Principles of Quality Coaching

Quality coaching at least doubles your fruitfulness. - Bob Logan (author of Coaching 101)

Coaching answers these questions:

• Where am I?


• Where do I (and God) go next?


• How will I get there?

The 3 Rules of Coaching:

1. Don't give advice.


2. Don't tell people what they can discover on their own.


3. Don't fix their problems for them.

The 3 Rules Re-stated:

1. The person being coached does the work.


2. The person being coached does the work.


3. The person being coached does the work.

The Coaching Process
is the flexible application of these 5 principles:

• Relate - establish coaching relationship and agenda


• Reflect - Discover and explore key issues


• Refocus - Determine priorities and action steps


• Resource - Provide support and encouragement


• Review - Evaluate, celebrate and revise plans

We will look at only one part today

Relate
The 'relationship' gives coaching its power.

We relate by:

1. Listening


2. Asking good, open-ended questions
   

Rules of listening:

• RESPECT


• Focus - undivided attention


• Summarise - reflect without interpreting, evaluating, guiding or projecting feelings


• Invite - ask for more


• Unpack - their ideas are more valuable than mine.


• Clarify - "So far I'm hearing you say ... Is that correct?

Open-Ended Questions:

• Not "yes" or "no" answers


• It is an advantage not to have all the answers. Don't be the expert.


• Follow the Spirit's leading. Ask, when you feel impressed, even the 'strange' question.

Here are the 'Good Questions' we ask at the start of the relationship:
(You can answer these for Sabbath afternoon:)

• What is your deepest passion? What really satisfies and fulfills you?


• What energises you? What drains your energy?


• What legacy do you want to leave? What do you want to be remembered for?


• What are your strengths? What are your gifts?


• What's one thing you'd like to change about yourself?
  

Coaching

(another Effective Structure)

Coaching is not about telling others what to do, but helping people discover for themselves what God is calling them to do. It is the process of coming alongside a person or team to help them discover God's agenda for their life and ministry, and then cooperating with the Holy Spirit to see that agenda become a reality.
The North American Division (SDA) Evangelism Institute

A coach helps someone else succeed. Bob Logan (author of Coaching 101 - our textbook) says that success is "Find out what God wants you to do, and do it"

Coaching is one of the Effective Structures we are building to support you in ministry.

What Coaching Isn't

• Telling others what to do


• Mentoring


• Being the expert
  

What Coaching Is

• Listening


• Asking good questions to help people sort things out in their mind


• Let them come to their own conclusion


• Encouraging them to do what they come up with.
  

Why Coach?

• It keeps people focused on what is important


• It is fun. There is serious joy in working with God to achieve things in this world.


• It works. People actually get things done. As a coached leader said "I get more done as a result of one one hour coaching conversation than in a year of meetings."
  

My experience is pretty limited but this week I was sitting in the staff room eating my lunch and reading Coaching 101 (what else?) and not really hearing two staff complaining about how their jobs were getting so hard.

When one of them left to have a cigarette and the other turned to me and continued complaining. I tried to ignore her but realised (well duh...) here was a "coaching opportunity". So reluctantly closing my book, I turned to my ditzy blonde friend and asked one of the "good questions" (We'll work through the list of questions, the starting questions are all in Coaching 101). Here is a summary of the conversation:

"So what would you rather be doing at work?"
She stopped and thought and answered.
"Have you ever done that?"
Ditzy Blonde "Yes, last week I did ...."
"Why do you think you enjoyed it so much?"
DB "I guess because I had more control and I could use my enthusiasm for ..."
"So what would you need to do to get more of this?"
DB "Well... I could get my boss to ... and I could ..."
(I then made my first statement)
"I think you should... (slightly rephrased her last answer)."

Her workmate had finished her cigarette and came back in about then, at which my friend enthused "Hey you know what, Bruce and I have been having a great talk and I reckon if we ... Thanks Bruce, that was really good advice!"

