Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople - Part 13

This is the final in a long series of posts featuring excerpts from my new book, Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople. https://www.crosstrainingpublishing.com/shop/soul-training

Challenge

If your ministry role has you serving elite level, professional, high-profile competitors or the coaches who lead them, you are in a unique position. You are among a select few people who will be allowed into their circle of friends, teammates, and colleagues. Yours is a place of remarkable privilege and immense responsibility.

Further, if this person has shown interest in growing his or her relationship with Christ Jesus, you are given a tremendous opportunity. As you step into this unique and transformational role, may I remind you of these simple points of emphasis?

·      Respect their time constraints.

·      Embrace their sport’s culture.

·      Communicate directly.

·      Demonstrate genuine interest in them.

·      Invite them into your home.

·      Love extravagantly.

·      Serve selflessly.

Keep your approach to the faith development of those in your charge simple and clear. Help them build a strong, enduring, dynamic relationship with Christ Jesus through prayer and study. Help them to also build relationships with other believers, as well as with those yet to believe.

As we walk with these people of sport, the ripple effects of our service with them have an incalculable impact across years, decades, and lifetimes. Our service will be most evident in how they compete, how they live as spouses and parents, and how they share their faith with others.

Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople - Part 12

For the next number of weeks, I will be sharing excerpts from my new book, Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople. https://www.crosstrainingpublishing.com/shop/soul-training

Faith Development Exercises 

for Elite Sportspeople

To begin the development of one’s faith I simply show the prospective disciple the diagram, explain that one’s life in Christ is developed through a vertical relationship with God in prayer and study, as well as horizontal relationships with other believers (Christian community) and with people yet to believe (the sharing of one’s faith). The stronger one’s relationship with God grows, the shadow cast among the people surrounding him or her will be stronger and broader. Then I ask them, “Where would you like to start?” This question allows the disciple to indicate his or her greatest interest up front, leading to a greater likelihood of success and long-term development.

I believe hunger is the coin of the realm for the Kingdom of God. If a person is hungry to learn and grow, he or she will commit to your process. If the person is not genuinely hungry, it won’t matter much what you do. A sated man loathes honey, But to a famished man any bitter thing is sweet. Proverbs 27:7 (NASB) Listen for their expression of hunger and feed exactly that. If you listen closely, they’ll tell you where they itch. Scratch that.

Once the starting point is determined (almost always Prayer or Study), I flip the page over and begin to share processes and resources that facilitate our growth. Once we have delved into that first element, and learned its processes, we can choose another point in the diagram, and begin its development. I have found it best to ask the disciple each time, “Where should we go next?”

It’s also wise to determine the duration of your discipleship process together. You can determine to meet for a set number of sessions, weeks, or months. To not set a timeline often leads to a sense of dread and failure if the frequency of meetings declines or circumstances cause you to stop meeting. Set the duration, complete those sessions, then determine if you should keep meeting or if it’s time to move on.

Obviously, if there are resources you prefer or processes you like better, substitute them. These have been most helpful to me and to those I have trained.

Let’s make disciples. This is my process, as adapted from a mentor. If you don’t have a process, this one is better. Choose one and get after it. 

Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople - Part 11

For the next number of weeks, I will be sharing excerpts from my new book, Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople. https://www.crosstrainingpublishing.com/shop/soul-training

Faith Development Exercises for Elite Sportspeople

Since 1980 I have been engaged in the process of making disciples and since 1985, I have been using the same approach to this process. I learned it from my mentor, Fred Bishop of No Greater Love Ministries. This approach is very simple but allows for tremendous depth and flexibility for both the faith development leader, and the disciple.

Having now served people in the sporting world since 1994, and continuing to make disciples along the way, this approach has proven to be quite effective. Please consider using this model or modifying it to suit your purposes. It can be used in one-to-one settings, with small groups, or even large groups.

If you are an elite level person of sport, I believe this process and its exercises will serve you well. Please look through the diagrams and descriptions of the processes to choose a point for beginning. As your faith develops, simply work your way around the four points of the cross to develop your faith completely. These exercises can help you continually grow across your lifetime, in sport and beyond it.

If you are someone serving the men and women of the elite sporting world, I believe this process and its exercises can be of great value to you. This model can provide a simple framework upon which you can add your own favorite exercises and resources for making disciples of Christ Jesus. Simply use this model as a starting point and systematically aid the sportspeople in the development of their faith.

The process I use is pictured here. It focuses on four areas of development of Christian life. Prayer – Study – Christian Community – Sharing One’s Faith. With sportspeople, I often call these exercises or drills that we practice developing our lives in Christ. I will explain, demonstrate, and assign a process or a resource for exercising, and in succeeding sessions we will review their discoveries, insights, and answer their questions. I always emphasize that Christian discipleship is a life-long process of growth and development.

Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople - Part 10

For the next number of weeks, I will be sharing excerpts from my new book, Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople. https://www.crosstrainingpublishing.com/shop/soul-training

Teach, Mentor, or Coach Faith Development?

In my earliest years of helping sportspeople develop their faith, I used a teaching approach. Having gone to schools in the USA, and having been raised in a Baptist church, teaching was the primary and only available model for intellectual and spiritual development. I started with the swimmers who attended the Sunday School class I was teaching in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Many years later, after having succeeded a little and failed a lot, people began to seek me out for wisdom and for mentoring. They seem to value my experience and expertise, though I largely discount it. We sit and chat over coffee, I listen, tell stories, and offer options for their growth.

Most recently, I have begun coaching people who are seeking to develop their faith and those pursuing their calling to ministry. In this mode, I ask questions to help this person discover how he or she can pursue a call from God, develop a ministry, or simply be a more effective follower of Christ.

In developing the faith of sportspeople: Some people teach faith development. Other people mentor faith development. Still other people coach faith development. Which do you do? One, two, maybe all three? How are they different? What are the advantages of each? What are the liabilities of each?

Teaching faith development

When we teach faith development, we take an academic approach to training. It’s about the delivery and processing of information. We assign books to read, make presentations, deliver lectures, and otherwise aim to improve the trainee’s knowledge of the subject. The focus is usually on principles and practices. It may include research, writing papers, or making presentations to demonstrate the knowledge gained by the trainee. Teaching of Sports Chaplaincy happens at universities, in seminary classrooms, in sports ministries’ meeting rooms, and via virtual learning platforms.

If you teach faith development, teach it effectively. Go for depth of understanding. Train minds and hearts to serve wisely. We need you to help the sports chaplaincy community be a healthy, intelligent, and well-integrated form of ministry.

Mentoring faith development

We who mentor people in the development of their faith do so with an eye toward continuing personal and professional development with our mentee(s).  Most often, the mentorship takes place on an individual basis, rather than with a group. It can be delivered in person or via electronic media. Mentors in faith development provide a broad view, lending perspective across a career.

Mentors are less involved in the teaching or coaching of techniques, methods, or strategies than they are in sharing their insights, experiences, and expertise. This often leads to telling stories, asking challenging questions, and occasionally directly sharing wise counsel.

If you mentor sportspeople in the development of their faith, be sure to help your mentees gain perspective. Keep their overall wellbeing in mind. Help them develop their own vision, set goals, determine best practices, and lend wise counsel, as requested. Your mentees may gather great value by simply spending time in your altruistic presence.

Coaching faith development

 We who coach faith development focus on the development of skills, and use questions (Socratic method) to help the trainee discover the why and how that shape their expressions of it.

We who coach the development of faith in sportspeople strive for understanding and processes that deliver excellent ministry. As we discuss ideas, options, strategies, and methods with trainees, we aim to help them apply the ideas to their local context, the community, the club or institution, the team, the coaching staff, and the competitors.

If you coach faith development as your method of training, do it with patience and thoughtfulness. Coaching takes time and intentional leadership. Coaching the development of faith in sportspeople will lead to depth of service, excellent ministry, and long-lasting results.

Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople - Part 9

 For the next number of weeks, I will be sharing excerpts from my new book, Soul Training - 7 Keys to Coaching the Faith of Elite Sportspeople. https://www.crosstrainingpublishing.com/shop/soul-training

Serve selflessly.

Whereas elite and professional sportspeople and coaches grow accustomed to people asking them to do things, we must be the ones to serve them with no thought of receiving anything in return. They find this both refreshing and endearing. This builds trust. This opens hearts.

To perform the most menial tasks with and for them is a profound relationship builder. Serve without fanfare. Don’t take selfies with them and post them online. Don’t ask for autographs, free tickets, or sideline privileges. Such presumption is the essence of selfishness, and they find it repulsive. Give yourself away in helping them and you will find a loyal friend and an inquisitive heart.

Ministry to sportspeople is selflessly serving them and God's purposes in them with no ulterior motive.

Below are some examples of such selfless service -

·          Assisting in the whole-life development of the sportsperson.

·          Offering help to competitors' and coaches' families when they are new to the community.

·          Assisting support staff when they need help with a task.

·          Visiting competitors who are injured, ill, or are grieving a family loss.

·          Helping a coach or competitor who wants to share his faith by training and encouraging him in it.

·          Offering hospitality and community to these people often displaced from family and friends.

·          Speaking privately with a competitor or coach about his or her relationship with Christ.

·          Maintaining confidentiality re: injuries, illness, family situations, contracts, etc.

·          Protecting private information about competitors and coaches, such as phone numbers, email addresses, etc.

·          Praying for a coach or competitor when a request is shared in confidence.

·          Sending encouraging notes, text messages, and phone calls.