I had been asking the same question to dozens of people at a conference regarding refugees. \u201cWhere did you go to school and why should I go there?\u201d 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 heard were similar and consisted of how great their school was. I began to see some trends. Then, I asked one of the speakers, Dr. Mark Glanville, the same question. I talked with him for only ten minutes but that short conversation changed my mindset as he dug deep looking for gold hidden in my quest. He responded with a question of his own, \u201cWhat passions has God given you and what giftings did he equip you with?\u201d I shared my passions and giftings. He then casually told me his school would not be the right place for me. In fact, he told me there was no program in North America that would fit within the Venn diagram of my passions. \u201cThat is exactly why you must continue in school. The academy needs someone with your passions and giftings,\u201d he responded. \u201cSeek the direction of the Holy Spirit. He will guide you to the right program.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dr. Glanville did not tell me what to do or where to go. Instead, he helped me figure out why I was going anywhere in the first place. Essentially, he exemplified the insights of mining for gold in a leader (Camacho 2019, 5). He knew that gold can be found anywhere. He opened his eyes and discerned with his spirit what I was truly looking for. He had learned how to draw out the potential in me. Finally, he was focused on developing more leaders. This short ten-minute coaching session was exactly what I needed to gain clarity and insight on the next step to take. It was not long after that conversation that I made the steps of enrolling in this program.<\/p>\n
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One aspect of Camacho\u2019s book that I really appreciate is the need to rely on the Holy Spirit. Throughout his book he is reminding the reader that the goal is to learn where the Holy Spirit is working and to lean into that. He affirms that coaches should help leaders clarify where they are going (Camacho 2019, 28). Again, Camacho encourages the coach, “As coaching leaders, our role is to help them focus on the weightier issues of their lives: their identity, their calling, their character and their design” (Camacho 2019, 59).<\/p>\n
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A few years ago, I began to realize that the words I have spoken to some individuals carried much more weight than I ever realized. Friends would share with me questions I asked them and encouragement I gave them that set them on a new trajectory. I realized that I often did not even remember the conversation myself. As I have read Camacho\u2019s book, I was reminded of the power that two simple actions have. The first action is active listening. I do not think I do this very well, but it is something I have learned that I need to become better at. The older I get the better I get at listening to others, but on the flip side the older I get the harder it is to hear others (thanks to fifteen years of working on a fire truck!). The second action is asking good questions. I find that asking the right question at the right time can truly be powerful as my interaction with Dr. Glanville demonstrates.<\/p>\n
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Another brilliant point of Camacho\u2019s book is reminding the leader to live out who God has created you to be. He writes, “Finding my design set me free to live and serve others with peace and joy” (Camacho 2019, 124). Over the last year, I have taught a few classes on evangelism. I have become frustrated with so many Christian authors encouraging the Christian to be like Paul, Timothy, or Wesley. Too often, Christians try to emulate some of the great historical characters we read about. Yet, the Holy Spirit is not looking for another Paul. Instead, he is looking for me to be completely who I am designed to be. I am not a Paul. The Holy Spirit wants to use me through my successes and my failures. This does not mean there are not great lessons to be learned from the historical figures but we are to live out our own lives in our own spaces and cultures.<\/p>\n
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One aspect of Camacho\u2019s book that I would have like to have seen covered is the idea of searching for and asking a person to be a coach. What should we look for in a coach? He writes about how to coach leaders and shares that he himself is coached. Yet, I find myself questioning what should I be looking for? Assuming I find a great coach, how do I make the most of my coaching session? Should a coach be a person who I am already acquainted with and might know me deeper or should a coach be someone who does not know me yet? Maybe it will be in these discussions that I find some of the answers to my questions I was left with.<\/p>\n
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References:<\/p>\n
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Camacho, Tom. 2019. Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching<\/em>. First published. Nottingham: IVP.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had been asking the same question to dozens of people at a conference regarding refugees. \u201cWhere did you go to school and why should I go there?\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":205,"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":[1],"tags":[1555,2967],"class_list":["post-34898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-camacho","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34898","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\/205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34899,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34898\/revisions\/34899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}