Welcome to the Coaching Pastors' blog. You may be here because you have received your copy of the Spring 2008 issue of LifeWay's Let's Worship magazine. Or, you may have found us simply by surfing the web. Either way, welcome.My hope is to interact with you as I have tried to apply the concepts of Coaching to the art and practice of Preaching. It's a new venue for me, so, I would like to hear from you and see if this is even a possibility.
If you are not familiar with coaching, check out these two sites as primers on the subject: What is Coaching? and Lead Like Jesus Coaching.
In the first installment of four articles, I offered that:
"A coach-approach to preaching invites the preacher to ask rather than tell and the listener to participate rather than force them to absorb facts or day dream during a speech prepared by a preacher. A coach approach to preaching engages the participant at the level of his or her own issues and resources with the clear message of the biblical passage. Rather than the preacher making one-size-fits-all applications, he invites the listeners to customize what they have heard to their particular needs or goals." (Let's Worship, pgs. 20, 21)
What are some of your impressions of this description?How does it challenge your current concept of preaching?
What other comments do you have about the article?
Post comments if you like. Also, here are links to some of the resources I used in the article. I recommend them all.
Christian Coaching by Gary Collins
Christ-Centered Coaching by Jane Creswell
Spiritual Leadership by Eddie Hammett
Narrative Preaching by Calvin Miller
I look forward to hearing from you.
c. gene wilkes
senior pastor, legacy church, plano, tx
faithrunner is my personal blog
2 comments:
Don't you think this goes beyonnd just the application part of preaching?
Aren't there some places in scriptures where the actually meaning and understanding of it lends itself to this approach as well?
We ask the question - what do you think? where do you lean? Why do you lean that way? Is there anything that would make you change your mind on that?
Just as there are places where "Thus sayeth the Lord" is appropriate, so are there places where we could say ... "I'm 51% sure this is what He meant."
Does that undermine the power of the Gospel and His message?
That is the dilemma this approach creates. As we will see in the next installment, there is still the critical need to wrestle with the biblical background and language of the passage. And, the authority of the Word trumps individual impressions.
But rather than an intellectual engagement only with the audience, a coach approach makes space in the preaching event for listeners to respond immediately to the passage.
Silence from the speaker while listeners write or share immediate responses with self or neighbor is one example of how this may work.
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