We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to bring you something that I found interesting. I have a business degree, and have always been fascinated by all things business-y (yes, I made that word up.) This is an absolutely fascinating look at our country’s current credit crisis.
It’s 11 minutes long, but you will feel so much smarter after watching it!
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. -Colossians 2:9-10
In my first foray into Spiritual Life Coaching I learned that one of the foundational principles of coaching is to believe that the coachee/client is Capable, Creative, and Complete in Christ. The idea is that everyone I meet with to offer coaching, already has all that they need within them. I make the assumption that the coachee is capable of finding their own solutions, creative enough to know what to do, and complete as a person. At first, it sounds funny; but in reality if the coachee isn’t one of these things then they need therapy, counseling, or professional medical help. (Thus the difference between coaching and counseling.)
As I’ve thought over this principle I’ve discovered how wholly freeing that is to me as a pastor. Those who are pastors are always supposed to have the answers, or at least it is insinuated that way sometimes. For example, I remember having a problem with a soccer team I coached last year, and telling someone that I needed to speak with somebody about how to control this rowdy bunch. They then reminded me that I would be the one to ask! For example, it is also assumed by those around me that because I work with kids for a living that somehow I have a better handle on raising my own. That might be true in some situations, but you must know that my parenting skills are a journey to discovery everyday. A journey of discovering how much I really suck at it sometimes!
Here’s where the power of Colossians 2:9-10 comes in. If I assume that the parents, children, and families that I work with are “complete in Him”, then they already have the solutions within them to solve whatever is keeping them from experiencing God’s very best. Then the burden is only on me to help them discover what’s already within them. It’s liberating to me that I don’t have to present the “right and perfect way” for them, but that I only have to help them discover the passions, values, and purpose already existing inside of them.
- Tradition is what you resort to when you don’t have the time or the money to do it right.
- Kurt Herbert Alder
Tradition is the illusion of permanence.
Woody Allen
You don’t really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition.
Theodore Bikel
This Wednesday I started what is the beginning of an exciting adventure. I’m already one day of training into a 3 day training on the Spiritual Life Coaching Model. I’m giving up two days of office work, and 1/2 of my only day off to make it happen. I’ll get to do this once a month for the next 6 months, and I’m doing it along with all the pastors on staff at Trinity. It’s definitely a breaking of old “pastoral counseling” habits, and a relearning of relationships.
Coaching is defined as a powerful partnership designed to promote and forward the lifelong process of growth, effectiveness and achievement around a God-given purpose. Life Coaches are committed to helping all those who are around them perform at their best, while reaching their full potential in Christ. Life Coaching is about serving others while expanding your own personal horizon in a grand space of creativity.
Over the past two years, our Senior Pastor has become certified as a Life Coach through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI.) CTI is the first ICF-accredited and the largest coach training organization in the world. It is however, NOT a Christian coaching network. Since our pastors recent completion of his 2-year certification process, he began to develop (based on the CTI model of coaching) a Spiritual Life Coaching model. So I’m working through a manual that he has designed, along with the book Co-Active Coaching. I’m the coaching guinea pig! I’ve got lots of reading homework, and I’ll be actively pursing a coaching client willing to let me practice on them. I really do love learning, and it’s been way too long since I’ve had an expectation of learning put on me.
I’m excited for what this can do for me both personally and what it will allow me to pour into those I’m called to serve. It’s been a frustration of mine for years that I’m expected to biblically counsel those in and around our church, when in all seriousness I’m severely unqualified to do so; in the counseling sense. It is my prayer that being able to have a posture of coaching when working with others will allow me to discover new opportunities for releasing the potential in those around me.
Stay tuned for more as I journey down this road…
Those that know me know that I’m not a huge fan of puppets. I believe their best days are behind them in regards to Children’s Ministry. Granted, there are those that work with them fabulously; but that is rare in today’s world.
But the Muppets have always had a special place in my heart, and I still stop down almost every time I hear the Count on Sesame Street. Really, can anyone make the number 3 sound so fantastic?
Mentalfloss.com had a fascinating article on the back story of the most beloved Muppet characters. Enjoy! (and consider this first and last time I will have a pro-puppet post…)
Like a lot of you, I grew up on Sesame Street and the Muppets. But did you ever stop to wonder where they came from? Some of the characters we know and love were recycled from other TV shows and commercials Jim Henson worked on, while others were invented by using whatever materials were around. Be prepared for a little nostalgia, and I hope I didn’t leave out your favorite – not all of the characters have interesting background stories (sorry, Big Bird).
