Confucius said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Dr. Leo Marvin (“What About Bob” fame) said, “Baby steps, baby steps…”

On a cold weekend in January eighty-plus people took many steps from around the country braving threats of snow and ice to participate in our inaugural Coaching Forum in Nashville, TN. The evaluations we received from attendees were encouraging and educational. We did many things right and many right things! Overall 99% of participants said the event “exceeded their expectations.” That’s pretty amazing.  Baby steps…

While the recent Path 1 Coaching Forum seemed like the first step for many it was about the 9,000th step for the Path 1 staff who have been working tirelessly to develop and launch this much needed nationwide coaching network for new church starts. Baby steps…

As I reflect on the event I am proud of the energy and commitment of the staff and our mentor coaches to pull this thing off. There is one thing I personally regret–that our leadership at the event did not adequately reflect the diversity we believe in and strive for. We will do better, I promise! 

Many participants who attended the Forum are working through our Checklist for Endorsement toward becoming a Path 1 New Church Starts Coach. The Forum was just one component of our overall training process where we taught our core coaching modules. This summer’s School of Congregational Development in Nashville, TN will feature two other major training components: Consultation and Facilitation. We believe great new church starts coaching needs to be a composite of coaching, consulting and facilitating.

People interested in our coaching network can enter the process through the Coaching Forum each January, the School of Congregational Development each July/August or on-line by visiting www.path1.org/coach. Check out the resources posted on this site.

By the end of the Coaching Forum one of our newer United Methodist Church starts in Bozeman, MT signed a contract with Path 1 to provide their pastor and stakeholders with a coach.  It’s working! The journey of a thousand miles has just gotten shorter.

Want to become a Path 1 Coach? Want to provide much needed financial assistance to support the effort? Email me at: gshockley@gbod.org. I’d love to hear from you!

Baby stepping…

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 10:12 am and is filed under Coaching, Equipping, Gary Shockley, Find Leaders, Annual Conference. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.