Barnabas File

You’ve seen it happen.     A motivated, well-meaning group of leaders decides to provide a ministry, program, or outreach that will change the lives of a particular segment of the population. They gather the resources, train the providers, deliver the intervention . . . and it falls flat on its face.     What happened? There may be multiple causes for the failure, but one could be that those delivering the intervention never stopped to talk to those who were the designated recipients.  Perhaps the project failed to meet a real need, duplicated another service, was offered at the wrong time, or failed to understand the values of the recipients. There are times when the intervention might even be offensive. In recent years, several processes have been developed—total quality management, asset-based community development, and design thinking, for example—that begin with those who know more about the concern or problem than anyone else: ...

Have you ever had the experience of picking out what you thought would be the perfect gift for a friend or loved one and then seeing disappointment or confusion on that person’s face when it was unwrapped?  This is an embarrassing moment for everyone involved (especially if there is an audience). Why does this happen?  One reason is that we did not know the person’s interests and inclinations as much as we thought we did.  Another is that we selected the gift because it was something that we would like to have and just assumed that the other person would as well.  Finally, we gave a gift that we thought that the person ought to have to correct some fault or encourage them to adopt a new behavior.  Sometimes we do this in ministry settings as well.  We assume that a certain constituency needs something and we plan to provide it.  When it is delivered, the process, program, or service falls flat on its face.  Why? 1.  We did no...

Usually when the topic of faith-based coaching comes up, the immediate response is, “Oh, you mean Christian coaching.”   In recent days, I have started to ask myself, “Is this what it really means for me?”   To put this in perspective, let me first share three observations. First, I am a person of faith.  I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  Even though I am probably better at it on some days that others, the relationship is there and the strength of it is more dependent on God’s grace than my faithfulness. Second, I am a Christian who is also a coach (life coach or leadership coach) and that means I want to be a good coach.  Martin Luther said, “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”  If we do our work well, that in itself is a witness to what is of value to us.  Whether I am coaching a Christian or a non-Chri...

A friend recently told me that when he came to his new church, a member who is an attorney asked, “How can you use a guy like me in church?”   This gave birth to a new legal aid group made up of almost 30 attorneys to help people in the community. The mindset of many established churches is to maintain the most visible of their assets—people, property, and programs—without digging deeper to discover the rich resources that may be available just below the surface.  There are people in every congregation whose abilities are not being used.  In Growing an Engaged Church , Albert Winseman suggests that disengaged church members may just be seeking the right place to serve. He writes, “If you want to grow a spiritually healthy, vibrant, dynamic congregation, focus on increasing the engagement level of your members.” To engage such people, however, we need to a new mindset.  Rather than thinking about how we can “use” them (a rather selfish approach) in the es...