1 Week Countdown to the Discipleship Coach Habits Webinar!

1 Week Countdown to the Discipleship Coach Habits Webinar!

Only 1 week to go!

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October 11 is right around the corner, and you know what that means… Our 5 Discipleship Coach Habits Webinar is finally launching! After putting a lot of time and effort in creating this training approach to disciple-making, we are so excited to finally begin this journey with anyone who feels ready to take the next step in their discipleship coaching. The webinar launches on October 11, 2021 from 10am-3pmPST.

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For those just joining us now, this is a webinar focused on building five strategic habits that all discipleship coaches need: missional values, active prayer, relational connections, disciple making cycles and strategic partnerships. This webinar is for anyone aspiring to take their disciple-making to the next level: pastor and church leaders, church planters or even just dedicated Christians looking to make a difference in their community. We have been commissioned to share the love of the Lord and discipleship is the best approach to create a sustainable pattern of multiplication. But multiplying churches and followers of Christ is more difficult than ever (only two percent of churches are growing!) and we are here to offer support and guidance to your team of disciple-makers and their disciples. We can always build more awareness of ourselves, learn new ways to reach others and build stronger connections within our teams and with Jesus. 

This is a five-hour webinar that will be led by InFocus’s Executive Director Gary Reinecke, and long-time InFocus partner Micah Dodson of Thrive Church Planting. We are also offering personal triad sessions following the webinar: five sessions for fifty-five minutes, the times are TBD. In these sessions Gary or Micah will work closely with you and another disciple coach on your team, processing new information and insights from the webinar, working through your personal strengths and weaknesses, and discovering your own unique and most effective way of discipleship coaching. We believe that sharing this journey with a small group, including a mentor, adds to the process and the level of personal engagement as well as grows the relationship between team members.

Take the Disciple Coach Quiz!

CLICK HERE

2-week countdown Disciple Coach Habits Webinar

2-week countdown Disciple Coach Habits Webinar

We want to give you a gentle nudge to consider a coach approach to disciple making – CLICK HERE


Five shifts to empower your teenagers to become self-led adults

Shift #5 – Reflection to Action 

You may have been reading the previous four blogs that I wrote on the topic of five shifts that will help empower your teenager to become self-led adults.  Here are the first four shifts that we have previously covered:

Shift 1 – Shift from talker to listener

Shift 2 – Shift from the center to the side 

Shift 3 – Shift from casual interaction to a conversation with purpose 

Shift 4 – Shift from being the creator to co-create the agenda 

The fifth and final shift to make if you want to apply a coach approach to parenting your teenager is “shift from reflection to action”.

Bottom line: our kids are self-led, aware and have developed interdependent relationships with their peers and mentors. I guess the previous four shifts are a means to this end; but this final shift is the ongoing relationship that you have with your teen leading into adulthood and beyond.

Our eldest followed his passion for economics and is an economic analyst for a firm in Boston, MA. His primary interests are anit-trust cases to help combat larger companies from monopolizing an industry. Their firm draws clients from the medical, telecommunications, .com, high tech and computer fields. They are industry leaders. Any and all things related to intellectual property fall into the service the firm provides, to analyze data to create the strongest argument for law firms that seek their services.  

We refer to our youngest as an “old soul”. She is in her early 20’s and going on 45. She settled into university life, graduated with a degree in international development and is now at graduate school. Her focus is Education Policy with a unique emphasis on helping resource refugees who are on the move to avoid bad things in their country of origin. Her end goal is to identify the best means to provide education to these families whose lives have been disrupted and for some, never to be repaired.  Her “Why?” is compelling. Early in her education she spent a summer in Malaga, Spain to study the human sex trafficking. Due to the location of Malaga to northern Africa, the industry in Malaga has become the world leader. From her research, she concluded the best way to address the issue is prevention – which led her down the education policy track.

Today the tables have turned slightly.  We are now relating more and more – adult to adult. We still coach. Sometimes the tables are turned. Here are some guidelines we followed to make the shift from taking responsibility to empowering 

Key Question: How can I inspire a person to take action?

Mini-Shifts:

  • Challenge the other person to act
    • Do not allow the newest disciple to remain in a state of reflection.
  • Use questions to help a person articulate what they will do
    • Let questions do the heavy lifting.
  • Gain commitment from the other person
    • What are you willing to give-up to take this step?
Empower your teenagers to become self-led adults Shift #2 – Center to Side

Empower your teenagers to become self-led adults Shift #2 – Center to Side

Recently, we have been looking at five shifts to make that will help empower your teenager to become mature, healthy self-led adults. Last week, we looked at the Shift #1: Talker to listener. Shift two is all about moving from the center of their lives and decision-making to the side. As a reminder, I am not an expert in parenting. But I have learned a thing or two about coaching and helping people take action towards the direction God has designed for them in life and ministry.  Also, these five shifts are not limited to parenting. They relate to working with teenagers in youth groups or wherever you’re connecting with people in meaningful ways to help them take the next step on their journey to follow Jesus’ mission for their life. Let me give a bit of background so you have some context.

