More than Cheerleaders
What we need, and what we need to be
Coaches don’t have to have played to be successful. But they need to have seen enough games and called enough plays to have domain expertise and the discernment to understand what plays to call.1
I’ve experienced this directly. I started indoor rock climbing last year. I was surprised at how quickly I could point out specific things that are helpful to people who are way better climbers than I am. This was true even if I could not actually climb the same wall myself.
Could the same thing be true in Making Disciples?
The opposite of having a good coach… is only having cheerleaders in your life. If that’s all you have, you’re doomed.
We need people who understand what we’re trying to do. We need people in our lives who can offer guidance, who will be brave enough to tell us something doesn’t seem like a good idea. If you only have people who cheer for you no matter what, you’re going to end up making mistakes, and the whole time, you’ll think you’re on the right path.
To wrap up this series of posts about How to Stick as a Pioneers, we have to acknowledge that we need people to help us find the path and stay on it. We need coaches, mentors, and leaders in our lives who have our backs. We need people to ask tough questions and answer our inquiries with guiding questions and insights.
Looking back to look ahead, this is what I wrote when I started this On Pioneering series:
#2 If we, as friends of pioneers, don’t think critically about how to help them sustain over the long-haul, we limit our ability to help them reach all that God has designed them to do.
We need to be that type of person in someone else’s life. Maybe multiple people.2
This may be a surprise wrap-up to this series of posts focused on us, the pioneers, but it’s necessary… no, crucial… that we look a generation down.
Yes, we are pioneers; we need to think about how to stick as pioneers.
But to see the Kingdom advance, we need to be about the next generation of pioneers. And not in a general sense. We need to be:
the friend
the leader
the mentor
the coach
more-than-a-cheerleader
in other pioneers’ lives.
That’s what we’re diving into next. What does it take to see spiritual generations?
Stay tuned.
Godin, S. (2024). This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans. Authors Equity. p240. Also, the ‘more than cheerleaders’ concept was his.
You don’t need to have seen a movement to coach someone, but you do need to have seen enough “to have domain expertise and discernment.”
Amen - good coaching is more than encouragement. Disciple-making needs people who are actual practitioners themselves who from that vantage point can ask better questions, spot weak patterns, and help pioneers stay faithful for the long haul.
I like the application about more than cheerleaders. And, the application of how much we need mentors and leaders who will rebuke and correct us. Thanks for continuing these posts to edify the body.
Some necessary nuances:
1. Don’t get a mentor who hasn’t done it unless that’s all you can find. Have a bias for those who have done it, and are doing it.
2. Don’t seek to be a coach who hasn’t done it. Too many have, and it’s killing us in western disciple making. The need is first for laborers and second for those who coach laborers. Multiplication doesn’t work if people stop laboring when they become coaches, it just turns back into addition.