Our services are funded by your generous support of the World Service Fund, through the sale of products & services, and through individual gifts. Learn more about our stewardship.

Content reproducible for church use with our permission. Learn How

News

Path 1 Seeking 150 People for Inaugural Church Planting Coaching Forum

Gary Shockley

That's the date and place of the first Path 1 Coaching Forum, a planned annual event at which 18 mentor-coaches -- a diverse leadership group dedicated to planting new United Methodist Churches throughout the United States -- will train like-minded souls.

The reason for this inaugural event is that "planting new churches -- now -- is vital," says Shockley, a New Church strategist for Path 1, a division of the General Board of Discipleship (GBOD), an agency of The United Methodist Church.

He says the coaching strategies to support new church starts will be laid out in seven training modules during the forum -- "effective coaching of planters and those involved in their work is a tremendous help in our denomination's goal to make disciples of Jesus Christ."

New church starts will "reach more people, 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!"

It is a problem faced not just by United Methodists, but by virtually all denominations, according to Shockley.

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

"We are trying to find a way to get the word out among our sister denominations. I am not aware of anything like what we are developing being available in other denominations."

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," 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 says. "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 says 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 says.

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

That's where Shockley and his plan come into play.

"It's a fairly elaborate structure or process we're developing for this," Shockley says of January's inaugural forum. "It began by finding me and 17 other mentor-coaches.

"The 18 of us will be working to develop the next wave of coaches and the future waves of coaches to come along."

Versed in coaching, consulting and facilitating, the 18 are both lay and clergy, with experience in new church starts.

As result of the schooling they offer in January, the hopes are for at least 30 coaches moving toward "endorsement" to emerge from the training.

That would provide at least a wave of trained folks to go into the conferences and districts that already are asking Shockley for coaches to aid in planting.

"We're in the process of orienting our mentor-coaches now," says Shockley, referring to the initial panel of 18. "I've got a webinar in a couple of weeks. We're going to try to get these folks together so they get to know each other" and continue the development of the plan.

He says about 50 people have signed up or are in the process of signing up for the January forum, but many of these are district supervisors and annual conference leaders who are going to attend simply to become more educated about Path 1.

"I know some annual conferences that are planning to send 10 people from their conference," he says. "And some of the coaches who are going to come are going to go back to their conferences to coach pastors of existing congregations, even though the focus of what we're doing is on new church starts."

"They can take away from it what they want and apply it how they wish," says Shockley. "People are coming to be trained in coaching in general. Then we have the people who are interested in coaching new congregations."

Shockley adds that as far as he knows, the Path 1 coaching forum and subsequent plans are unique.

"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 stakeholders 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."

For information about the forum, visit www.path1.org/coach.

Shockley also welcomes e-mail inquiries at gshockley@gbod.org.

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.

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