CyberTsunami

A Personal Brag

I seldom use this blog as a personal forum, but I just need to brag. My son, who is graduating from University Hight School in Fresno this week, has been participating in the Academic Decathalon Small School virtual nationals. Without a long explanation, a small group is under 650. UHS has under 400, yet it ranked as the 36th best high school in the nation regardless of size among ALL public and private high schools.

The Academic Decathalon nationals were last weekend, and UHS defended their title as the national small school champions. They actually scored better than the national medium school (under 1,300) winners. My son, Ryan, had the highest score in the nation for his own division. He brought home medals in 5 of the 8 divisions for the competition.

I'm just a proud dad. As I said, he graduates this week and will soon start driving (he is just 16), so pray for me and let me know if you have any advice.

Book Review: Christ-Centered Coaching

Coaching is one of the new buzz words. My office (the Healthy Church Group) has started coaching groups for pastors to help them with strategic envisioning. What we call coaching is vastly different from what Jane Creswell calls Christ Centered Coaching. For her Christ Centered coaching is.

• Finding answers, not providing them.
• a vehicle for moving one forward.
• focuses on identifying and strengthening strengths.

The Benefits of Christ Centered Coaching revolve around:

•  Orienting around Strengths
•  Clarity/Focus
•  Confidence
•  Learning
•  Intentional Progress
•  Coaching Others
•  God Sized Goals

She unpacks these benefits and the main chapters of the rest of the book. Each chapter starts with a real life example of a Christian leader in a coaching situation. Creswell says that the example are all aggregate examples taken from her own experience. Each chapter ends with tips for coaches and for those being coached. Most are excellent, practical suggestions. A few seem to be unrelated to the chapter that they close.

Creswell also makes use of an abundance of Scripture. While it is great to be Biblically based, many of the Scripture references border on prooftexting.

In spite of some awkward writing and marginal Biblical interpretation, the book is probably the best contemporary work on coaching for the mass Christian leadership market. Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary uses the book as a text in its D.Min program in coaching.

Jane Creswell is the founder of the IBM Coaches Network and a master certified coach from the International Coach Foundation. She works closely with George Bullard.