Shift #2 – Center to Side

One of the things we did very early with our kids was to involve them in sports. When we lived in Phoenix, Gina and I coached their respective “recreation”  soccer teams. We lived in the city and the rec leagues were designed for all kids to participate regardless of athletic ability or economic situation. Our son played one summer of T-ball and we asked him not to play again (the summer heat even for an early game was suffocating) and later basketball  BTW – both kids are athletic and our son is a very quick learner so new sports came easy for him. They enjoyed sports.  

When we relocated to Southern California we graduated from rec leagues to competitive soccer.  What the kids gained were nicer uniforms, higher calibre of coaching and players with a bit more skill. What they lost was the fun factor! For me (playing competitive soccer most of my life through my sophomore year in college at a NCAA Div I program) and Gina (elite gymnast and field hockey player in Australia with the additional bonus of studying kinesiology at university) – we had to make a hard decision and consider: Was this about us or the kids?

Our response to that question led us down the path of understanding what we cared about and hoped to instill in our kids.  So we made the hard decision to tell the kids that they did not have to play a competitive sport; but in exchange they had to remain active. That meant, regular body movement. We died to ourselves and helped the kids discover activities they were passionate about!

We took ourselves out of the center and moved to the side!

This meant we had to become like Barnabas. What we discovered was that we were able to dedicate the time we had given to all-weekend tournaments and engage with the kids on hikes, camping and exploring various activities like rock climbing, mountain biking and swimming together. Today, they continue to be curious about the outdoors, learning new activities like trail running and walking the streets to explore new parts of the city while testing their skills and levels of fitness with new activities.  This was the vision of what we wanted for our kids back when we made the difficult decision of making this about them – not about us.

Here are some of the things we did to make this shift in the way we parented our teenagers.

Key Question: How can I resist the temptation to force my agenda and be attuned to the other person’s agenda?

 Mini-Shifts:

  •       Sacrifice your need to be the center of the conversation

o   Make your teenager the focus of the conversation.

  •       Support your teenager to discover their next step

o   Facilitate the discovery of a step for your teen to take responsibility.

  •       Put your assumptions, opinions, and biases in the background

o   Resist the temptation to make judgements and remain curious.


Following are two opportunities that can help you refine your disciple-coach skills!

5 Disciple Coach Habits webinar – Monday, October 11 from 10-3 PST

CLICK HERE

Cost: $250.00

The full package includes the webinar AND triad sessions:

CLICK HERE

Cost: $475.00

5 Disciple Coach Habits

5 Disciple Coach Habits

If you are one of our followers who has taken the Disciple Coach Quiz, processed the results with us and passed it along to your own disciples, you might be wondering what you can do next. How can you utilize your Quiz results even further? Discipleship is a life-long journey, and wherever you are on that path, there is always a next step; a way to grow and bear more fruit, a way to deepen your relationship with God and others.

If you still haven’t taken our FREE Disciple Coach Quiz, CLICK HERE.

For those who are looking for a next step, we are offering a webinar on the 5 habits of a Disciple Coach. This webinar, like our inaugural webinar in November 2020, will be led by InFocus’s Executive Director, Gary Reinecke, and long-time InFocus partner Micah Dodson. This webinar is a great way to follow up on your newfound insights after you have taken the quiz and can help further deepen your understanding of Discipleship and hone in on the habits of a Disciple Coach. We will help you clarify your missional values, activate prayer, make relational connections and strategic partnerships, while learning how to create your own  Disciple making Cycle. 

Check out the 5 Disciple Coach Habits training coming up October 11 – CLICK HERE!

In addition to the 5-hour webinar, we are also offering personal triad sessions following the webinar. In these sessions Gary or Micah will work closely with you and another Disciple Coach on your team, processing the webinar, working through your personal strengths and weaknesses, and discover your own unique and most effective way of making disciples. These five sessions of fifty-five minutes will help you to develop yourself and the future leaders around you!

