Two new important websites December 15, 2008
Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Launching, Leadership, Sending.add a comment
You have plenty to do this time of year. There is the end of the semester wrap-up, finalizing details for Christmas/Winter conferences, Christmas cards, end of the year fund appeals, etc. But if you have a place where you are putting ideas for next semester, tuck this tip away and pull it out in early January. Here are two new websites that you will want to become familiar with. You are going to find these extremely helpful.
First, http://sites.google.com/site/missionalteamleaders/
With our emphasis on launching Missional Teams, this site developed under the guidance of Stacie Fletcher and her team of reviewers and contributors, has resources that will help us as we form and send missional teams. If you have seen the Missional Team Leaders position focus, then you already know the general layout of the site.
- Love The Lord
- Lead Your Team
- Line Up Resources
- Launch and Build New Movements
On the home page, you will find this opening description:
“You’re passionate about reaching students with the good news of Jesus Christ. And so you have committed to leading a team of like-minded people, a missional team, to do just that. So what now?!? As a missional team leader, your role is to lead a team of Christ-like laborers who are committed to reaching a defined campus or people group with the gospel by launching win, build, send movements.”
Second, http://allcallings.com/
You will hear more about this at the Christmas/Winter conferences. But as you raise up missional teams, some of those will be led by students, volunteers and alumni, not just staff. Some of our graduating seniors will be kingdom called, staff ready, but not staff called. They will have interests as varied as aid and relief, entertainment and the arts, high school ministry, social justice and the workplace. Here is a place to find others of like mind, moving to the same city or working in the same ventures. With 10,000 graduates every year from our ministries, imagine sending your trained leaders to a city and connecting with leaders that other ministries are also sending to that same city, getting connected and having access to all the resources on the first site above.
How exciting! Again, when you get together for your planning time at the beginning of next semester, pull this out and poke around on each site. This will be the last tip until January. Until then…
…Merry Christmas,
Distance Coaching December 8, 2008
Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Sending, Student Ownership.add a comment
I recently attended the Northeast Region’s Staff Conference where I was asked to talk about launching and building movements. When I do that I like to have local stories about some of the principles that we are talking about. There were some great stories about seeing students initiate in prayer, evangelism, discipleship and sending. There were also some great stories about launching and resourcing movements. John Mitchell, Southern New England Campus Ministry, was slated to talk about coaching student leaders from a distance. But the time did not allow for him to share. I asked if he would write about what he would have covered. Here are some of his thoughts on distance coaching.
My role as a distance coach is to empower and equip student leaders to reach others for Christ on their campus. I’m not the one doing the ministry on campus. They are and my job is to help them stay in the race. This means that I want to care for them, encourage them and train them. Sometimes they need to be challenged to do more and take steps of faith, other times I need to challenge them to say “No.” and let some things go undone.
The primary focus of my coaching is centered around weekly phone appointments with my student and volunteer leaders. The call usually takes between 15 minutes and an hour, depending on the relationship I have with the student leader, how much time they have, and, sometimes, how many cell minutes they have. I also send out a weekly coaching nugget e-mail of just a couple short paragraphs. That email previews for the volunteer helpful ideas for the current stage of the semester on my coaching blog. I also visit most of the campuses I coach 1-2 times a semester. I think 2 times a semester is ideal to help build relationships with the students and observe some of the dynamics of the ministry. However, this can be limited by distance and time constraints.
In ten years of distance coaching, I have seen God do some amazing things from a distance. It has been exciting to see God raise up quiet students like Pauline to lead in ways I wouldn’t have imagined. She started a ministry at the University of Bridgeport a few years ago that almost died out last spring. This fall I encouraged her to follow through with starting up a Bible Study again and promoting it with the new students and they had 6 students (4 of them freshmen) at the final meeting of the semester Thursday night.
One of the amazing benefits of distance coaching is to have an impact on a campus over two hours away like Bridgeport and then pick up the phone a few minutes later and be able to have a conversation with another student leader in Salem, MA who is taking steps to share her faith with others on her cross country team. I get the privilege of helping lead and care for leaders who are willing to do what God has called them to on campuses that most Christians seem to have forgotten about.
