Today I am attending a Gospel Coach training event led by Scott Thomas of The Journey Church in St. Louis. Scott created this discipleship/shepherding/coaching approach while he was leading Act 29 (Mars Hill) coaching/mentoring network. Before coming to the event I read his book, Gospel Coach attempting to thoroughly drink in the essence. In short – it was different than I expected.

First as I put down the book after turning the last page my thought was, “This is discipleship!”

My second thought – “This is a shepherding.”

I was reminded of my friend Keith Spurlock, who in 1976 knocked on my dorm room door. Before long, we were meeting at 7am on Saturday mornings. Before long, I had a prayer notebook. I had a Bible Study plan. I was journaling my reflections from God’s Word. I was being discipled and coached and I didn’t even realize it.

I highly recommend the book to those who are looking for handles for discipleship and influencing others toward living a gospel-centered life. I heard one pastor in the training say that as a pastor, he had been looking for twenty years to find the magic bullet for influencing and shepherding his church leaders.  There is no magic bullet, but Gospel Coach is a good tool if you need handles and processes for an approach toward discipleship/shepherding/coaching.

I can’t help but thank the Lord for Keith who took the time to coach me as a young college student.