Coaching Discipleship

If you haven't already read the previous post entitle "living WORSHIP", please read it below before reading what follows here.

Ask a high school student at St. Stephen the Martyr Lutheran Church what the word "disciple" means and she will quickly respond "a follower". (We spent all last year repeating that same lesson in various ways.) To be a follower of Jesus means to participate in his mission of reconciling the world to God by the power of Holy Spirit.

That's a nice thought coming from an egg-head theologian. So let's break it down.

How can we follow Jesus? We have to be able to see him if we're going to follow his lead. So we look for signs of Holy Spirit revealing his presence among us. Signs of a world reconciled to God includes forgiving sins, loving enemies, transforming people's priorities beyond their own security, engaging life with a worldview by which people discern their unique role in God's salvation story, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.

When we see these signs, our idols of self are shattered. We are free to respond to Holy Spirit calling us into Jesus' mission. We are free to follow Jesus in reconciling the world to God. This is a life-long journey. Our whole lives are dedicated to following Jesus 24/7/365 by "living WORSHIP".

God knows we don't make it very far along this journey if we're alone. The church is at our best when we accompany fellow followers with accountability, affirmation, and when need be even admonishment. We are all peers, equally incapable of participating in Jesus' mission apart from Holy Spirit empowering us. So none of us are experts to teach others how to follow Jesus just like we do.

That's why at St. Stephen the Martyr we do peer coaching to grow in our discipleship. The coaches aren't perfect, and they're not expected to be. Rather, they are partners in the journey, themselves wrestling with the difficulties of following Jesus. On the second Saturday of each month, at an event we call 2.B.1, students in grades 7 - 12 check in with their peer coaches to see where we've come this past month along the journey and to prepare for what we expect lies ahead in the weeks to come. Here's what the process of coaching discipleship looks like at SSM:

When a student first pairs up with a peer coach, the two of them cut a coaching covenant. The format of our coaching covenant has seven columns and two rows. Across the top of the columns are the seven marks of discipleship: Worship, Order, Read, Serve, Help, Invite, Pray. The first row is labeled "Where I am now" and the second "What one step further looks like for me." The young disciple and the peer coach discuss each of these one by one, keeping the focus on living out their faith in the world beyond the walls of the church institution.

So for example, one team may discuss the mark of ordering our resources to follow Jesus something like this. "Where I am now" is that I'm unsatisfied with the quality of my relationship with my sister. "What one step further looks like for me" is not to play video games by myself after school twice a week and instead spend time doing what my sister would like to do.

This is a sign of Holy Spirit revealing Jesus' presence where two are gathered, reconciling them to one another and to God. The two siblings themselves participate in this sign of divine activity.

The goal set forth in the coaching covenant is responsive to the unique faith journey of the student. This isn't the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional youth groups. And the goals aren't cast in some preconceived notion of what a good churchy person should be, but instead are based on the discernment of the special person God is calling them to be.

To return to the example above, the peer coach isn't an expert on reconciling estranged relationships. The only requirement to be a coach is to be on your own faith journey and formulate questions for the disciple based on your own experience. These questions hold the disciple accountable to the coaching covenant. questions such as: "How was your time with your sister this month?" "What challenges have you faced in meeting your goal of twice weekly spending time with her on her terms?" "What gifts has God given you to face these challenges?" And then finally, a coaching session isn't finished until the disciple comes up with an action plan to pursue the next month. "How will you use your gifts this month?" "How can I be praying for you?"

Authenticity and affirmation provided to each disciple by a peer coach accompanying their unique faith journey through life -- that's how the church forms followers of Jesus. And what is most often lacking in the church (along with accountability) is measurable results. By coaching discipleship via "living WORSHIP" we can look back at the end of each year and see where we've been on our faith journey. We can celebrate haven taken one step further in the marks of discipleship. And when these marks are understood as signs of our participation in Jesus' divine mission by "living WORSHIP", we can hold up our coaching covenants and say: "Look how we've been God's church in the world!"