North Alabama pastor finds calling in coaching
North Alabama's Rev. Jim Robey (center) is serving as the first
Path 1 Coach.
by Tim Ghianni, United Methodist General Board of Discipleship
This article first appeared in Newscope, a weekly e-newsletter for United Methodist leaders, Vol. 38, Issue 4 / January 27, 2010.
Morie Adams-Griffin, 34, finds much joy as pastor of Living Waters UMC in Belgrade, Montana. But he knew he needed the kind of help offered at the inaugural Path1 Coaching Forum. He not only attended that three days of training and fellowship, he became what New Church Strategist Gary Shockley calls “the first fruit.”
While he was still in Nashville, Adams-Griffin signed a covenant with Shockley to have one of the Path 1 mentor-coaches, Alabama’s Rev. Jim Robey, become his coach. “Starting a new church has been one of the most challenging things I’ve done in my life,” says Adams-Griffin. “A coach can really help with direction, help in keeping focus, keeping me sane and keeping me healthy. I’ve always known that. We’re in the fourth year of a new church start,” says Adams-Griffin, the founding pastor of the church that was planted in Belgrade by Bozeman UMC. “They instigated the project with conference leadership. Many of the members from Bozeman became our core group of folks when we started.”
Despite the excitement of helping give birth to a new church—it began with a group of about 30 adults and now has about 80 people attending regularly—and the support he was getting from his conference and from the Bozeman “parent” church, Adams-Griffin needed something else. “Coaching was definitely at the top of our [the conference] priority list,” he says. He believes he struck gold when he walked into a roomful of mentor-coaches (there were 18 running the sessions at the Nashville forum) and sat down at a table where Robey also was seated. In short order, the contract was signed, setting up times and terms for Robey’s input, which includes regular phone calls as well as at least one site visit to Montana to consult with Adams-Griffin and the stakeholders.
“Starting a new church has been one of the most challenging things I’ve done in my life. A coach can really help with direction, help in keeping focus, keeping me sane and keeping me healthy.,” said Adams-Griffin.
Robey, who pastored for 30 years before he turned to a full-time ministry of coaching from his Gulf Shores, Ala., home base, says he was thrilled that Adams-Griffin asked him. “This will be my first Path 1 coaching situation, Robey said. “One of my passions and my calling is bringing the ministry of coaching more fully into the UMC. This felt like confirmation of that.”
Robey says coaching is essential to pastors. “It is important to have someone who walks beside you in your ministry.” Adams-Griffin says coaching is “an important emphasis” as churches try to deal with the cultural shifts and “reach out to the younger population . . . and redefine the church. . . . The coaching forum event was fantastic. I got a lot out of it personally. I’m looking at it on two levels: as one who wants to receive some coaching and as one who wants to become a coach eventually.” As for being Path 1’s first fruit, he just laughs. “I’m always good at being a guinea pig. Why not give this a try?”
NEWSCOPE © 2010 (USPS 961-360) is published by The United Methodist Publishing House. Reprinted by permission.
Comments