mentoring group: Discipler, Spiritual guide, and Coach.  “Mentoring is a relational experience in which one person empowers another by sharing God-given resources” (33).

Mentoring:

     I see mentoring as the process of pouring into someone’s life for the purpose of helping him or her grow spiritually.  Shakespeare once said, “Everything that grows holds in perfection but a little moment” (William Shakespeare 244.4).  When someone matures, they change and that means mentors must adapt.  As the people being mentored grow and change, the mentor’s relationship with them must also adjust throughout the process.  The following are some of Christopher Adsit’s thoughts on these stages and adjustments from his book, Personal Disciplemaking, A Step-by-step Guide for Leading a Christian From New Birth to Maturity:

     As a BABY: protection, love, basic knowledge.  A brand new Christian needs protection from Satan, discouragement, bewilderment, doubts, cults, etc.  He also needs to know that he is loved and that…he belongs to a genuine family [and] what this new life with Christ is all about.

     As a CHILD: consistent, strong guidance.  Now he “goes to school”; more is required of him and a stronger hand is applied.  Discipline and accountability are introduced into his life.  He needs…attention…help…and an example.  In this context he begins…to learn what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God (Isaiah 28:9).

     As an ADOLESCENT: strength, experience, responsibility.  At this stage, he needs a little more breathing room, a little more room to try, to fail, and then to bounce back on his own. …He needs more responsibility in order to gain experience and to feel the fulfillment of a job accomplished.

     As an ADULT: leadership ability, consistent self-discipline.  Now the main thing he needs to do is launch out toward a lifetime of responsibility and reproduction.  …In the spiritual realm, many Christians drop back at this level and become professional pew sitters.  The adult disciple needs someone to continue shouting, “Don’t stop now! Keep going!”  His strongest line of dependence must be upon the Lord rather than on men, yet he must sustain the proper interdependency necessary for effective Christian fellowship (73).

Coaching:

     What does the term coaching mean?  Just a few years ago the word coach described a horse-drawn vehicle that was used for transporting people from one place to another.  The term has also been used in connection with athletics; identifying a person who instructs athletes on how to better use all their skills and natural talents.  Coaching carries with it the idea of pulling or drawing out of a person their dormant abilities or gifts.  “Former Miami Dolphins Coach Don Shula writes about the athletes who would come to his team with their skills and talents, ready to submit to the coach whose job it was to instruct, discipline, and inspire them to do things better than they thought they could do on their own” (Qtd. from Collins, 15).  A coach’s goal is to leave the athlete being coached more competent, fulfilled, and self-confident than he or she would have been otherwise. 

     More recently the concept of coaching erupted on the business scene.  Due to the rapid changes that the corporate world was facing, CEO’s began to see that no single person could keep abreast of all that was taking place.  They began to realize that they could no longer manage solely from a top-down, staying on top of everything that was going on, and have the ability to tell people what to do.

     According to Gary Collins:

     …The impact of coaching goes beyond management. Currently, coaching is hot everywhere except the church.  People are turning to nutritional coaches, fitness coaches, financial coaches, public speaking coaches, and what have become know as ‘life coaches;’ – who help others find focus and direction for their lives and careers (15).

     Collins says it doesn’t stop there.  People are looking for marriage coaches, parenting coaches, coaches for their spiritual journeys, time-management coaches, and coaches to help them through life transitions.  He insists “coaching is the art and practice of guiding a person or group from where they are toward the greater competency and fulfillment they desire” (16).

     Other similar terms being used today are modeling, sponsoring, and partnering.  One pastor suggested that what he needed was “someone to journey with; someone who has walked the road of life a little longer than he had.”  Whatever the term one may prefer to use, all of them involve a relationship in which at least one person is further along in the journey of life and is willing to guide others.  Coaching takes place when a more mature individual draws out of another person their hidden talents and helps them find new ways to use these talents to an even greater extent. 

     It is obvious that one Old Testament leader needed a coach.  He was overwhelmed with leadership responsibilities.  He would rise early in the morning and sit before the people to serve them as judge.  As he sat there, the people would line up and wait from morning until evening for an opportunity to receive his advice.  Well, it didn’t take long for Moses’ father-in-law to see that what he was doing was neither good leadership nor good management.  Jethro told Moses that he would soon wear out if he didn’t do something.  “The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone” (Exodus 18:18).

