Put Me In Coach – Who’s the Coach?
Sycamore Creek Church
November 23/24, 2014
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

What did the coach say to the vending machine?  Give me my quarterback.  Ugh!  Today we’re talking about coaches.  I promise it will get better.  What is a coach?  We’re in this series called Put Me in Coach.  Throughout the series our key thought has been this:

There are too many fans of the game and not enough players in the game.

Take football for example.  Football consists of 22 people on the field in desperate need of rest and 22,000 fans in the stands in desperate need of exercise.  I don’t want to be a church that has 22,000 fans in the stands. I want to be a church with everyone on the playing field.

So far in this series we’ve explored some fundamentals of the game: What’s the game?

What’s a team?  What’s my position?  Today we look at who’s my coach?  Now if I ask you who your coach is, I’m guessing you’ll have an answer pretty quickly.  Jesus.  Right?  Nope.  In this series Jesus is not your coach.  Jesus is the team owner.  So who is the coach?  Maybe it would be good to begin with a definition. What is a coach?  According to Merriam-Webster, a coach is a horse drawn carriage.  Opps.  Wrong kind of coach.  A coach is “one who teaches, trains, and directs.”  So who does that in the team we call the church?  To answer that question, let’s turn to Paul, the first missionary of the church.  Paul planted several churches all around the Mediterranean and then wrote letters to them coaching them about how to be a church.  One letter he wrote to the church at Ephesus.  Last week we looked at playing a position through the lens of Ephesians chapter four verse eleven.  Paul says:

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers…
~Ephesians 4:11 NRSV

But that’s where we stopped.  What comes next?  What does the next verse say about each of these specialized positions in the church?  God gives people these gifts and talents…

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
~Ephesians 4:12 & 16 NRSV

“To equip.”  In other words “teach, train, and direct.”  Guess who the coach is?  Anyone who has unique talents on the team to teach, train, and direct the rest of the team.  One key coach on the team is the pastor.  But I’m not the only coach on the team.  I’ve also got some special teams coaches: the staff and the team leaders.  Anyone who leads a team of people in the church is a coach.

Here’s the catch.  The coach doesn’t actually play the game.  The coach coaches the players to play the game.  When was the last time you saw Tom Izzo bench his team and go out on the court and play the competition?  When was the last time you saw Coach K bench his center and go play center himself?  Never.  Because he’s not a player.  He’s the coach.  (OK, the metaphor breaks down a little bit here because as a pastor I’m also a Christian which means that as an individual, I’m still playing the game, but when it comes to the team, I’m coaching others to play the game).  Thus, the staff are equippers.  The Team Leaders are equippers.  Their job is not to do the work they oversee.  Their job is to teach, train, and direct others to do that work.  The more we grow the more essential the role of coaching will be.

So today I want to explore three fundamentals of coaching.  This means I’m going to be doing some teaching, training, and directing with my special teams coaches while the rest of the team gets to listen in on it.  I’m going to be equipping them to coach.  I’m going to be coaching my coaches.  I think the rest of you will still get a lot of out of this, so don’t tune out.  When was the last time you got to sit in on Mark Dantonio’s pep talk to his special teams coaches?  So let’s get to it.  Three fundamentals of coaching…

1.     Coaches Recruit Players

One of the key roles a coach does is fill the roster with the best players that the coach can find.  Again, the coach isn’t the one playing.  The coach finds the players.  But sometimes there’s a kind of art in finding the right players.  It isn’t always obvious who those best players are.  In the movie Moneyball, which is about the applications of statistics to the game of baseball, we see the Oakland A’s hiring a statistician to build a unique and unexpected team.  Here’s how it happens:

 

 

The A’s recruited a team of “undervalued and overlooked players.”  They found “value in players that no one else can see.”  They built a team that was “an island of misfit toys.”  The world undervalues and overlooks people all the time.  The church is different.  This team finds people that the world discards and overlooks and puts them in unique positions that fit their gifts and talents and calling.