5 Disciple Coach Habits webinar – Monday, October 11 from 10-3 PST

CLICK HERE

Cost: $250.00

The full package includes the webinar AND triad sessions:

CLICK HERE

Cost: $475.00

 

8 QUESTIONS TO FOSTER ACCOUNTABILTY AS A DISCIPLE COACH

8 QUESTIONS TO FOSTER ACCOUNTABILTY AS A DISCIPLE COACH

God has given us a personal mission to make disciple in our life in our own unique way, however… we don’t need to tackle that mission on our own! The Lord created us to be relational beings. We are meant to help each other strengthen our faith and grow as people. We need each other, especially when it comes to working through our mission. Partnerships keep us on the paths we’re meant to be, pursuing the mission that God gave us. When alone, it is easy to wander and to get distracted or discouraged.

Jesus understood the importance of working with others. He sent His disciples out in pairs to minister together, and encouraged them to debrief their experience when they returned. Jesus understood the importance of learning through experience, obedience and accountability, and knew they needed to learn to rely on each other because he wouldn’t be with them forever. Jesus trusted that they had what they needed to further the mission to make more and better disciples: strategic partnerships with one another and the Holy Spirit. Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” We can, and should, rely on each other, trust each other and grow together.

Accountability is essential in making and coaching disciples, and strategic partnerships answer the question: “Who will help me stay on mission?” Finding others around you who are making and coaching disciples as well, can help. Like the original disciples, having a partner to debrief experiences, discuss struggles and, most importantly, hold each other accountable. These relationships provide accountability, with grace, to the important actions that will support the newest disciples on their spiritual journey. Accountability helps the disciple coach keep the main thing the main thing, learn from real experience and stay in motion.

There are many ways to practice accountability. You can practice on your own (a great skill to build, but the hardest to hold yourself to), with a coach and with God.

  1. Accountability with yourself
    • How am I prioritizing life events as a disciple coach?
    • What am I not doing that I know I should be doing?
  2.  Accountability with a partner
    • What do you do to process missed opportunities as a disciple coach?
    • How do you celebrate your progress when you act as a disciple coach?
    • What do you do to process setbacks with a disciple when their good intentions don’t    produce the intended fruit?
    • What progress are you observing with the disciples you are coaching on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis?
  3. Accountability with God
    • What are you learning about God?
    • How do you know when you are doing the things God has called you to do as a disciple coach?

If you still haven’t taken our FREE Disciple Coach Quiz, CLICK HERE.

Check out the 5 Disciple Coach Habits training coming up October 11 – CLICK HERE!

3 ACTIONS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR SPIRITUAL IMPACT AS A DISCIPLE COACH

3 ACTIONS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR SPIRITUAL IMPACT AS A DISCIPLE COACH

One of the most vital and often overlooked elements of discipleship is prayer. Of course, as Christians, we know that prayer is important; it’s significance is repeated over and over in the Bible, by our pastors and our entire Christian community, but it can be so easy to fall into the pattern of passive prayer: that is prayer we do out of obligation or habit, without thinking or connecting.

Learn about the Disciple Coach Quiz – CLICK HERE!

For many of us, prayer happens at particular times of the day; before bed or dinner; maybe you pray first thing in the morning. Maybe you even carve out time intentionally every now and then, but even in your intentional time, it can begin to feel like a chore; some words to say before moving on with your day. We need to remember that prayer is our deepest and most personal way to connect to Jesus. It’s our lifeline to God and can be one of our strongest tools for finding disciples; we pray for them to come into our lives and trust that God will send them our way.

If you still haven’t taken our FREE Disciple Coach Quiz, take it HERE!

Incredible things can happen when we turn passive prayer into active prayer; that is, prayer done with intention, with engagement and love for our Lord and for the people in our lives. I had a friend who had been intentionally building relationships with non-Christians, but there hadn’t been any fruit in quite a while. After a brief conversation with him he stopped and prayed for those he was in relationship with. That day one of the individuals called him out of the blue and wanted to meet to talk about this “Jesus thing”. It is easy to just slide these and other examples into the coincidence bucket, but the Bible shows us the power of prayer and its ability to change lives.

This next week, here are a few things you can pray for to jumpstart your intentional time with the Lord:

  1. Pray for yourself… that you can be who God needs you to be. That you will be blessed with a heart and mind for the lost, that translates to compassion and action.
  2. Prayer for those God is leading your way. We can pray they are open to the touch of the Holy Spirit and responsive to our actions.
  3. Pray for two random people you encounter each day. Pray for God to fill them with wisdom and understanding: for the things of God. Pray that God uses you to love them, in whatever capacity he desires (from a prayer and a smile to becoming a friend). They may be a Christian, they may not, but they are all God’s children.

Also coming up: a new webinar on 5 Disciple Coach Habits. It will take place Monday, September 13 from 10-3 PST. Get tickets HERE!

Look into our full webinar package with five triad sessions, following the webinar. Get tickets HERE!