Over the last 5 months I have been doing some coaching with a great guy from the Seventh Day Adventist churches.

He discovered some stuff I had written, we had a coffee and he asked me to do some coaching with him because he was feeling the desire to explore new expressions of church and mission.

We have met 5 times now and the last time we met it felt like we had lost focus. We had gravitated back to me coaching him in his present ministry position in an established church. While I like him, I found the meeting quite draining.

As I reflected on this it occurs to me that my calling is to ‘plant churches that plant churches and to work at developing leaders who will do that’. He is part of a large and fairly orderly system that requires him to spend a lot of time in the establishment – but I don’t have a passion for developing leaders in that system. (I’ll say again, its not that its bad – its just not my gig)

I raised it today with him. What are we doing together? What does he hope to get from this time? We put on the table that if we were going to continue to meet it will be because he is seeking to follow his own call which he articulated as ‘to connect with Australian people where they are at’ free gundam wing endless waltz and explore new paradigms of ministry.

He also mentioned paying $$ for coaching, so I took him up on that too. If we meet again I imagine it will be a very focused and productive time because we will know where we are headed and the presence of $$ will cause both of us to be prepared and expectant. Its interesting how $$ changes equations!