Tag Archives: ownership

Ownership, Coaching and Christianity (145)

In this episode John and Gregg return to John’s positive engagement with coaching and his unfulfilling engagement with Christianity.

Gregg’s hunch is that John’s situation offers an example that is very applicable for many listeners, in that the phenomena of finding one’s faith to be lackluster in comparison with other activities or pursuits seems not only common but normal. Thus the fitting response is one of “investigation,” in order to gain understanding (rather than berating oneself or feeling guilty for one’s current reality). Out of this better understanding one may then be able to leverage valuable insights in other areas that can profitably be applied to one’s faith.

Thus Gregg opens with the notion that Christianity—or at least one’s experience of it—is never “great all the time.” Indeed, he argues that this is a destructive ideology. Questioning John, Gregg wonders what basic aspects of coaching work for John, and how / what about these same aspects don’t work for John when it comes to Christianity.

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94: Do Your Own Work

In this episode John and Greg to discuss a recent discussion John had with his parents around NT Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. While discussing the first chapters, John referred to some ideas Gregg has put forth.

John was surprised when his father suggested that, “It’s great that Gregg has those ideas, but you have to figure out your own ideas here.” The idea being that John needs to do his own study of the Bible. As the discussion continued, John realized that his father’s knowledge and proficiency regarding the Bible was quite pronounced. From this, John wondered: Can one become this proficient if the impetus for doing so is simply duty and obligation?

In other words, John speculates that his father’s reason for becoming so familiar with the Bible is because he wanted to and questions whether someone could become so proficient driven only by obligation or duty.

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85: Listening to Yourself

In this episode John and Gregg again discuss the idea that Christians need “second opinions” about their faith. John sees parallels here with Wayne Jacobson‘s notion of listening to one’s “yuck meter,” where Christians need to attend to their negative reactions / feelings of unease regarding supposedly “Christian” responses (because this may be the Holy Spirit communicating that this is in fact a questionable response).

Gregg agrees with Wayne but also thinks that this mechanism is unlikely to function in those cases where it is needed most. Specifically, Gregg argues a culture exists within evangelical Christianity such that the more a particular situation challenges or even threatens one’s Christian faith, the more one has to act forcefully and without hesitation to preserve God’s truth or Christian vales (and so the less one will likely even experience any “negative reactions” when responding to such challenges / threats).

John wonders what practical advice we can offer to listeners? Gregg notes three points:
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84: Second Opinions

In this episode John and Gregg discuss the notion of Christians getting a “second opinion” on matters concerning their faith, and even on their faith itself.

Gregg introduces the topic by explaining how his spouse was reading a book on Christianity late one evening and was troubled by its contents. However, she was unable to articulate fully what she found disturbing. Gregg likens this to John’s request some years ago for he and Gregg to read Kyle Idleman’s not a fan side-by-side in order to decipher what John found problematic with that book.

In both cases Gregg sees these as instances where people needed second opinions on the versions of Christianity with which they were being presented. So Gregg asks: What is a second opinion? What does it mean to be a Christian and get a second opinion on your faith? How does one assess the validity of such a “second opinion”?
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81: Pushing Without Being Pushy

In this episode Gregg and John discuss John’s mission statement and how it relates to the podcast. Gregg begins by reading John’s mission statement: “John brings order to chaos and clarity to a confusion so that owners can effectively communicate their truth and thrive.”

John explains that “owners” are people who not only take charge of but take responsibility for their own lives. John contrasts his focuses on owners with having worked in past with people whom he describes as “victims” of their lives. These people seem to focus on all the reason why something would fail or why attempting to fix a broken / non-functional situation just wouldn’t work. Trying to encourage or help these people takes a tremendous amount of energy and typically shows very minimal results.

John’s focus on dealing with chaos and confusion is because these are the typical obstacles that owners face, and he finds that bringing order and clarification in such situations is extremely gratifying. John also links this to the genesis of our podcast, where his confusion while reading of Not a Fan prompted him to seek Gregg’s help to clarify matters.
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