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First Path 1 Coaching Forum Exceeds Expectations, Begins the Journey

Gary Shockley

"It's going very well," said Shockley, a Path 1 New Church strategist for the General Board of Discipleship (GBOD), an agency of The United Methodist Church.

"People have been saying this has exceeded expectations and the caliber of our module sessions has been really engaging."

He and the New Church Starts division staff spent nearly a year planning this annual event to train coaches who will venture out into the various conferences to work with church planters and the major stakeholders of their new churches.

There were a few cancellations caused by the winter blast that swept across much of the United States at the end of the first week of January.

But many more braved the elements, as evidenced by one row of cars -- with license plates from Louisiana, Michigan, Maryland and Kentucky -- parked just outside the entrance into the Path 1 Coaching Forum headquarters at Nashville's West End United Methodist Church.

The forum was conducted by 18 mentor-coaches, a diverse leadership group linked by their dedication to planting new United Methodist Churches throughout the United States.

The reason for initiating this event was that "planting new churches -- now -- is vital," says Shockley.

The seven training modules explored coaching strategies to help those who will work with planters succeed "in our denomination's goal to make disciples of Jesus Christ," according to Shockley.

The modules were: "Active and Engaged Listening," "Asking Powerful and Evocative Questions," "Supporting Planter's Quest for Wellbeing," "Coaching Processes," "Managing Self & Others for Greater Effectiveness," "Creating Intrinsic Motivation that Unleashes Energy," and "Facilitating Stakeholder Decision Making."

An example of the training was the enthusiastic role-playing that took place during the Coaching Processes module overseen by Phil Maynard, director of congregational transformation for the Florida Conference, and Kim Shockley, a consultant and facilitator who trains and mentors coaches in the Florida Annual Conference.

"They are practicing asking good questions," said Gary Shockley, looking on as the session partly conducted by his wife kept a loud hum of conversation going in the room.

The importance of the training was outlined by Shockley in the weeks leading up to the training, when he said new church starts will "reach more people, reach more younger people, reach more diverse people and do better evangelism," which will help the denomination reverse the trend of churches and membership dying off.

"We cannot plant new churches fast enough to recover from the spiraling decline in our denomination," he says. "Revitalizing churches, which is not the core task of Path 1, is the other key to strengthening our general church. We need to do both things well!"

The multicultural focus not only was apparent in the diversity of those participating in the training, but also in the titles of the 100 or so books that were available for purchase. These books explored such topics as planting in the African-American and Latino communities as well as general church planting strategies.

The decline, of course, is not just a problem experienced by United Methodists, but one that is faced by virtually all denominations, according to Shockley.

And that's why a part of his strategy for the first session was to draw from outside The United Methodist Church.

At least two of those who attended the forum were from other denominations. Shockley says he hopes to build on that. He believes that the Path 1 focus on coaching and training coaches in church plants can be applied in all denominations that are dealing with decline.

"This won't be the only time the coaching network will be developed during the year.

"We are doing a parallel thing at the School of Congregational Development each summer where we will focus on the other two key components of our coaching model: consultation and facilitation," says Shockley.

The plan is for coach training to be carried out at both annual gatherings.

Tom Butcher

"It's a change in focus for the denomination," Butcher said. "This is the first time the denomination has put a national emphasis on church planting in over 100 years.

"We used to have the habit as United Methodists or the Methodist Church in the 1800s of planting a church a day.

"Ultimately we hope to get back to that -- and even more."

Butcher said that given the decline in the last 50 years, "It's going to take three quadrennial cycles to reach the earlier level of congregational planting."

But that doesn't mean the denomination needs to wait. The coaching forum is just one aspect of the plan to step up the pace of new churches, he said.

"By the end of 2012, our goal is to have 650 new congregations," Butcher said.

That's where Shockley and his plan come into play, with the 18 mentor-coaches -- including him and his wife -- "working to develop the next wave of coaches and the future waves of coaches to come along."

"My desire is that out of the 80 here, we'll have 20 maybe saying they're willing to take the next steps with us," and move toward endorsement, becoming a first wave of trained folks to go into the conferences and districts that already had been asking Shockley for coaches to aid in planting.

"There are a lot of coaches and coaching organizations that work with churches. We see our coaches as being a hybrid of a coach/consultant/facilitator and developing those three skill sets.>

"They will not only work with the church planter but with all the stake holders in a church plant, any funding organizations that are a part of that within a district. That's a unique piece we bring to this."

As he watched and listened to the energized role-playing, he smiled again. "This has been something that's absolutely worth celebrating," he said. "It's a significant development in what we're doing."

By the end of the event, Living Waters UMC in Bozeman, MT, signed a contract with Path 1 to provide coaching for two years. Jim Robey, mentor-coach for Path 1, was assigned by Shockley to coach Morie Adams-Griffin, pastor of Living Waters.

"This isn't the end of the journey," said Shockley. "We're learning from this and will use it to assess and reflect as we move toward our goal."

The General Board of Discipleship's mission is to support annual conference and local church leaders for their task of equipping world-changing disciples. An agency of The United Methodist Church, GBOD (www.gbod.org) is located at 1908 Grand Ave. in Nashville, Tenn. For more information, call the Media Relations Office toll free at 877-899-2780, ext. 7017.

Tim Ghianni is a Nashville, Tennessee-based freelance writer for the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship.

News Media Contact: Steve Horswill-Johnston, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 340-1726 or shorswill-johnston@gbod.org.