One major focus of this spring’s Global Summit was the coaching sessions with our international partners. Over the past year, they have been working with BILD coaches to create their own ministry networks maps that will help in recognizing and training indigenous leaders.
After last year’s celebrations in India and the awarding of certificates for those who completed the Master Craftsman Doctorate of Ministry program, it was recognized that further guidance and support was needed for these leaders to continue developing their strategies in order to successfully train leaders within their ministries.
The coaching groups aren’t limited to just church network leaders in India. They include network leaders from many other countries that BILD partners with such as Mongolia, France, Ukraine, Uganda, Kenya, and several countries in Latin America. Some of the leaders represent extensive church networks in their countries. These groups have been meeting online weekly with their BILD coach and to be able to meet face to face during the Summit was very encouraging.
“The time face to face enhanced the relationships that are shaped around the work we are doing globally and locally that is patterned after Acts,” said Steve Galegor, who led coaching sessions with leaders from Mongolia, Ukraine, Albania, Kosovo, France and some other French-speaking countries.
James Riley, BILD’s translation project manager, coached groups from Latin America and Spain. He said it was a wonderful time to witness the growth of renewed relationships. “It has created a fertile landscape for the growth and development of the church leaders,” he said.
These network ministry leaders have been actively working throughout the last year to mature and develop themselves so they in turn can develop other leaders. Bill Burns, BILD’s training systems director, said the extensive coaching done during the Summit helped our partners implement the training of their leadership teams in the core principles of the Way of Christ and His Apostles and use of The First Principles Series with the broadest base of believers possible in their church networks.
In order to do that, Bill said each of our partners were encouraged to work through the Master Craftsman of Church Establishment and Expansion Program (MCCEE) in EQUIP, in peer groups under the guidance of a BILD coach. Every leader in Bill’s group completed their MCCEE and was awarded a certificate of completion during the Summit by Michael Vos.
“Coaching is about each of these ministry leaders bringing the training into the leadership teams that they lead, and Bill’s drive was that they can’t do that unless they have it first,” said Randy Wahl, BILD’s fund development manager, who also sat in on a few of Bill’s coaching sessions.
During the Summit, our partners were also shown how to use BILD’s online training tool, EQUIP, and enroll their different leadership teams into pathways specific to the needs of their ministries. James said the hope is for leaders to get everyone in their churches and networks established in their faith and using EQUIP as a tool to help them in the process.
As our international partners met throughout the week, they were able to address many different issues affecting their networks, some unique and some common to all. Galegor said it was encouraging to see how work in Mongolia was informative to leaders in Ukraine or Albania and vice versa. Because of the customized attention he could give to each leader in his group, everyone in the group benefited and could learn from each other’s experiences and challenges. “All are on the same journey with common goals but unique challenges along the way,” Galegor said.
James said those in his group were particularly impressed with how practical and specific the coaching sessions were tailored to their unique situations. He added, “The discussions that took place during the sessions led to an exchange of ideas and problem-solving strategies that are not typically found in structured workshops.”
Steve Kemp coached over 20 network leaders from India and Africa and was encouraged to hear them work through different issues and lean into each other. These leaders come from a variety of backgrounds with extensive ministry networks and the coaching sessions allowed Kemp to give customized attention to each leader.
On numerous occasions, Kemp observed when a network leader had an “aha moment” regarding a problem they were facing. “As they worked through consideration of their problems with the group, they recognized that they were relying too much on themselves for things that could be supported by others in their networks. For instance, some leaders couldn’t conceive of how they could provide support at scale for things like reviewing the work of huge numbers of non-literate leaders, but when they looked at their networks and churches rather than themselves, they could see how others could be engaged in this part of the endeavor,” Kemp said.
One of the special aspects of encouragement came during the second week, he said. Each day they began with a review of what they had already done and what was forthcoming, particularly for that day. However, during the second week, they added the element of each person stating what they would try to accomplish in BILD Cloud to make progress in their own EQUIP or Antioch School programs during that day, if they had time and opportunity. Many of the leaders came to the conference with the intention to learn new things and work on strategic plans, but not necessarily to make progress in their own EQUIP programs. “It was so encouraging to see a few of the leaders report with big smiles on their faces about breakthroughs in areas where they had not been able to make progress,” Kemp said.
BILD coaches worked with each leader as they built their apostolic maps and training plans for the cohorts of each network, and then they were able to present their work to Michael Vos and answer Michael’s questions.
While the Summit has ended, the work is never “finished” Kemp said. The next steps include further coaching with these strategic network partners as they continue to build out maps of their ministries.
“They need to refine their apostolic maps and training plans in order to present them to all of their cohort members,” Kemp said. “In one sense, they are never ‘finished’ with their training plans because they need to be updated continuously. But each network leader knows what they should do next with their network, including when they need to revisit it based on lessons learned in implementation.”
Coaching continues as our international partners refine their apostolic maps and training plans. They will launch the next steps of their training plans, with assistance from BILD coaches who provide support for the implementation of their training plans, Kemp said.
In a post-Summit reflection, Galegor commented that the time of coaching during the Summit was key in making it one of the most strategic BILD Summits he has ever experienced since he began participating in them back in 1995. “It has set up a motivation and mile marker in our ongoing work to make progress in each situation and see the Way of Christ rooted well globally,” he said.
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