Coaching & Spiritual Direction

Raise your leadership to another level…with Coach Training.

/ Mission Alive / 1 Comment

Mission Alive wants to equip leaders to equip their churches. Coach training trains leaders to come alongside church members and help them listen closely to God. Then they help them creatively develop action steps in alignment with what they hear God saying.

Eric Wilson, the Executive Minister of the Sycamore View Church of Christ in Memphis, Tennessee recently began training as a coach with Mission Alive. He described his experience this way:

“I have benefited from coaching by realizing the necessity of my own need for a support team. I am very driven to become who God has called me to be and to fulfill what He has called me to do with this life. This realization, that everyone needs support, came through the Mission Alive’s coach training. In some ways, these are small revelations of obvious things and small initial discoveries of innovations. But in other ways these are huge moments of affirmation about the coaching process. Coaching breeds innovation and implementation. And I’m convinced we have to celebrate even an inch of expansion of the kingdom.”

Like Eric, most of us want to live in alignment with God’s purpose for our life. We want to grow into our calling and use our spiritual gifts to their maximum. Like Eric, we need support. We need help and, like Eric, we need someone who can assist us to be best version of ourselves we can be.

Mission Alive trains coaches to walk alongside another person rather than stand above him/her. Coaches-in-training learn how to ask transformative questions that help the person they are coaching think outside whatever box they may have around their thinking. They learn how to listen deeply. They learn how to help people see what they have never seen before and do what has previously been too difficult.

Coaching will move your leadership to another level. You will listen differently. You will ask different questions. You will see people discover new ways of serving God’s Mission. You will help others become what God gifted them to be.

Mission Alive is now registering a new cohort of coaches-in-training. See the Mission Alive website for more details on the coach training process.

Registration deadline: November 16, 2012
Coach Training Lab 1: Feb 1-2, 2013
Coach Training Lab 2: Sep 27-28, 2013 (both are required for certification)

Register Here

WHAT WILL YOU DO? – Part 3 – Hindrances to Talking about Sin

/ todkvogt / 2 Comments

In Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy he poses the question, “What then are we to say about the multitudes, right and left across the theological spectrum, who today self-identify as Christians while having hardly a whiff of Christlikeness about them ….”  By the word “Christlikeness” Williard does not mean intangible internal qualities but rather visible and identifiable characteristics, behavior and actions that look like Jesus.  We rightly have the impression that the longer we are Christians living under Christ’s Lordship the more others should notice a difference in our life.  Yet when we take an honest look at our habits, words, behaviors and lifestyle, often we cannot see a difference between our life and that of our secular, materialistic neighbor, making our evangelism impotent and/or hypocritical.  So we opt to stop addressing the issue of sin rather than confront our own sinful actions, words and behaviors. Continue reading →

WHAT WILL YOU DO? – Part 2 – Stop Sinning and Live Right

/ todkvogt / 1 Comment

Two weeks ago we looked at three passages from Matthew that remind us of the high value Jesus placed on actions.  Believing the right thing is good, but for Jesus right action is equally good and maybe better.  Seeing the high value Jesus placed on actions helps us understand his mandate throughout the gospels to, “leave your life of sin” or “stop sinning.”  This may confront some of our attempts at evangelism and spiritual formation by reminding us that evangelism and spiritual formation must address sinful actions and lifestyles because people will be judged by their actions like a tree is judged by its fruit. Continue reading →

WHAT WILL YOU DO? – Part 1 – A Tree is Judged by Its Fruit

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The gospel writer Matthew tells a story about a young man who approached Jesus with a simple question, “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?”  Had that young man asked most of us the same question, we might have quickly explained that we believe that we are not saved by works but by faith.  Some of us might have quoted Martin Luther or one of the early leaders of the Protestant Reformation to illustrate how misguided the question was.  Jesus, however, not having the Reformation leaders to guide him, answered simply, “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

Continue reading →