Weekly Ongoing Coaching Meeting
Ongoing Coaching is one of the 7 elements in “raising the sails” for movement and it is vitally important!
Without my regular coaching meetings with Stan and other indirect coaching I’ve received through books, podcasts, articles, videos, and conversations with DMM practitioners, I don’t think we’d be where we are today. Since “movements” are a foreign concept to many of us in the American church, and since most of us have never been a part of one, we need a lot of coaching in our pursuit of movement or else we won’t know what direction to aim.
I encourage people regularly about the importance of having a DMM coach. To think we don’t need a coach or that we’ll be fine on our own is to fall into The Danger of Overconfidence written about previously.
This week I’ll be finishing up a DMM training with pastors from all over the country. I always tell them during Lesson 12, the final lesson, that after the training is finished, if they want to move forward, we will match them up with a DMM coach that will be able to take them by the hand & walk with them on this movement journey. I also tell them that while they may feel like they have a handle on DMM because they’ve been through the training, it usually takes repeating the basic training 2 or 3 more times before they really have a grasp of the concepts. Especially in the American church, so much deconstruction has to take place before you can really internalize & begin to apply these passages of Scripture.
In Lesson 2 of the training, we learn that, “Most fruitful CPM catalysts went through intro training multiple times! And they started training others which also helps you learn more deeply.” If most of the fruitful CPM catalysts went through the basic training multiple times, we should too! I encourage the folks completing the training to consider going through it again & also taking others through it to further internalize the principles.
At the end of Lesson 12, it can be overwhelming to think about what to do next. You’ve just been through this powerful training that’s been used to start hundreds of thousands of churches all across the world & you’re wondering how to get started. That’s where Ongoing Coaching comes in. We tell everyone who wants to move forward after the 12 Lessons to immediately begin attending an Ongoing Coaching meeting each week and to let that DMM coach help them determine the next steps to take.
I have a meeting like this every Wednesday night and wanted to share what these meetings are like. We meet on Zoom (a video conferencing platform) since we have people joining from all across the country. Each of our DMM Churches will send a few of their leaders to the coaching meeting and then they can communicate back to the rest of the group what they learned during the meeting.
In each meeting, I’ll go around to each leader(s) and ask them a few questions:
How has your church been over the past week?
Do you have any powerful stories from the past week?
Do you have any results to post on the scoreboard?
How are you doing on the 7 elements in “raising the sails?”
Do you have any challenges or questions that I can help with?
Let me deep dive into each of these questions.
How has your church been over the past week?
I usually keep this initial question broad so they can share whatever is on their heart. Typically they’ll talk about how their church meeting went, some things that are going well, and perhaps some things that they are struggling with.
Do you have any powerful stories from the past week?
I love this question. You should hear the stories that people share as they begin to go out & make disciples. It’s amazing! Usually each leader will share some powerful stories of going out among the lost, serving people, praying for people, and inviting people to do a Discovery Group. Sometimes they’ll share a cool story about a group they’ve started and how that new group is beginning to follow Jesus. When one leader shares a powerful story, all of the other leaders are encouraged. It also inspires the other leaders as to how they might more effectively make disciples.
Do you have any results to post on the scoreboard?
We keep a scoreboard as a coaching group to track the powerful things God is doing through our churches. I wrote an article recently called Tracking where you can learn more about this. As our leaders share the number of spiritual conversations their church has had or the number of groups they’ve seen started, everyone else rejoices with them in what God is doing through them.
How are you doing on the 7 elements in “raising the sails?”
We don’t typically go through every single one of the 7 elements for all of our leaders present. We’ll just focus on a couple of them that they have been really working on. For example, if a church has been struggling to Multiply Extraordinary Prayer, we’ll talk more about how that’s been going & ways to improve. This discussion helps the other leaders present grow in that element as well. I’ll spend some time coaching each team specifically here.
Do you have any challenges or questions that I can help with?
I like to ask this final question to make sure we’ve covered everything they want to talk about. If they have any challenges or questions, I try to coach them by pointing them to Scripture, sharing various experiences I’ve had, or passing on to them principles I’ve learned from my coaches.
After discussing these questions with the leader(s) of one church & providing coaching where needed, I’ll move on to the next leader & ask the same questions. It is really helpful for all of these leaders to be on the call while the DMM coach is having this same discussion with other leaders. It often reaffirms what you’re already doing, challenges you to grow in some areas, and encourages you to continue to persevere. That’s why most people stay on the call even after their specific coaching segment has ended. Plus, they are often able to do some “peer coaching” by responding to some of the other church’s challenges with wisdom from their own experiences. In fact, we encourage the other leaders to chime in and share while other churches are being coached.
You can imagine why this is my favorite meeting of the week. There is so much excitement when you get fired up leaders together that begin sharing with one another the amazing things God is doing. I think each of our churches would tell you how helpful the Ongoing Coaching meeting has been for them & that it gives them the week-by-week next steps they need to grow in effectiveness in becoming a more devoted disciple & making disciples of others.
If you have been through a DMM Training & you’re out pursuing this on your own, I’d highly encourage you to get a coach & meet with them weekly. It will greatly encourage you & help you go further faster.