After a couple of days with a Natural Church Development coaching seminar with Christoph Schalk probably 2 years ago. I decided to subscribe to CoachNet because I tend to operate with intuition and I felt some strategic-process-linear thinking would do me some good. And I think it has …
Justin Baeder’s blog after getting a Purpose Driven catalog was interesting (though sparked by something different in attitude-wise may be relevant):
“I got a Purpose Driven catalog in the mail today, and I didn’t feel any cynicism. This is a sign of growth.
I’m starting to feel that none of the quality resources and programs developed by the modern church is inherently a bad thing. Not the only thing, and not the end-all, be-all answer to fulfilling the mission of the church. But certainly not bad for modern contexts, which there are still plenty of.”
Maybe working through worksheets are too “modern” and linear for some, or maybe it appears too formulaic. But, taking myself out-of-this-kind-of-box and asking myself honestly, am I a little too “fuzzy” here and need some clarity? Am I simply too lazy to do the hard work of thinking things through and I could use these tools to help me … why not? I like CoachNet because it’s got useful reflective questions and loads of resources to get me started. I’ll tweak stuff when I go along.
Maybe that’s how some of us will proceed in our journey as we work out GOD’s mission in our respective contexts. As long as we don’t stop learning and settle into the-“programme”-will-solve-our-problems kind of mentality, programs are harmless and become helpful. Overreaction won’t help … I like Justin’s attitude, takes unnecessary guilt off our chest if we’re dabbling with “programs” or modern tools:
“Programs come and go, and are a good thing. Personally, I feel called to run some programs right now that will reach out to people and offer them something of God to grasp at. Maybe I won’t feel like that in a few years or months. I also feel the need to spend more time with people rather than on ideas or events. But I know there are many answers to this emerging church thing, and that is why this discussion is so important, and why we must keep it open and “out of the box.” Sometimes out-of-the-box thinking will require us to do quite a lot within existing boxes.”