Barnabas File

When we discuss the value of coaching, we usually focus on the difference it makes in the lives of individuals, but coaching also has benefits for the churches and organizations that provide it for staff and employees.  In an article in the February 2016 edition of Coaching World, Odile Carru and Mark Weinstein discussed the growth of internal coaching in organizations and its value to employees at all levels.  Carru and Weinstein presented three of these benefits:  talent retention, leadership development, and improving soft skills When a church or organization provides coaches for leaders, the person who is coached not only develops new skills and abilities, but they appreciate the investment being made on their behalf.  This encourages them to stay with the organization longer rather than seeking another position “where the grass is greener.”  According to Carru and Weinstein, key areas for coaching in organizations are leadership development, onboarding (bringing new p

Add caption So you’ve just received your Master of Divinity degree from an accredited seminary.  What are you going to do now?  Some students go right from seminary to a full-time ministry position.  Others are already in a ministry role and continue in that position with enhanced skills and abilities.  Many students, however, do not immediately find a full-time or even part-time ministry role. Let me tell the story of one of these students. [i]   Lisa graduated several years ago with a Master of Divinity degree.  She was active in a local church and worked part-time as a barista in a coffee shop.  No formal ministry role opened immediately, so she went full-time with the coffee shop and eventually became a manager.  She did not give up her ministry dream, however.  She discovered a local new church start that was developing a unique concept--opening a coffee shop that would also serve as a neighborhood social hub and the center of worship for the new congregation.  Today sh

We hear a lot about entrepreneurs--risk-takers who create, design, and deliver a new product or service.   But what about intrapreneurs? According to Wikipedia , “intrapreneurship   is the act of behaving like an   entrepreneur while working within a large organization.”   The idea is to allow opportunities for individuals and teams within an organization to integrate the innovation and risk-taking that characterize entrepreneurship into an established system.  Although this has great value, the practice itself involves some risks and willingness to rethink management and supervision. For several years, I was responsible for the supervision of about thirty full-time and part-time ministers who provided collegiate ministry on campuses across the state of Tennessee.  This was an interesting task considering the size of the state, the variety of campuses involved, and the varied gifts of those doing the work.  Many of these leaders were intrapreneurs who knew

The process called life coaching or personal development coaching is gaining traction in many areas--business, education, the not-for-profit sector, and the church.  Those who have experienced being coached attest to its value for their personal and professional growth.  At the same time, there are some who have been given the opportunity to be coached who resist it.  Why is this? In a blog on Education Week, Peter DeWitt suggested some reasons that educators give for not wanting coaching.  His list stimulated my thinking about some reasons a person may present for not wanting a coach. 1. “I am a professional, so I don’t need a coach.”  Certainly no one puts more time and energy into their work than Olympic athletes, but name one who doesn’t have at least one coach encouraging and supporting that person to do better?  A professional wants to continue developing himself or herself and welcomes someone to come alongside and help. 2. “I have friends and colleagues who he

“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.   For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”     (Acts 17:22-23, NIV) Water is essential to the life of a fish, but the fish is totally unaware of the presence of water until it is no longer there.  The same is true of us and the culture in which we live.  When Christians do discuss culture, we tend to identify some negative aspects of our cultural environment and give our attention to condemning those things. In reality, we could not function without culture.  Culture gives us language, customs, and values that unconsciously provide structure to our lives.  Like the fish in water, we rarely think about culture until it starts to change.  For