By: Chris Blackman on January 18, 2024
Right off the bat, I got excited about this book. I have seen the beauty and the hand of God with marginalized people. I have gotten to know houseless people and have worked with people with addictions and alcoholism. As some of you know (because I am not shy), I lived inside prison walls for…
By: Joel Zantingh on January 17, 2024
Coaching has been a part of my story for more than two decades. For context, it was while I was still a young 30-something church planter that I had the privilege of being certified as a coach within my denomination, The Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada (EMCC) [1]. Early on in my pastoral work, I…
By: Noel Liemam on January 17, 2024
After the first week of readings and a lot of discussions on readings, taking notes and how to improve oneself in these areas, I try to approach this week’s readings in light of those lessons. As we are reading this week assignment, “Minning For Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching,” by Tom Camacho, I ask…
By: Russell Chun on January 17, 2024
Hágase la luz! Let there be light (Spanish) Introduction Part 1: What my peers and others are saying. Part 2: What I took away from Poole. Part 3: How this impacts my NPO Epilogue Introduction: 11 January 2024, During a bible study, an elderly gentlemen shared his testimony. He spoke of his assignment in 1950…
By: Debbie Owen on January 17, 2024
The assignment to read Camacho’s book, Mining for Gold, couldn’t have come at a better time for me. After the feedback I received from the workshop last fall, as well as from both formal and informal conversations since then, I’ve pivoted a bit from where I started. I’m passionate about discipleship and disciple-making in churches since my…
By: Glyn Barrett on January 16, 2024
I was somewhat disappointed with Tom Camacho’s book. Perhaps I assumed too much from the title and the foreword. It’s not that the book was poorly written or that the subject matter was irrelevant; it appeared to promise one thing and deliver another. The title says “Developing Kingdom leaders through coaching”. That is an audacious…
By: Esther Edwards on January 16, 2024
I remember growing up watching a show called “The Jetsons.” The Jetsons lived in the Sky Pad apartments in Orbit City, Outer Space, and possessed futuristic amenities including a robot maid named Rosie. Even as a little girl, watching it had me dream of the day I wouldn’t have to clean my room and a…
By: Graham English on January 16, 2024
Reading “Mining for Gold” by Tom Camacho came fresh on the heels of a recent visit to Yellowknife, a small Canadian city in the Northwest Territories synonymous with the gold rush of the 1930s. Even though the goldmines have been closed for some time, there is still a vibrant and eclectic community of approximately 20,000…
By: Shela Sullivan on January 15, 2024
For our initial assignment last week, we explored the works by Adler, Mortimer Jerome, and Charles Van Doren, “How to Read a Book,” along with Ahrens, Sönke’s “How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning, and Thinking.” I applied the reading and note-taking techniques from these sources to this week’s material,…
By: Tim Clark on January 15, 2024
The Ultimate Computer was an episode of Star Trek[1] that featured the character Dr. Richard Daystrom, a scientist tasked to upload his powerful “M5 computer” into the Starship Enterprise so it could control the ship for upcoming wargames. This efficient supercomputer quickly turned deadly, first killing a crew member (because it was in the way…
By: Adam Cheney on January 15, 2024
I had been asking the same question to dozens of people at a conference regarding refugees. “Where did you go to school and why should I go there?” I was searching for direction but could not figure out if the Holy Spirit was directing me to a doctoral program or somewhere else. Most answers I…
By: Pam Lau on January 15, 2024
“ . . .The crew never believed they had failed. Instead they believed that each idea led them a bit closer to finding the better option. And that allowed them to come to work each day engaged and excited even in the midst of confusion. This is key.”[1] In 2014, Ed Catmull wrote a…
By: Kally Elliott on January 15, 2024
In her own blog post, Eve Poole writes, “My friend is writing a book on robot sex. He’s a professor of ethics, so that’s his day job. And jobs seem to be what it’s all about; widespread panic that the robots are going to put us all out of business.”[1] Interesting. I listened to a…
By: Travis Vaughn on January 15, 2024
In 2022, I decided to put the third season of my podcast on hold due to my doctoral studies. At present, I don’t imagine I will return to the studio until AFTER May 2025. But when season three happens, now that I’ve read Eve Poole’s Robot Souls: Programming in Humanity[1] I have an idea of…
By: Diane Tuttle on January 15, 2024
In Mining for Gold, Tom Comacho explores ways for individuals to recognize their spiritual and personal gifts, their gold. The process for doing this can be for personal use or to assist others to find what inspires and energizes them through coaching. Reading this book brought a flood of thoughts that initially seemed independent of…
By: Jennifer Vernam on January 15, 2024
Some Leaders I Know Leaders that I work with do not have enough time to do their jobs. With every moment of their day scheduled, they are trying to address tensions, labor shortages, and financial constraints unlike any I have seen in my 25 years in the field. These mission-minded individuals are continually asked to…
By: Jeff Styer on January 15, 2024
No pressure here folks. Our second blog post, not fully confident in our reading and writing abilities and we are assigned Tom Camacho’s Mining for Gold [1]. I picked up the book and read the comments on the back, I read a blog post I found online and then I read the reviews inside the…
By: Jennifer Eckert on January 12, 2024
I have made multiple attempts to pen this premier blog. As a champion overthinker, I visited numerous rabbit holes to critically consider what a self-assessment means and what standard I compare. Framing my evaluation in humility may sound disingenuous, and efforts to incorporate humor did not seem as funny the next day. So, the cycle…
By: Jana Dluehosh on January 11, 2024
Identity. What a hard concept to nail down and at the same time a key part of every human experience. One of my past teachers stated, “we are the medicine, how well do you know that medicine?”. [1] This is a key part of my “why” I do what I do and who I am. …
By: Noel Liemam on January 11, 2024
As I try to give an assessment or an evaluation to the levels of reading, note taking and writing capacity, I come to terms with the thought there are correlations between my reading, note-taking, and writing essays abilities. Generally speaking, we could say that writing skills would improve by not only writing, but the practice…
