In Post 1, we spoke of the demands from both God’s Word and God’s heart and why this helps promote the coaching relationship.  In Post 2, we really got to the high purpose of coaching: establishing purposeful direction for the local church.  Now, I’d like to share the effect that this process continues to have on us.

 At the conclusion of the coaching relationship, as a church,  you’re left with many questions. There are limitless opportunities and numerous applications for how being the missions minded church God has suited you to be will be seen.  For us, we emerged from the process with a clear mission, values to go about that mission and we were even led to some strategic focus areas.  It’s not that other things didn’t continue to be on our radar but those strategic focus areas and relationships were coming to the forefront.

We hoped that our clarified focus would have an immediate impact on our church, and in some ways it did.  We launched a new program emphasis for connecting to the Navajo nation and through this we’ve seen a nearly 70% connection to families in our church.  Will you think about that for a second?  That’s 70% of the families that are connected to our church, on a given weekend,  plugged into the missions direction of our church.  I’m still stunned at the impact God has allowed us to see.  That was a huge success.

I’ve noticed that the people in our church are more “mission-minded,” which is somewhat difficult to quantify, but we’re seeing new people involved in the work, different faces engaged in trips, and diverse voices gathered around the table.  It’s been wonderful to see our congregation unite around these things.  Like the Psalmist says, “how beautiful it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity.”

But, we haven’t arrived.  We have ongoing challenges about making connections in India.  We have a heart to do more but continue to wonder what’s next or where to begin.  We lack some clarity here and have some plans in place to overcome that lack of clarity, but I say this to say that missions coaching didn’t fix everything.  There are still considerations that we wrestle and pray over.

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is our focus.  We know exactly what we are suited to do and have a pretty good idea about how we are going to be about it.  When ideas come to the table, we are able to quickly consider whether they fit with who God’s fitted us to be or not.  And this, is the abiding influence of a missions coaching relationship. Our mission hasn’t changed.  Our values are locked in.  We’re not there yet, but we continue to press toward living this out.  That’s what missions coaching is about — engaging us to move out for the glory of God and the good of the nations.  

So, if this is where you’d like to be, I’d encourage you to dive into this relationship.  If I can do anything to encourage you, feel free to contact me.  Blessings on you as you proceed in God’s Word…living out His heart and pressing into the nations.

Phil Auxier
http://cbch2go.blogspot.com
@cbch2go

As people who love God and His heart for the nations, you may not realize how difficult it can be to connect His heart to the heart of a local church. Hear one church’s journey in this archived webinar  “Moving From a Reactive to a Proactive Missions Vision” , where Phil Auxier, senior pastor of Crestview Bible Church shares how they took God’s Word seriously and began to apply it to their local context  You can access it HERE along with many other archived webinars that you may find helpful.