I hurried back to work before I got another "client" and before DB realised that I had, in fact, not given her any "advice" at all. The agenda, goals and action plans were all hers.

That was coaching, and it was fun. Much more fun than I expected.

We will be starting training soon. How involved will it be? Bob Logan says that you can start as an effective coach after only three hours of training. So 3 hours training,, spread over 2 Sabbath afternoons, is coming up and with all the resources around Coaching 101, many of you will make great coaches.

(Un)Surprisingly Effective

(from now on, every blog post will have a picture of an Effective Structure)

I'm chuffed. This is deeply, satisfyingly wonderful.

One of the privileges of being involved in NCD, and particularly NCD at Toronto, is getting a first-hand, front-seat view of God at work. (Now don't tell anyone else... they will think we are big-noting ourselves, because Toronto seems to be one of God's favourite places, He turns up every time we get together, He seems to love Toronto folk)

On Monday night, at Cameron Johnston's Stress Seminar I saw Toronto church members in action. It wasn't until tonight that I realised what was happening.

Remember that our mission statement is...to represent Christ to all members of our community. And remember my questions from several weeks ago...

1. What does "represent Christ" mean?


2. What do we have to DO to "represent Christ"?


3. What do we have to BE to "represent Christ"?


4. And lastly, how successful are we at representing Christ right now?

One of the jobs I set for myself on Monday night was to talk to every attendee from "our community". It turned out that four women came from our community. During the break I tried to chat with them, but some member beat me to every single one. Then after the program the same thing happened. So I didn't even talk to one visitor!

So to answer those questions:

We represent Christ when we are friendly to people from our community.

I believe that you already "represent Christ". That's what I saw on Monday night and at all the other functions at Toronto... people being friendly. It seems almost natural, but there are lots of places where this isn't so. God has made His people at Toronto supernaturally friendly. It is part of our luncheons, in our Sabbath School, at Project G... all over the place.

So to answer that last question: I believe that you are already successful at representing Christ right now... Surprisingly effective actually. Well maybe I shouldn't be surprised, after all God has been at work here, with just as much power and grace as He is in overseas missions, big evangelistic campaigns, radical church plants and ADRA projects.

Jesus lives at Toronto because you are here... and I'm chuffed.

Structures To Reach "Our Community"

(from now on, every blog post will have a picture of an Effective Structure)

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is
to represent Christ to all members of our community.

Last time I asked you what it means to "represent Christ", today I'm going to move on to the meaning of "our community".

Our first Core Value define our community as "every person living between Rathmines and Fennell Bay", which sounds about right to me.

For a few moments, think about the people you know in this area. Try to imagine each one and what exactly you "represent" to them. When they think of you, how do they feel? What do they think about your religion, your church, your Jesus?

Still on "our community"...Do the people you know here have needs? What are they? What are you doing to help meet those needs? A major part of Jesus' ministry was meeting people's needs, if we are to "represent" Him, as in our vision statement, we will act like He did.

Another aspect... Do you know many people in the area? If you don't know many, how are you going to meet some more? What can you do that will bring you in touch with them? Once again Jesus is our lead here when he mingled with people to get to know them.

Toronto church has thought of a simple way to help you meet local people and meet their needs. As you have noticed, there is a Stress Seminar coming up followed by a Depression Recovery Program. We have a Creative Vegetarian Cooking and a Daniel prophecy seminar in the pipeline as well. The youth are planning another Project G.

These are not just a jumble of programs put on by the church. They are opportunities for you to invite people, especially people from Rathmines to Fennell Bay, along to the program that best meets their need. They are the vanguard of the "Effective Structure" we are trying to build into Toronto church.

Your part in the process of "reaching every person" in our community is simple...
1. Invite the most stressed person you know, to come along with you to "Cooling Down the Stress Soup" on May 30. Or invite someone you know who has depression to an orientation night for the Depression Recovery Program on June 6 or 14.
2. If you don't know anyone who is depressed or stressed bring your Toronto friends and come anyway.
3. If you don't have any friends (depressed, stressed or otherwise) from the Toronto area, come along on these nights to meet some of the people in "our community" and get to know them better.