Where are the undervalued and overlooked players in our church?  Just look around.  They’re everywhere.  Someone who is a “fan” sitting in the stands but hasn’t yet gotten in the game.  Or maybe sometimes it’s someone who is in the game but isn’t yet in the right position.  Or maybe it’s someone who is in the game but just needs to switch positions for whatever reason.  Sometimes it’s fans who are just sitting at home not doing much.  They’re rooting for SCC, but they don’t show up very often.  Consider the launch team that I put together for our Church in a Diner.  Half of that team was not attending SCC Regularly.  One member of that team was a neighbor of mine who wasn’t even yet a Christian!  Coaches, who are the overlooked and undervalued players all around you?

So how do you find them?  Let me give you some tools.  We use a little website you may have heard about recently.  It’s called assessme.org.  Over one hundred and thirty people in our church have used this to have their spiritual gifts assessed.  That’s one hundred and thirty scouting reports of people who could be on your team.  That’s one key tool for finding players.

Another key tool I use for finding players is the church directory.  Susan is continually updating it and you can email her and ask her for the most recent copy any time.  If you’re looking for someone to do something, just begin flipping through the pages and let those names jog your memory.  I hear you saying to me, “I did that a month ago and nothing came of it.  Why do it again?”  Because someone’s life situation may have changed.  You may know someone better than you knew them before.  You may just see their name when you didn’t notice it before.  Use the directory.  And here’s a bonus tip: we print a list of skills and stuff in the back of the directory.  You need a plumber?  Look it up.  You need a crafty person?  Check out the skills and stuff.  You’ve also got some personal directories to help you.  Consider Facebook. Just look through your friend lists.  Or look through your email or phone contact lists.  These are all just tools to help jog your memory.

Another great tool is our interest inventory sheets.  We have been doing this for three years now.  We’ve got three years of data about people expressing interest in serving in particular areas.  I don’t just look through this year’s data.  I look over all the data from the previous years.  You never know.

Don’t forget to always be listening…listening…listening…  Listen to what people say they like to do.  Listen.  And when you hear them say they like doing something that is in your area of coaching, make a note of it and bring it up right there or bring it up at another more appropriate time.

Of course, at some point you have to make the BIG ASK!  You’ve got to ask this person to be a player on your team.  Here’s how not to do it: On Sunday morning as they’re walking out the door to go get their hungry toddlers home for lunch say, “Umm…you wouldn’t happen to want to volunteer for a little job that won’t take you all that much time and really is no big deal, would you?”  FAIL!

Here’s how to make the BIG ASK:

1. Write it down.  Don’t bring it up first in person.  Send them an email or a Facebook message, or if you really want to impress them, send them a handwritten note in the mail.
2. Include a job description of what you’re asking them to do and an explanation of why you think they’d be good (i.e. You saw that they had this particular spiritual gift on Assessme.org).  This job description should also have an ending period.  When are they done with it?  People don’t like to commit to things that don’t ever end.
3. Include in the written note that you will follow-up with them on the phone or in person in the next week and ask them to pray about meeting with you to go over the job description.
4. Meet in person if at all possible.  Go over the job description.  Answer any questions.  Invite them to pray about it some more and let them know you’ll be in touch next week.
5. Call back next week and get your answer.  It will likely be a YES because of how thoughtful you’ve been in asking them and how you’ve given time and space for the Holy Spirit to turn their initial NO into a YES.

So the first fundamental of coaching is this: recruit your players.  Coaches, don’t play the game yourself!  Equip!  Equip!  Equip PLAYERS!

Coaches Run Practice
The second fundamental of coaching is that coaches run practices and practices are not about what’s easy, they’re about what’s effective.  The movie Miracle is about the 1980 Olympics USA hockey team that beat the Russians and went on to win the gold medal.  There’s a scene in the movie a moment after a defeat when the coach makes the team do something that isn’t easy but is essential:

 

Friends, this is hard for me and for almost every special teams coach I have.  Most of us want to be liked.  Most of us are people pleasers.  Add to that the fact that we’re recruiting volunteers for a team called the church that is supposed to be “nice” and all of us fear losing volunteers.  We fear losing players if we ask you to do what is effective rather than what is easy.  But that’s what a good coach does.  A good coach makes the team practice hard when that’s what it requires to win.

