I have been blessed to have a wide variety of opportunities in and through my ministry. Coaching is one of the more recent ones. Last fall I began training to be a coach for those trying to discover what it is that God wants in their lives and to help them succeed at doing it. (Oct.4, 2007) This week I concluded phase one of this undertaking with more training. It has been six months of wondering about the value of coaching and whether it is what I need to be doing. However, as we gathered and shared our experiences it became clearer to me that perhaps this will help me fulfill the call I have to prepare the way for those who follow in the ministry of the deacon. I sensed God’s grace as I realized the ineffectiveness of my efforts with my guinea pigs – Kyle and Melissa. I will ask for their forgiveness and move forward with phase two. I think I better understand what it is that I need to do to be a better coach and look forward to my next assignment. My friend, Kathy, also has some interesting comments about this experience.
However, I still wonder why we need to create this artificial relationship between peers. Why can’t we just ask supporting and encouraging questions of one another as we walk along the way? Somehow we have created a culture that plays life like a game and the winners have good coaches. Tom, I can’t wait for your response.
5 comments:
"However, I still wonder why we need to create this artificial relationship between peers. Why can’t we just ask supporting and encouraging questions of one another as we walk along the way? Somehow we have created a culture that plays life like a game and the winners have good coaches."
When a culture seems bent on creating artificial people, the obvious result is the occasional artificial relationship. These relationships get hurried because most of us are no longer walking along the way evaluating our steps. We are racing headlong into a scheduled future culminating at a finish line. The winners don't always have the best coaches, just the coaches with the loudest whistles. Tom
I believe I have commented here before that I have a great admiration for Stephen Covey's book "Seven Habits for Highly Effective People." Habit #4 is "Think Win/Win", not think win/lose. Habit #5 is "Seek first to understand, then be understood."
In that context. I try to listen/read with a very open mind, realizing that there may be more than one approach to a given question. Thus I am led to disagree, lovingly, I hope, with the position Tom has taken.
I would not dane to deny the potential for artificial people and artificial relationships. Yet I am convinced that genuine relationships with genuine people can flourish with situations in which someone is coaching someone else. Jesus the Christ was the world's greatest coach, even if the twelve were slow learners. Should we not be willing to engage mentors (read "coaches") because it seems false?
Let us not seek coaches with the loudest whitles, but let us not be afraid to enlist coaches/mentors/friends who will challenge us with honest guidance and feedback and encourage us to be the best we can be. Would Jesus want any less from us? Would he deny that, as with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we should not be too proud to accept, even seek, direction from others?
Bravo! Well said and welcome home, George! Thank you for reintroducing the word,"dane" to us. You have won me over. I disagree with my position also. Everybody wins. However, I still wish that we could walk and not race along the way. Tom
Tom, please don't tell my English teacher sister that I don't know how to spell "deign". I am old, but I don't think anyone would accept "senior moment" as a reasonable excuse.
I was so happy to remember how to use the word, It really never occurred to me to see how to spell it. I'm gonna use dane. Shoot, Beowulf was a dane.
Don't tell on yourself!
Tom
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