     Here Moses has his first exposure to coaching.  “The solution to your ministry overload,” Jethro told him, “is selecting and training some new candidates for leadership.”   He was told to find people with integrity, people who are trustworthy, capable, and God honoring.  Then train them carefully.  Teach them how to do what you do and let them handle the less demanding cases.  You, Moses, take the difficult issues.  Sharing your workload among many will ultimately make your burden lighter.

     Notice that Jethro didn’t condemn the present system’s inefficiency.  Instead he did what a modern coach would do:  He observed Moses’ performance, made some observations, provided some options that presented a vision for something better, and helped Moses clear some of the obstacles that were strangling his life.  I would describe coaching as a form of servant leadership aimed at helping people accomplish God’s goals for their life. 

Consulting:

     Although I have not found the particular designation “Christian Consultant” in any of my reading assignments, I have found the concept and have developed this definition:  A consultant is a person having credibility and positional or spiritual authority within an organization or group, who uses their resources for the benefit of another person so as to enable development of that person's abilities, influence, and ranking within the organization.

     I understand the task of the consultant to be different from that of the mentor and coach.  In simple terms, the primary responsibility of a mentor is to pour into another person’s life.  The primary purpose of a coach is to draw potential out of another person.  The primary purpose of a consultant is to help another person step up to the next level in their life and ministry. 

     A consultant is someone who has experienced a successful, proven ministry.  Key words that may best describe a consultant are direct, instruct, inspire, and empower.  As in the case of Moses and his father-in-law, Jethro served not only as a coach but also a consultant.  Consulting can be as simple as observing a person’s dilemma and recommending a plan that would lift his leadership/management proficiency level to an all time high.  Jethro had the ability to see the big picture while Moses was too involved in his busy routine to even begin thinking about how to find a solution.  I believe it is the mark of a wise leader to find a consultant who can enhance their ministry skills and assist them in becoming more effective.  Jethro accomplished this with Moses.

     In his New Testament Epistles, Paul does essentially the same thing.  He consults with particular congregations regarding their behavior.  In some instances he addresses things they had done well: 

     So, when you accepted the message, you followed our example and the example of the Lord. You suffered, but the Holy Spirit made you glad. You became an example for all the Lord's followers in Macedonia and Achaia. And because of you, the Lord's message has spread everywhere in those regions. Now the news of your faith in God is known all over the world, and we don't have to say a thing about it. Everyone is talking about how you welcomed us and how you turned away from idols to serve the true and living God. They also tell how you are waiting for his Son Jesus to come from heaven. God raised him from death, and on the Day of Judgment Jesus will save us from God's anger (1 Thessalonians 1:6-10 CEV).

     On other occasions he deals with aspects of ministry where they had performed poorly:

     I have heard terrible things about some of you. In fact, you are behaving worse than the Gentiles. A man is even sleeping with his own stepmother. You are proud, when you ought to feel bad enough to chase away anyone who acts like that. I am with you only in my thoughts. But in the name of our Lord Jesus I have already judged this man, as though I were with you in person. So when you meet together and the power of the Lord Jesus is with you, I will be there too.  You must then hand that man over to Satan. His body will be destroyed, but his spirit will be saved when the Lord Jesus returns. Stop being proud! Don't you know how a little yeast can spread through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast! Then you will be like fresh bread made without yeast, and that is what you are. Our Passover lamb is Christ, who has already been sacrificed. So don't celebrate the festival by being evil and sinful, which is like serving bread made with yeast. Be pure and truthful and celebrate by using bread made without yeast. In my other letter I told you not to have anything to do with immoral people. But I wasn't talking about the people of this world. You would have to leave this world to get away from everyone who is immoral or greedy or who cheats or worships idols (1 Corinthians 5:1-10 CEV).