It has been a tremendous blessing to see God use distance coaching to bring students to Jesus, help student leaders grow in their faith and to raise up laborers! I started coaching Kenley Cherenfant at UMass Dartmouth in 1998. Since 2000 God has raised up seven student leaders from this campus to serve as interns. They have come one at a time and helped build a tradition of sending in this ministry. It was especially exciting to see Kenley serve as an Impact intern for two years and then join staff with the Impact Movement. Today he helps coach several Impact movements here in the Northeast through a distance coaching strategy from Impact’s base in Orlando!
Through distance coaching, I can do things to give lift to evangelistic efforts on five, ten or more campuses in a single day. All this without walking out the door!
By the way, John was a student at the University of Rhode Island when Chris and I were on staff there. When we left URI to come to Student LINC in Orlando, no staff replaced us on the campus. I coached Steve Pierce, the student leader, from a distance that first year from Orlando. When he graduated and came on staff (he still serves in the President’s Office), John and Melissa Pierce (no relation to Steve) took over as the leaders. I coached them that year. In the meantime, John and Melissa started dating that year. John graduated and came on staff. Then Melissa followed six months later. After they got married and spent a couple of years at the University of Buffalo, they moved to Boston and then, eventually, back to Rhode Island, where John coaches ministries around southern New England.
And finally, I have posted a powerpoint on distance coaching principles on the wiki.
Christmas Outreach Ideas December 1, 2008
Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Evangelism.add a comment
I am copied on an E-connection that Neil Downey sends out. This goes to about 50 student leaders on their Sioux Empire campuses. Recently their staff team brainstormed some Christmas outreach ideas. They thought of some that could be done as a whole movement, in a Target Area or even by individuals. Here is what they came up with.
Christmas Outreach Ideas
- Give out candy canes with the link to http://www.everystudent.com/features/christmas.html
- From GodSquad: Invite classmates and friends to a party and show the Charlie Brown Christmas movie (the gospel is actually referred to in it!). Have one person share his/her testimony afterwards. Have food, play a few fun games and maybe even make Christmas cookies.
- Have a Christmas cookie making party with some of the Bible studies and challenge students to take bags of cookies to others in their dorms as an intro to a spiritual conversation.
- Hand out hot cocoa at a strategic location on campus during finals week along with EveryStudent.com bookmarks.
- Have a Christmas tea. Students can invite others to a Christmas tea in their dorm, have cookies, hot cocoa/tea, and some conversation questions. Have someone prepped to be the host of the party and someone else prepped to share the Christmas story as the culminating event.
- Do an EveryStudent campaign on Christmas.
- Idea two. Connect the EveryStudent campaign to a “Christmas CRU” meeting (which we’re doing at SDSU) to help promote the meeting.
- Idea three. Use the EveryStudent campaign to promo a holiday survey table that includes free candy canes … but beware of “candy cane lore”.
- I was thinking that some students might be able to gather some friends to go to a nursing home to sing carols…perhaps even include a little reading of the Christmas story, or something. Then have some treats together after and intentionally guide conversations from there.
- In Sioux Falls, there are lots of Christmas events going on (I’m sure there are in other towns, too). Students could choose some outside events that are going to have some gospel content.
- Have a progressive dinner, with a progressive gospel message unfolding at each location.
- Hold an outdoor event. Perhaps a snowman making contest or maybe invite people to go to the nearest local sledding hill. Invite friends and have a blast.
- Hand out hot cocoa as students go to or from supper. Could have a cru table to hand them out. Maybe give cookies or Christmas candy as well.
- Have a “Study” night with Christmas music and goodies. Somewhere to study in a friendly atmosphere. Or maybe have a place to get away from studying. Play Christmas movies and have some games out for a little escape from finals studies.
- Stick a “Knowing God Personally” in every mailbox with a candy cane taped to it.
- Have Cru students act out the manger scene in some very public area. Could draw a crowd.
Obviously, not every idea will work in every location. Consider the needs of your ministry situation and the maturity of your students. There are so many who face the holidays depressed or without the personal means to find a measure of joy that they long for. But here is a wonderful opportunity for us to share with others the reason for the hope that we have within and the joy that only Christ can bring.
