Coach/Small Group Leader Relationships
Coach’s Corner: Teaching point during breakout session at Willow Creek Church’s Small Groups Conference with speaker Mike Hart, small groups pastor at McLean Bible Church in the Washington D.C. area.
What every small group leader needs from their coach is to know them personally. This is the qualification in earning a small group leader’s trust and respect. Coaches hasten this process by getting to know the leader’s stories, challenges & understanding their strengths and weaknesses.
Coaches BEWARE: Don’t go in asking leaders about their small group. Knowing them first ought to be the primary motive of the heart. Too often, we are more concerned with attendance and curriculum than we are in spiritual development.
Practical Steps
In your first meeting, share your testimony and share what you love about group life. Be genuine and authentic and only in doing so expect the same from your small group leader.
Encourage your small group leaders spiritually. What’s God teaching them in the last 30 days? How are they taking a risk for God right now? Be prepared for leaders to ask you the same thing. Ask them what they need/want from you as a coach…write it down and deliver on it!
Keep in mind, the pace of coaching relationships is real slow in the early days. It’s going to take time so don’t give up! Coaching relationships are built on the foundation of trust and respect. Base your coaching relationship on consistency not speed.
Whether you are a Coach or a Group Leader, please share your insights on this topic!
~by Jeff Kozyra, Small Groups Pastor
March 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
In the words of Leo Dicaprio posing as a doctor in the E.R. of the movie, Catch Me if You Can, “I concur”. Hopefully, my thoughts come from tried and proven experiences borne out of years of experience in the small group ministries of NLC rather than someone pretending to lead.
I used to struggle over what type of leader and influencer of people I felt I was, until the Holy Spirit validated my “style” one day. He said there are those who lead Cognitively - i.e. by articulating concepts succinctly, offering quotable sound bites, and casting vision; but there are also those who influence a change in others’ behavior towards growth and maturity by being transparent about what God is doing in their own lives and inviting a matching level of disclosure from the person who they come alongside to coach - relational leadership.
Engaging people in “discovery” types of conversations would be as if we were accompanying a person with sight blindness on a train or car and describing all that we see out the window, including the impressions they make on us, to them. Hopefully, we become less “preachy” or condescendent to them; or as one small group leader remarked with piquant acuity to me once, “how come I feel like I’m a project to you when we’re together?”
There is great value in the kind of mutually transparent conversation that will create that moment of opportunity when either person might feel safe enough to express a deep desire or shortcoming as described by James, “Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart].” - Ja. 5:16 (AMP)
I want to offer those around me an atmosphere where they experience the “unforced rhythms of grace” described in Mt. 11:29 (MSG). When people trust me enough to be honest about their journey then I have effectively earned a place of influence in their lives. That’s relational leadership.