“I have found that almost every leader asks these two questions of God: Who have you created me to be? What have you created me to do to serve you and your kingdom?\u201d [1]\u00a0
Aren\u2019t those the very questions that most Christians ask themselves sooner or later? I would even venture to say that non-Christians ask essentially the same questions, even if they are phrased differently. Seeking to know ourselves and our purpose in this world is simply part of being human.
For this reason, I see Tom Camacho\u2019s work in Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders Through Coaching as applicable on a much wider scale than he seems to intend. I would go so far as to say that his title, and by corollary the main premise of the work, pigeonholes the book too narrowly.
This is a book for leaders, I agree, because anyone applying Camacho\u2019s method (let\u2019s call this person the \u201ccoach\u201d for clarity) must have earned some degree of respect to speak into another\u2019s life (let\u2019s call this person the \u201ccoachee\u201d) in the way Camacho proposes. But it does not follow that the coachee must be someone who has their sights set on leadership. Camacho\u2019s principles are not specific to raising up leaders in Christian ministry. These practices can and should be done in every discipleship, shepherding, and dare I say parenting relationship.
Camacho refers to the abundant life Jesus promises in John 10:10. He says, “Thriving is not just a good idea. It is your birthright.” [2] If thriving truly is our birthright then it is not limited to leaders. That promise is for all followers of Jesus.
One could argue that pastors and ministry leaders should always be raising up others to be lay leaders. We\u2019re all familiar with the exhortation to \u201cwork yourself out of a job.\u201d The best leaders are always training and delegating. We see this in Jethro\u2019s advice to Moses (Exodus 18:13-26) and in Paul\u2019s advice to Timothy (Timothy 2:2). While that is a sensible leadership principle, applying it here misses a whole segment of potential practitioners of coaching leadership. There are many coaches who serve coachees who will never be ministry leaders.
To be clear, I very much appreciate Camacho\u2019s approach. It would be a missed opportunity to apply them only to those we deem as potential leaders. In other words, these principles should be applied irrespective of a coachee\u2019s potential for current or future leadership.
There are many obvious and a few not-so-obvious applications of Camacho\u2019s method. As I was reading, I couldn\u2019t help but think of a newly arrived missionary who I\u2019ve been meeting with. We\u2019ve been calling it \u201cmentoring\u201d but honestly it looks a lot like what Camacho describes. We meet monthly with little or no set agenda. She shares what\u2019s on her mind and I ask probing questions. I occasionally share from my own experiences of adjusting to the mission field 11 years ago, but mostly I listen and reflect back to her what I hear. Thanks to this reading, I have an expanded list of questions to ask the next time I see her. [3] From now on, I will prompt her to clearly identify some action steps at the end of each meeting. [4]
Of course, I can\u2019t help but see the clear connection to my area of research which is parenting. Camacho could just retitle the book Mining for Gold: Parenting with a Coaching Mindset. His foundational acronym is a great approach to parenting:
G \u2013 Gold is everywhere. (Yes, even in the toughest kid.)
O \u2013 Open your eyes to see it. (How often are we blinded as we struggle to meet the demands of each day?)
L \u2013 Learn the skills to draw it out. (Great parenting is much more than instinct. Skills can be improved.)
D \u2013 Develop others continuously. (After all, the end goal of parenting is developing these little humans. And it is a continuous task. Nonstop.) [5]
Likewise, we could apply the examples of selfish leadership that Camacho reprises from Bob Mumford\u2019s work. If we look at them through a parenting lens, we could call them \u201cdisasters waiting to happen.\u201d Without reproducing them all here, they include wanting to look good, thinking you\u2019re always right, having a hidden agenda and choosing to remain undisturbed. [6]
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention my favorite tip in the book, which is also an important parenting practice. “A great reminder to keep ourselves in the right frame of mind is the acrostic WAIT: W hy A m I T alking? When we find we are doing most of the talking, it\u2019s time to pull back and reengage our listening skills.” [7] I laughed out loud when I read those lines, but the advice is quite serious and necessary. In parenting, as in much of life, effective listening is an essential tool.
In Chapter 7, Camacho includes a beautiful metaphor for the Christian life. \u201cSailing is a more biblical picture for our life with God. In sailing, there is an outside force, the wind of God\u2019s Spirit, helping us do things we could never do on our own. The Spirit does the work. He can move a mighty ship through the water with ease and beauty, but that ship must cooperate with the Wind. He is able to accomplish things that are impossible for us to do in our own effort.\u201c [8] What an essential perspective for every Christian to live out. What a beautiful gift it is to give our children this reliance on the Holy Spirit. What a worthy goal for every one of our coachees. Leader or not, we can all learn to sail.<\/p>\r\n
—-<\/p>\r\n
[1] Camacho, Tom. Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching<\/em>. First published. Nottingham: IVP, 2019. 28.<\/p>\r\n [2] Ibid. 106.<\/p>\r\n [3] Ibid. 45.<\/p>\r\n [4] Ibid. 47.<\/p>\r\n [5] Ibid. 11.<\/p>\r\n [6] Ibid. 56-57.<\/p>\r\n [7] Ibid. 43.<\/p>\r\n [8] Ibid. 67.<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I have found that almost every leader asks these two questions of God: Who have you created me to be? What have you created me to do to serve you and your kingdom?\u201d [1]\u00a0 Aren\u2019t those the very questions that most Christians ask themselves sooner or later? I would even venture to say that non-Christians […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[1555,1574,1558],"class_list":["post-29998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-camacho","tag-coaching","tag-mining-for-gold","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30200,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29998\/revisions\/30200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}