     In yet other instances Paul tries to comfort them during their afflictions and persecutions:

     That's why we brag about you to all of God's churches. We tell them how patient you are and how you keep on having faith, even though you are going through a lot of trouble and suffering. All of this shows that God judges fairly and that he is making you fit to share in his kingdom for which you are suffering. It is only right for God to punish everyone who is causing you trouble, but he will give you relief from your troubles. He will do the same for us, when the Lord Jesus comes from heaven with his powerful angels and with a flaming fire. Our Lord Jesus will punish anyone who doesn't know God and won't obey his message. Their punishment will be eternal destruction, and they will be kept far from the presence of our Lord and his glorious strength. This will happen on that day when the Lord returns to be praised and honored by all who have faith in him and belong to him. This includes you, because you believed what we said (2 Thessalonians 1:4-10 CEV).

     Let me take a moment here to consider another side to the issue of consulting.  Perhaps the most significant challenge district leadership will face is anchored in human nature, i.e., having the courage to engage a consultant.  Many pastors and leadership boards would rather continue to struggle with their problems than have an outsider scrutinize, what they may consider, the church’s or organization’s dirty laundry.  Or they somehow perceive that asking for the assistance of a consultant would be interpreted as an admission of failure.  Or it could be the fear of being hung out on a line (upside down) as the “experts” pick them apart.

     I believe it takes an exceptional amount of courage for a pastor or leadership board to admit their need for help, including facing up to the reality that they have run out of ideas and options.  Here is where a consultant can prove to be a tremendous asset to any church or organization. 

     In order to facilitate a consultation opportunity, an important factor must be in place.  It is essential to establish an atmosphere of trust between the presiding judicatory (in our case, the district), those trained to act as consultants, and the congregation or organization.  Hard, fast guidelines also need to be established in the area of confidentiality.   Confidentiality addresses yet another fear; that of seeing something like Consultant Saves Church From Foolish Decision as a headline in the religious section of the local newspaper. 

     There is yet another critical obstacle that needs to be removed early on in the process of creating a consultant team within a district: a visit from a consultant isn’t necessarily a sign of crisis.  This needs to be carefully considered.  Just because some key areas of a congregation’s life seem positive, doesn’t mean that they couldn’t benefit from someone reviewing their current ministry and suggesting future options.  Consulting has to do with more important issues than putting out proverbial fires. Other prime opportunities for consultation could be times when a congregation faces key milestone events, i.e., hiring of the first staff member, relocating to a new area of town, or building a new sanctuary.  Opportunities may also include the following: the realization of the fact that ministry structures are outdated, prolonged decline in attendance, and the flip side of decline—unexpected growth.

     Why determine, develop, and train a network of district consultants?  Because neither superintendent nor all his staff put together can handle all the needs and opportunities that surface on a regular basis in any given district.

ACCOUNTABILITY

     Perhaps the best way to avoid ignoring spiritual stagnation is accountability.  According to the American Heritage Dictionary, being “accountable” means “liable to be called to account, answerable” (YourDictionary.com). 

     Regardless of the particular circumstance Paul addressed his obvious pattern for mentoring the congregations he established was through evaluation and accountability.   I believe assessment, evaluation, and accountability are vital if a district judicatory expects to see any prolonged positive change in congregations.  It is important to determine exactly what judicatories are supposed to measure—faithfulness or fruitfulness or both.  While faithfulness is certainly important, Jesus also puts a strong emphasis on fruitfulness: 

     Jesus said to his disciples: I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts away every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit. But he trims clean every branch that does produce fruit, so that it will produce even more fruit. You are already clean because of what I have said to you. Stay joined to me, and I will stay joined to you. Just as a branch cannot produce fruit unless it stays joined to the vine, you cannot produce fruit unless you stay joined to me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me. If you don't stay joined to me, you will be thrown away. You will be like dry branches that are gathered up and burned in a fire. Stay joined to me and let my teachings become part of you. Then you can pray for whatever you want, and your prayer will be answered. When you become fruitful disciples of mine, my Father will be honored (John 15:1-8).

     When Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, “Ye shall know them by their fruit…,” I believe He was affirming the need for Christians to be held accountable for the fruit their lives produce.  Subsequently, follow through becomes necessary in order to determine whether or not district pastors and leaders are doing their jobs effectively.  I believe it is an absolute necessity for district leaders to begin recognizing fruitfulness as a serious component of success as well as a result that must be measured.

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