So what does it mean to practice?  To practice means praying together.  It means learning together.  We learn together when we read together.  Leaders are readers.  If you don’t know what books to have your team reading, ask the head coach.  Not a big reader yourself, farm out a book to a team member who is a big reader and let them give a book report on it.  Or learn together by listening together.  My coach, Nelson Searcy, provides me with hundreds of audio resources for equipping our church.  Listen to these audio resources or audio books in your car.  Listen while you’re exercising or cooking or in the shower.  I’ve heard people say, “But I don’t get it all when I’m just listening to it.”  So what.  If you only get half of it, that’s half more training than you would have gotten had you been listening to the radio.  We learn together by conferencing together.  When was the last time you went to a conference with your team?  Did you go to the Reach Summit back in October?  Are you planning on going to our weekend with Tom Bandy December 5^th and 6^th?  You can also learn by visiting other churches together.  See how they run their special teams.  Meet with the special teams coach who is your equivalent.

So practice means praying together and learning together.  It also means…captain obvious…meeting together.  I know, meetings SUCK!  Don’t they?  Who wants to go to another meeting?  So how do you make meetings more meaningful?  Make them informal.  Don’t meet at the church building just because we have one.  Find somewhere else with more of a party atmosphere to meet.  Meet in your home or the home of one of your team members.  Include food.  Food always makes meeting together better.  Don’t do all the food yourself.  Equip your team to bring the food.  Meet when you’re already gathered before or after church so that you don’t have to add another time into your schedule.  Do something spiritual with your team.  I take the staff on a one-day spiritual retreat every year.  No business.  Just time together with God.  Do something fun at each meeting.  Don’t just start with the “business.”  Or maybe just meet to have a party.  I also take the staff away for a one-night fun retreat each year.  I’ve used several of your cabins to make that happen.  We don’t do anything spiritual other than just be spiritual friends together.

Coaches recruit players, and they run practices.  Those are the first two fundamentals of coaching.  Here’s the third fundamental.

Coaches Praise the Players
My coach, Nelson Searcy, says that I have two responsibilities on Sunday morning: to preach and to praise.  I should have equipped coaches and players all around me so that all I have to do is teach the message and praise the rest of the team and thank them for being here.  My job is to be Rocky Balboa’s coach:

 

That gets your blood pumping!  Doesn’t it?  Anytime we gather I should be saying “Thank you…thank you…thank you!  Way to go…way to go…way to go!”  Now let me be honest, this is hard for me.  It’s hard because I’m an introvert.  It’s hard because my love language is not words of affirmation.  It’s hard because I’m not naturally demonstrative, effusive, and overenthusiastic.  If you really want all that, you turn to Jeremy, our worship leader.  He’s a natural praise giving and cheer leading coach.  I find myself watching him and learning from him all the time.  So I’m working on praising the players and special teams coaches more and more.

How do you praise your players?  I personally like face-to-face one-on-one meetings.  Coaches, when was the last time you met one-on-one with each of your team members?  Of course you can say a quick thanks on Sunday morning or Monday night.  I’ve also been utilizing Facebook a lot lately to praise my team members publicly and invite you to join with me.  Of course, a handwritten note is especially meaningful in our day and age when we rarely get anything handwritten in the mail.  Coaches, consider writing a handwritten note once a day.  Bring notes for your team to write before or after your meeting.  Then write a really good thank you note.  Here’s how to do it:

1. Be very specific.  Mention a very specific moment and behavior.
2. Mention the cost you know it was to them to do what you saw them do.  Maybe they had to give up some family time or an evening relaxing at home or some sleep to volunteer.
3. Describe the benefit to the mission of our church.  How did what they do help us accomplish our mission?  How did it help us play the game well?
4. Explain what the value was to you personally.  How did they help you play your part?
5. Then thank them.

“I don’t like getting personal handwritten thank you notes for the time and effort I put into volunteering at church.”
~Nobody

So coaches, how are you doing?  Are you playing the game yourself or are your recruiting players?  Are you practicing or are you just doing what’s easy?  Are you praising your players or are you just hoping they’ll know how much you appreciate them?  Here’s the truth, we coaches all have room to grow.  You don’t have to be perfect here at SCC to be a coach.  But you do have to be committed to growing and getting better.

So players, how are the coaches doing?  Will you take a moment sometime this week and praise a coach in your life?  Send them a thank you note.  Praise them on Facebook.  Take them out for coffee.  But best of all, get in the game!