Give it a go. You might enjoy it, I am.

To Represent Christ?

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to represent Christ to all members of our community.

1. What does "represent Christ" mean?


2. What do we have to DO to "represent Christ"?


3. What do we have to BE to "represent Christ"?


4. And lastly, how successful are we at representing Christ right now? Are you happy with how the church represents Christ? Are you happy with how you represent Christ?

I'd really like you to think about these questions. If this vision statement is going to inspire and give direction to our church, we need to know what it means.

Sorry, I'm not going to give you my attempts at answering those questions until next week. Think about them in the meantime. That's hard work, I know. Pray about them. Talk to me about them. Talk to each other.

Representing Christ is the centre of what we say we are here for. Doing a good job at this determines whether we win or lose.

I'd love your thoughts.

Our Vision Statement

Effective Structures require that "we know what we're building" (to quote Scott Thompson at the NCD presentation on April 9). That's another way of saying that we need to have a vision.

I had forgotten we had a Vision Statement for our church. Maybe you had too. So here it is. The statement was made in May 2005. You will be hearing a lot more about this.

Vision Statement

The Vision Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to represent Christ to all members of our community.

The Mission Statement of the Toronto Seventh-day Adventist Church is to be a community of committed members, who will foster spiritual growth in a vibrant Church, embracing all age groups.

Core Values

1. Reach every person living between Rathmines and Fennell Bay with the good news about Jesus.
2. Promote passionate spirituality through prayer and Bible study.
3. All members to be involved in small group ministry.
4. Preachers to be relevant to all age groups.
5. Demonstrate honesty in beliefs and opinions.
6. Encourage each person to recognise and develop his/her Spiritual Gifts.
7. Recognise and nurture our youth to take an active part in the mission of the Church.

Some questions:
Do you like this vision?
Can you see where you fit in the vision?
Does it help you set priorities?
Does it provide guidelines for making decisions?
Is it exciting and motivating?
Have we left anything out?
Should we delete anything?

First Steps

Now that we know our Minimum Factors (Effective Structures and Empowering Leadership) what are we going to do about them?

We have decided to start by:

1. Emphasising that we are all ministers
2. Helping you find your ministry
3. Supporting you in your ministry

We are all Ministers

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9

If you are a member of Toronto church then you are a Minister, a priest of God. You have been called out of darkness to proclaim the excellence of Christ.

Finding your Ministry

We plan to run several "Find your Spiritual Gifts" Sabbath afternoons, but this is only the beginning of your finding your ministry.

To truly find the SHAPE of your ministry you need to know your:

• Spiritual Gifts
• Heart
• Abilities
• Personality
• Experience

This will take longer than one Sabbath afternoon so we propose that once you find your Spiritual Gifts you will meet in small groups during the week for about four weeks to determine your SHAPE and have a clear idea of why God chose to give you to Toronto and what sort of ministry you should be doing.

If you want to continue to meet in small groups, that is wonderful. We would love to have more 'holistic' small groups.

Supporting you in your Ministry

We will do this by Coaching and Small Groups. Where will all the needed Coaches and Small Group Leaders come from?

From the results of the SHAPE-finding small groups we will invite people whose ministries and gifts indicate they would be good Coaches or Group Leaders to training for these tasks.

The youth have already done basic Group Leader training in just 4 hours. There is similar Coaching training available.

What is coaching? Put simply, "Helping people succeed".

Coaching is achieved by:

• Finding out what God wants you to do,
• Helping you do it

A coach will help you succeed in your ministry by:

• Helping you refine your goals. Set your focus
• Helping you set priorities and take action, Keep your focus
• Helping to anticipate and overcome problems. Refine the focus
• Providing support and encouragement
• Helping you evaluate and celebrate progress
• Helping you revise your plans when needed.