DMM: Coaching Questions for Heart and Four Fields-Reproduce Laborers Part 2

Ways to get workers connected or involved:

Coaching Questions:

• Have all potential laborers come together to unite around prayer. Each one can share what they are willing to share. Others may find that they are also involved in a similar project or are interested in certain kinds of ministries and they can connect and talk more. At the very least they can pray for one another. 

• Unite around common, short-term projects. Listen to their hearts and their vision. Connect them to others who can help. (Note: Money inserted into any relationship of outsider with near-neighbor culture workers is potentially one of the most difficult areas to discern. Be coached by others who are CPM seasoned and can walk you through how money could kill movements if not handled wisely.) 

• Work together to create prayer tools that can be used across organizations and across teams.

• Be there for workers who are experiencing crisis, whether in their home, in their ministry, or back at home. People remember who was caring in crisis and will come to you for vision or advice in other areas. 

• Float simple CPM DNA kinds of projects out there and see who responds. Jesus invited His disciples to do small things and through those things they were ready for larger things. (schedule prayer walking times, where you create on-ramps in modeling getting into POP fishing type conversations, e.g.) 

Remember: 

• No one wants to work “your plan” or “your” agenda. As team changes, strategy plans should be revisited and adopted as team. Be clear on the vision which the Father has called you to in CPM, graciously but firmly stay fixed on the End Vision. 

• There are workers, and there are workers. Sometimes none or few workers is better than folks who would seek to guide the ministry in a different direction. Make clear the End Vision you feel called to in CPM, whether it is a short-term team who wants to come to your UPG through your help, or long-term potential workers. 

• Let End Vision lead your team and your teams of workers. You can unite around common vision, and you can also evaluate alignment of vision. It is easier to part ways if vision is what unites you, and not personalities. 

• Sometimes teams split or change. Do not take it personally and try to save relationships even if not working relationships. Even Paul had a few team splits. If they don’t apply what has been trained, or are not fruitful or applying, keep moving. We coach and mentor those who are seeking to apply and also the fruitful. 

• “Move with the movers, love the lingerers.” We need to love well but also need to be increased in choosing with whom to partner well. There are a few cases where that “lingerer” or “impressed spectator” is drawn by the Father to become a catalytic type at a later time. Ask God who might be a “lingerer” with whom you are spending time? How might you challenge them one more time to the End Vision with expressed opportunity to reconnect if they ever feel called to this same vision in the future? 

• Local workers want to be valued for themselves, not what they add to the work. When they are equipped, coached on-going, they could be highly effective in reaching their own people. One modern day missiological myth which needs to be in the “paradigm buster” category, is to presume that by virtue of the near neighbor being from a similar culture that they “automatically” are more effective than complete outsiders. 

A more fruitful perspective would be to see that without one increasing in God-centric confidence as well as God-centric competence (skillset of equipping) then one’s ability to be most effective is not fully realized. (Note: I am a Texan. I was born and raised in Texas. I know Texans. However, it is a huge leap to presume that I can “automatically” be most effective in multiplying disciple-makers simply by being a Texan. So, it follows that one needs to be equipped by one who models-assists (equips)-watches-love/coaches them to excel in fruit bearing before they can be as effective as God would desire for His glory.) Now, it is true that once the near neighbor person is coached into effective disciple making of reaching households of disciple-makers, that they can run deeper into the culture in ways which a complete outsider might not, that is an observation. 

• Partnering for the sake of partnering does not accomplish the end vision. Let the vision be the North Star that unites and God’s love and our one-another-ing be a strong driving factor in how we work together. Your commitment to modeling God’s heart and member health-ing others well is vitally important in this process of what it is to model well. How might the Lord desire to increase this aspect in your own life?

What do you need to stop doing? Start doing? Continue doing in this area?