To Thrive and Thriving Others
Many people in the world, including Christians, struggle with what is their purpose in life. People often ask themselves or their pastors this question. The difficulty in discovering the goal of life can have further harmful effects on many people. We can say feeling worthless or feeling empty without direction and purpose in this life.
Maybe we have experienced that feeling too. Honestly, I used to have the same thoughts as many people. Gratefully I have parents who prayed for me. My parents were also diligent in teaching the Word of God and always took me to Sunday school and youth services at our church. I am grateful because I had precious experiences and moments with the youth group ministers at our church when I was a teenager. They were very dedicated and diligent in dealing with teenagers and competent in encouraging teenagers who struggle with identity and the meaning of life.
My parents and church ministers helped me to manage and get through the turmoil of adolescence. Through them, I had appropriate and sufficient support and guidance. They taught and introduced me to Jesus Christ verbally and through their actions and examples. I knew and felt what they did base on the love of God. The most important thing I received from them is that I am precious before God. I also learned from them that God created me with a noble purpose. A life to glorify God and be a blessing to many people in everything I do in the present and the future. That was what they always emphasized to me. Their persistence to pray for and guide me during my adolescence as if they saw something precious in me.
Reading Camacho’s book turns my memory back to my childhood and youth. The teaching and treatment from my parent and youth group servants looked similar in some ways to what Camacho wrote in his book. For me, it was like Coaching Leadership in Camacho’s term. Regarding my current existence as a church minister, my parent, and the church youth group teacher have a significant role in it through their perseverance in prayer and teaching. They managed to help me reveal my talents and potential. According to Camacho, in Coaching Leadership, we don’t bear the weight of someone’s growth. We simply draw out what’s inside them. We don’t own their outcomes or manage their behavior. We empower them. We permit them to be themselves and use their gifts. (Camacho, 28).
Everything begins in God and with God. It was a principal I saw and observed from my parents and youth group teachers at our church. I saw and experienced how my parents always invited their children to pray and read the Bible every morning. I also saw how the youth group teachers at our church always thoroughly prepared for their ministry, especially in teaching the Word of God. They usually had a quiet time for this and to pray for the smooth running of the service and for the youth they serve. It resonates with Camacho: To thrive we must begin with God (Camacho, 32). From Camacho’s experiences and encounters with Logan, he then wrote that “Coaching is the process of coming alongside a person or team to help them discover God’s agenda for their life and ministry and then cooperating with the Holy Spirit to see that agenda become a reality” (Camacho, 32).
What I experienced in my youth through the great people God presented to me, helped me to find what is called Camacho with clarity. Clarity is an important element for someone who is growing to discover and experience it. Camacho writes that Clarity changes everything. With clarity, we can see the larger story. When we get clarity around our Christ-centred identity, thriving is the natural result (Camacho, 41). By finding clarity, we will comprehend our identity, and who we are before God. Camacho said we learn that God has placed his righteous nature inside us, and now we are right with him because of what Jesus has done for us. We discover we are not on the outside, rejected by God. We are loved sons and daughters with an inheritance of riches from our Father. We can then stop focusing on all our problems and focus instead on all the promises God has given us in his Word (Camacho, 42).
I am grateful to encounter Camacho through his very enlightening writing. As a servant in the church, I am called and motivated to help the congregation I serve to find gold within themselves and lead them to know God who owns their lives. I am called to serve them and help them find their sweet spot so they can grow and bear fruit for the glory of God’s name. I do this because I love them. And that means like what Camacho mentioned, “I have to do Coaching Leadership that is based on divine love because Coaching Leadership is a life of a loving relationship. To be a Christian leader is to relate to others in a particular way. We don’t use people to pursue a goal; we love people as God is working his goals in them” (Camacho, 117). I am blessed to be a blessing. God has called me to thrive and to thrive the others.
About the Author
Dinka Utomo
Dinka Nehemia Utomo is an ordained pastor of the Protestant Church in the Western part of Indonesia (Gereja Protestan di Indonesia bagian Barat or GPIB). He has served for more than 15 years. The first five years of his ministry were in the remote area of East Kalimantan, including people from the indigenous Dayak tribe in the small villages in the middle of the forest, frequently reached using small boats down the river. For more than 15 years, Dinka has served several GPIB congregations in several cities in Indonesia. He has always had a passion for equipping Christian families, teaching and guiding them to build equal relations between husband and wife, maintaining commitment, love, and loyalty, creating a healthy and constructive Christian family atmosphere, and rejecting all forms of violence and sexual violence. Dinka's beloved wife, Verra, is also a GPIB pastor. They have two blessed children. Dinka and his wife and children love to spend quality family time, such as lunch or dinner, and vacation to exotic places.5 responses to “To Thrive and Thriving Others”
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Firstly, I want to say it’s heartwarming the way you speak of your parents with such gratitude and love.
Secondly, thank you for highlighting clarity as a significant benefit of the coaching process. I’m curious if you feel like you need more clarity currently regarding your NPO or more generally in your work?
I’m encouraged that you bring up the idea of mining for gold in your whole congregation as a pastor. Ultimately that is what we are going for, isn’t it? I’ve noticed a lot of people questioning whether mining for gold is just about discovering leaders or whether it can/should be about finding gold in everyone. I know this isn’t the intent of the book, but I wonder if a slight paradigm shift would be useful; that coaching leadership could be about how we operate as leaders (coaches) not necessarily exclusively finding leadership gold in everyone?
I appreciate the value you place on your parents and others who surrounded you in your youth and how they taught you about God’s love. I feel very fortunate to also have had a strong network of love and support around me as I grew up. I still look to some of those who were around me when I was young for advice or for prayer. They weren’t necessarily coaches to me but were important influences in my journey of faith. I appreciate the reminder you gave us, that we love people as God is working God’s goals within them. Thank you!
It is encouraging to see the results of parents works in their child. It is always my prayer that my children will see that in me, or I would be a good example for them to follow.
In your posting, you talk about others (like your parents, and church leaders) effects on guiding you, and you as the pastor in guiding your congregation, it is very interesting. Can you give an example of how you would apply the principles of coaching in your church?
Dinka, Thank you for your thoughtful conclusion on your blog post: “To be a Christian leader is to relate to others in a particular way. We don’t use people to pursue a goal; we love people as God is working his goals in them” (Camacho, 117)
What you’ve done with your writing from Mining for Gold, is what Tim Clark points out in his reply: Are we only coaching leaders? Should we be dealing with all God’s children with this approach of seeking gold? You were truly discipled as a young person according to your story. What a gift!