I was never really on any sports teams growing up (once I hit my t-ball coach in the shins with my bat, I knew that my baseball career was near an end, and once my sister could throw a better spiral than I could, there was no use even trying football), but I was friends with a lot of people who played a bunch of different sports, from baseball to football, from soccer to lacrosse, or from swimming to track. But even though I wasn’t on a team, I watched and I learned that great coaching produces great results. One school that I went to had this football coach that would yell and scream, and make these guys do push ups, and make them run, and make them practice plays until the sun set, but let me tell you that was the team that went to win state.
One of our top priorities in leading, whether it be in kid’s church, youth church, or our adult service, is to coach our leaders. You don’t have to get red in the face and make them do push-ups (in fact, if you do, they probably won’t volunteer for too long), but what you do have to do is always be watching for things to improve on. For instance, I told the Bible Story this week, and I felt like it was a little weak, it wasn’t my worst, but it wasn’t my best, so my goal is to see how I can make that better, what props can I use, what other resources can I incorporate to make a better weekend experience. If you have a good thing going, make small tweaks by coaching people and encouraging them and helping them to improve, and it will make what you do great. To coach people is to lead them, but you can’t lead them if you don’t know where you want them or your organization to go, so have a goal, have direction, and coach!
Andy Hayes 