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Path 1 begins training church-plant coaches Tim Ghianni, Feb 2, 2010
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GENERAL BOARD OF DISCIPLESHIP
Participants role played coaching conversations with others at the Path 1 Coaching Forum.
By Tim Ghianni Special Contributor
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The Rev. Gary Shockley smiled while he watched some 80 men and women from across the United States role-play what they were learning during the inaugural three-day Path 1 Coaching Forum.
“People have been saying this has exceeded expectations,” said Mr. Shockley, a Path 1 New Church strategist for the General Board of Discipleship (GBOD), an agency of the United Methodist Church.
He and the New Church Starts division staff spent nearly a year planning this annual event to train coaches who will venture out into the various conferences to work with church planters and the major stakeholders of their new churches.
There were a few cancellations caused by the winter blast that swept across much of the U.S. at the end of the first week of January.
But many more braved the elements, as evidenced by one row of cars—with license plates from Louisiana, Michigan, Maryland and Kentucky—parked just outside the entrance into the Path 1 Coaching Forum headquarters at West End United Methodist Church.
The forum was conducted by 18 mentor-coaches, a diverse leadership group linked by their dedication to planting new United Methodist Churches throughout the U.S. Planting new churches is vital, Mr. Shockley says.
The seven training modules explored coaching strategies to help those who will work with planters succeed “in our denomination’s goal to make disciples of Jesus Christ,” Mr. Shockley said.
The modules focused on listening skills, coaching processes, motivational tips and self-management.
Enthusiastic role-playing took place during the Coaching Processes module, overseen by Phil Maynard, director of congregational Transformation for the Florida Conference, and Kim Shockley, a consultant and facilitator who trains and mentors coaches in the Florida Conference.
Mr. Shockley said new church starts will “reach more people, more younger people, reach more diverse people and do better evangelism,” which will help the denomination reverse the trend of churches and membership dying off.
“We cannot plant new churches fast enough to recover from the spiraling decline in our denomination,” he says. “Revitalizing churches, which is not the core task of Path 1, is the other key to strengthening our general church. We need to do both things well!”
Membership decline is a problem faced by all denominations, Mr. Shockley said. That’s why part of his strategy for the first session was to draw from outside the United Methodist Church.
At least two of those who attended the forum were from other denominations. Mr. Shockley says he hopes to build on that. The Path 1 focus on coaching and training coaches in church plants, he said, can be applied in all denominations that are dealing with decline.
“This won’t be the only time the coaching network will be developed during the year,” he said. “We are doing a parallel thing at the School of Congregational Development each summer where we will focus on the other two key components of our coaching model- consultation and facilitation.”
When the forum was announced a few months ago, Rev. Tom Butcher, executive director for Path 1 at GBOD, said the more vigorous emphasis on instruction to prepare mentors and coaches for new church plants is a natural part of the revised plan for church growth.
“It’s a change in focus for the denomination,” Mr. Butcher said. “This is the first time the denomination has put a national emphasis on church planting in over 100 years.
“We used to have the habit as United Methodists or the Methodist Church in the 1800s of planting a church a day. Ultimately we hope to get back to that—and even more.” Mr. Butcher said that given the decline in the last 50 years, it would take three quadrennial cycles to reach the earlier level of congregational planting.
But that doesn’t mean the denomination needs to wait, he added. The coaching forum is just one aspect of the plan to step up the pace of new churches.
“By the end of 2012, our goal is to have 650 new congregations,” Mr. Butcher said.
That’s where Mr. Shockley and his plan come into play, “working to develop the next wave of coaches and the future waves of coaches to come along.” He hopes that at least 20 of the 80 attendees will continue on as coaches to aid in church planting.
“There are a lot of coaches and coaching organizations that work with churches,” he said. “We see our coaches as being a hybrid of a coach/consultant/facilitator and developing those three skill sets.
“They will not only work with the church planter but with all the stake holders in a church plant, any funding organizations that are a part of that within a district. That’s a unique piece we bring to this.”
By the end of the event, Living Waters UMC in Bozeman, Mont., signed a contract with Path 1 to provide coaching for two years. Jim Robey, mentor-coach for Path 1, was assigned by Mr. Shockley to coach Morie Adams-Griffin, pastor of Living Waters.
“This isn’t the end of the journey,” said Mr. Shockley. “We’re learning from this and will use it to assess and reflect as we move toward our goal.”
Mr. Ghianni is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GENERAL BOARD OF DISCIPLESHIP
“We cannot plant new churches fast enough to recover from the spiraling decline in our denomination,” he says. “Revitalizing churches, which is not the core task of Path 1, is the other key to strengthening our general church. We need to do both things well!” 
