Growing from 10 to 50 November 2, 2009
Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Coaching, Discipleship, Evangelism, Leadership, Prayer, Sending, Student Ownership.add a comment
We are in the middle of a series of tips about going through the various stages of development of a movement.
- I started with explaining those stages and the skills necessary at each stage.
- Then we looked at filtering a leader.
- Last week we focused on building a leadership team.
Today we consider how to grow a ministry from 10 to 50. Sometime ago, a team put together and sent me a copy of a strategic plan for growing from 10 to 50. Here is their plan.
Vision:
- Exciting/momentum building to give every student an opportunity to say “Yes!” to Christ.
- It will only take 1% of the student body to influence the whole campus.
- What is most influential group on campus? How many from that group are involved?
Situational Analysis:
- There are examples of growth for 10-50.
- There are specific challenges/obstacles to overcome.
- Leaders with limited vision/passion.
- Leaders who can’t gather/lead.
- Beware of becoming ingrown.
- Want to develop authentic community.
- The weekly meeting becomes the ministry.
- Leadership not multiplying.
- Not looking outside for other critical mass resources/volunteers.
Critical Mass:
- A student leader.
- A staff/intern coach.
- Aligned students.
Critical Path Steps:
- Prayer.
- Depend on God to reach the campus.
- Develop real opportunity for worship.
- Evangelism.
- Training in evangelism.
- One on one and large group evangelism opportunities.
- Exposing the campus with EveryStudent and FSKs.
- Discipleship.
- Effective small group strategy.
- New groups starting.
- Discipleship happening.
- Know how to get resources.
- Bring staff in for training and recruiting.
- Sending.
- Attending faith-building events.
- Expose to vision of others.
- Cross-pollination.
- Training.
- Extended time with staff.
- Defeats isolation.
- Leadership Development.
- Growing from one leader to a team.
- Instill vision and mission.
- Asking what the next step is.
- Invite others to ownership/responsibility.
- Train volunteers.
- Keep connected with staff coach.
There is nothing complicated about any of this. Of course, we know that there are challenges and obstacles to growth. But we start with the assumption of having the right leaders and then we need to be intentional in coaching those leaders in win/build/send and leadership development.
One coach (wish I could remember who) told me that she gives her leaders a bite of the campus in which they can see success (some target area). She works to move from one key leader to a leadership team. She makes a point to know GodSquad and sends students there with links to specific resources. Finally, she develops a master calendar for herself each year where she puts recruiting, sending, events and outreaches on it. This is really more about helping her help her leaders lead.
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.
Every Student Sent December 17, 2007
Posted by Gilbert Kingsley in Sending.add a comment
I happened to be a part of some meetings last week on the topic of Every Student Sent. We often think about sending as it relates to students coming on staff, or doing an internship or STINT. These are what we would call, “Kingdom Called, Staff Ready, Staff Called”. But we will graduate many, possibly 1/3 to 1/2 of our students, who could consider themselves “Kingdom Called, Staff Ready, Not Staff Called”? This meeting focused on these. You will hear more in the coming months. But if you take time here before break or in the first weeks of January before school starts to plan out next semester, I would like to give you two things to think about.
Sending
- Identify your “Kingdom Called, Staff Ready, Not Staff Called” students, or those who have already graduated that you remain in touch with.
- Consider the profession, passions and place where these graduates will go.
- Are there some that you could ask to be part of a Missional Team upon graduation? Possibly, enough of them will settle in a city together that they could go minister as a team.
Receiving
- Consider what you would do if a such a Missional Team came within your scope. What would you do if some volunteers showed up with ministry experience, some training, and a heart for the Lord and for reaching the lost.
- Knowing that their availability may be limited and they are in new surroundings, are there ways to involve them in what your are already doing? Could they disciple students on a campus? In the absense of a leader, could they lead an Essentials study? Could they help launch a ministry?
- In a new city, with a new job, the continuity that you provide by putting them in a familiar ministry experience, could minister to them as much as their help ministers to you and your students.
As you think about this, be creative. This will require innovation and probably different criteria for operation. Eric Swanson, in his article on “Improving Your Creativity“, tells how to generate new ideas.
- Learn to challenge the status quo.
- Get as much information as you can.
- Learn what works well in one area and see how it carries over to your context.
- Work hard.
- Be willing to risk failure.
- Leave room for the miraculous.
This kind of creativity and innovation is absolutely necessary if we expect to launch 4000 ministries in the next four years. Sending and receiving Missional Teams of graduate students has incredible potential to help us launch the kind of ministries we need to in order to reach our scope.
