New Life Coaching *Part 1

One thing I love to do when summer arrives is walk or bike outdoors: especially with family.

My wife and I started our day walking. Last week, I walked the shore with my son and his wife. Good day to bring along a camera! Lots of gulls n’ geese. What is it they call baby geese? Goslings, I guess.

“Swimming Lessons”

A big part of disciple-making is new life coaching. The message of John the Baptist was a no-nonsense call to come clean with God. People of strict religious background, or hardly any. Didn’t matter. John strongly persuaded people to prepare for God’s future: God’s clean-up campaign soon to begin. Jesus taught that the future God was bringing was already at hand. He, too, called us to turn from sin to God. Believe the gospel. Embrace Life by embracing all that God has done and is doing through His Beloved Son.

By His teachings and example, Jesus coached men and women in their new life. He was always urging people to a love for God and others that they couldn’t whip up on their own. They needed Him. If this life was possible, it was possible through the power He gave. The life He taught. The life He lives through us.

When the apostles wrote letters to the earliest churches, they did new life coaching.  True, they expounded deep truths of the faith. They taught doctrine: but doctrine was always tied to how the church is meant to live.  What was “in character” for one who is following Jesus? What is out of character?

As part of a New Members’ Class, I used to teach a session called, “What Just Happened to Me?”

• A New Birth and a New Me.
• A New Father, a new family, a new home.
• A New Heart and a Renewed Mind
• Living the New Life with Jesus (and others who are learning from Him.)

These are truths we want to visit with open Bibles, and with open lives; open to others, that is. The one who is new in the faith needs spiritual brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles. We need to encourage them to join us in social settings, and in helping roles where they can experience the difference–and talk freely about their questions, struggles, hopes, and the daily stuff of their lives.