The Intersection of My Two Greatest Concerns

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If you’ve been along for much of this conversation…very little of this will be new to you.  If you’re new, you might just be wondering what exactly I’m talking about.  No matter where you are in the mix…I think we all still need to hear this.  I know I need the reminder every day.

It’s about the intersection of my two greatest concerns.  Here they are:

First, I know that unconnected people are always one tough thing away from not being at my church.  Marriage trouble.  Loss of a job.  Bad diagnosis.  A child that goes south.  One tough thing.

By my estimate we have over 8000 unconnected adults at Canyon Ridge.  That means we need to add about 800 groups, as fast as we can.  See also, What Percentage of Your Adults Are Actually Connected?

You read that number right.  We’ve connected a lot in the last year.  But we have over 8000 to go.  And that’s just what we have now.

The thing is…you have a ton of unconnected adults too.  One tough thing.  See also, What’s Your Urgency Level for Connecting People?

Second, I know that whatever I want the members of our groups to experience, the leaders of our groups must experience first.  In other words, if I want the members of our groups to know what’s it like to be prayed for, cared for, encouraged, challenged, loved unconditionally, forgiven, celebrated and admonished…they leaders must have had that experience first.

Where is the concern?  Follow me on this one.  Since I am a firm believer that Carl George was right when he said that “everyone needs to be cared for by someone but no one ought to be taking care of more than about 10 people,” I know that we don’t have anywhere near the number of coaches we need in order to take care of the number of leaders we need to connect 8000 unconnected people.  See also, Span of Care.

If Carl was right, we need around 80 to 160 new coaches.  We probably don’t need them all at once.  But we’ll need them as fast as we can identify, recruit and develop them.

The thing is…you need coaches too.  See also, The End in Mind for an Effective Coaching Structure.

The Dilemma

Can you see the dilemma?  And I use the term, dilemma, somewhere between advisedly and tongue in cheek.  The dilemma is that we know how to start groups.  You do too.  If you’ve been part of this conversation you know that we can start an almost unlimited number of groups using the church-wide campaign strategy along with the small group connection strategy.

We have no trouble starting groups.  We are determined to connect unconnected people as fast as we can.

The dilemma?  In order to sustain the groups we start and in order to deliver the kind of experience to group members that we want them to have…we must become better at identifying, recruiting and developing coaches.  And we must become better today.  If not yesterday.  See also, Supercharge Your Ministry with These 5 Questions.

What do you think?  Have a question? Want to argue? You can click here jump in to the conversation.

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2 Comments

  1. Andrew Mason on July 29, 2013 at 5:59 am

    I appreciate your articulation of the tension we continually face with building community. My focus right now is to completely overhaul our coaching and strengthen it for the strengthening of our leaders.



  2. markchowell on July 29, 2013 at 6:06 am

    Thanks Andrew! And if your situation is like mine, you must do both at the same time. Launch groups to connect people AND identify, recruit and develop coaches.