December 3, 2024

The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Month: September 2010

Coaching

Why Am I Convinced Coaching is Valuable for Missionaries?

Why am I so convinced that coaching is valuable for missionaries? Primarily because of how much coaching helped me at a time in my life and ministry when I was frustrated and felt that I had plateaued and was no longer growing. Back in 2007, I contacted Dr. Keith Webb in Singapore about some questions I had about coaching missionaries.  I was trying to “coach” a church planting team in FER, but I had no real idea what that meant. Rather than just “tell” me what a coach does, Keith graciously offered to “show” me by coaching me for the next 6 months. That coaching experience proved to be the most significant learning experience of my past 15 years of mission leadership. I believe that I learned more about leadership in those six months, than I had previously learned from any book, seminar or even the graduate classes on leadership… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
Books, Resources

Obtaining Good English Books on the Mission Field

Maybe you are wondering how a missionary obtains access to all these great books that SEND U is recommending at www.senduwiki.org. Most countries in which we work have very limited opportunities to purchase books in English, and basically nothing is available on topics related to professional development of missionaries. So we can order from Amazon, but then we have to pay shipping and wait several weeks or months. But the problem is bigger than just obtaining a new book on church planting or team leadership. One frequent question I get asked by new missionaries is how I recommend they send their entire libraries to the mission field. My answer to that question these days – leave the paper books at home, and take as much of your library as you can in digital form.… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
Coaching

Coaching in SEND Increases

During the summer, my coaching load went way down, but new coaching series are beginning in fall.  I am pleased to report that during the second quarter of 2010 (April – June), SEND missionaries were coached a total of at least 120 hours.  These are formal coaching hours that were reported to me, and I know there is more coaching going on within SEND than just this.  But according to my records, 33 different SEND missionaries were being coached during those 3 months.  A year ago, the total number of coaching hours and the number of missionaries being coached was about half of what it is today.   So SEND International is headed in the right direction!   In an organization of our size, if 25% of its membership was being coached at any one time, and coaching was happening twice a month, the quarterly totals of coaching hours would be over… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther2 mins read
E-learning, Team Leadership

Upcoming Online SEND Team Leader Training

On September 6, the first-ever SEND Team Leader online training module will begin, and I am thrilled to see the course is full.   Seventeen SEND team leaders registered, and I even had to turn a few away because we already have more than I had expected in the class.  I plan to offer the online module again early in 2011, after I have had a chance to work through the suggestions for improvement from the first group.    I am sorry that I was not able to accommodate everyone who wanted to take the course the first time around. But if you are interested in taking some other online training modules offered by Grow2Serve, check out their list of upcoming courses.   I see that they are offering modules in Ministering in a Muslim context, Coaching for Fruitfulness and Effective Online Facilitation.   I took the course on Effective Online Facilitation earlier this… Read the whole post
Ken Guenther1 min read
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