Africa Ministry Update, May 2020

l was especially impressed by the number of individuals expressing interest in earning an ICF coaching credential.  (ICF, the International Coach Federation, is the worldwide organization maintaining rigorous training and ethical standards for professional coaches, with over 35,000 credentialed members in 139 countries.  I earned an ICF coaching credential in 2016.)
 
Realizing the impact high-quality coaching can make in Ethiopian church life and society (and the lack of quality training), my goal for 2020 is to build an ICF-certified coaching training program in Ethiopia from the ground up. 
 
I will begin later this month offering monthly 2-hour online training in coaching skills via Zoom.  Before each monthly session, I will email an agenda, an outline for taking notes and instructions for the skills practice to each participant. These outlines will be compiled into a workbook for the entire course.
 
These monthly calls (May-December 2020) will offer 16 hours of the 60 hours of training ICF requires. God willing, I will return to Addis in early 2021 to offer the majority of the training in person in weekend workshops. 
 
Within three days of announcing this training, I had 15 people signed up for the first cohort beginning in May, with more on a waiting list.  I’m now considering offering two cohort groups to accommodate more people. This response shows I seem to be meeting a need.

Many challenges today are beyond the capacity of single leaders to address, let alone solve! Where twentieth century leaders were judged by their personal leadership ability, twenty-first century leaders will be judged by their ability to develop other leaders. Leaders today must be team literate!  This is especially true in African cultures where leadership is often defined as a single, highly authoritative leader.

To better serve my ministry partners (like the Ethiopian Coaching Network team above), I enrolled in a team development course from the highly respected Global Team Coaching Institute.  This course’s cross-cultural focus and international faculty perfectly fits my mission: to encourage, equip, and empower African leaders to share the gospel, make disciples and impact their societies and the world for the Kingdom of God.
 
I designed a course on team leadership to share what I am learning with my partners.  Titled “Grow Your Team,” it offers four 90-minute monthly Zoom sessions, with an option for two more if desired.  In advance of each monthly session, I send participants a teaching video I’ve created (another new learning experience for me!) introducing the key ideas for that session, a worksheet to take notes and the learning exercises we will discuss during the session.  
 
Again, the response has been significant. Within three days of announcement, six organizations signed up, including teams and leaders from NGO’s, denominations and seminaries in Addis Ababa, Cairo and Lusaka.