Hi, Steve Elzinga, back again. We're looking at some of the causes for the need for coaching. This whole coaching phenomenon is a fairly new thing. It's taking the business world by storm. You've heard about it. You've heard about it somewhere. It's entered the church world. I think it's being talked about because it is actually working.

People are frustrated with the traditional ways of trying to lead. People are trying to lead but people aren't following, people aren't doing. A boss tries to get his employees to do things, and they just don't do it. A pastor tries to get a church going in a certain direction and making things happen. It seems like people are unmotivated.

Then this coaching thing comes along, and things are changing. People are actually accomplishing things, and positive things are happening. I've been talking about why that is the case, why is this coaching thing become a thing in the last few years, and it didn't exist 100 years ago.

We've looked at several things. We're going to finish with this. This time together. I think coaching has become a more significant way to get people to do things. Because of this, the breakdown of support systems.

A support system is the things behind the scene. Right now, when I go home, I go on a freeway, and then I take an exit, and then I have an eight-mile journey going east. They're working on the road. They're working on that eight-mile track. The first time I ran into the problem, I had to make a mile detour or go a mile and then come back.

I kept getting off of that exit for a week and a half. I kept being surprised. In other words, I'm a creature of habit. I'm used to getting off of that exit. I'm used to going down that road for eight miles turning left turning right turning left going to my house. And all of a sudden there was this barrier. I bumped into what 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times and it took six or seven times for me to learn to get off at an earlier exit. So I can avoid the whole thing.

The support system that helps me go home is this familiar road, and the car knows where it wants to go. I don't even have to think about it. I can be thinking about other things. There's a whole history behind what I am doing. That's the way it is with most of life, we do things because we learn them because and we learn them because of the culture that we live in, the place that we live, the education that we have, the people that we're friends with, the job that we have, all these things push us and pull us in certain directions.

When we don't like some of those things, when we want to change those things, we need a whole support system to change that to just add one habit to your life is extremely hard. For example, I have the habit of brushing my teeth every morning. I do it without fail. Why? Because I do it without fail. I've been doing it all my life. I get up in the morning and the first place I go is to the bathroom. That's where I need to go and there's my toothbrush.

I have this system in place that helps me succeed with the thing that I want to do. If you go back 100 years, there were all these support systems in our lives that I want to talk about, ones that have sort of disintegrated. Because people don't have these support systems, they're not able to do the things that they really want to do. This coaching thing comes along and says I'm going to try to help you. I'm going to try to be that support system that is falling apart.

The first system that is sort of I think falling apart is the walking with God support system. Walking with God includes talking to God. It includes prayer. Listening to God, the most consistent form is reading the Bible. We call prayer and Bible reading personal devotions.

In the past, people had a habit of reading the Bible every day, and praying every day, in a personal way, but I think that has sort of fallen aside. People don't have this habit. They work on it for a while, then they lose it. Then the Church says, Hey, let's work on this. People sort of come in and out with that.

Marriage devotions, husband and wife. The closest relationship you have in the world is that with your spouse, and if you want God at the center of it, then it would seem only logical that sometimes you spend time talking to God together. But you know, 100 years ago, in or 150 years ago, in the United States, people lived on the farm. My father-in-law, and mother-in-law lived on the farm. And they had a habit of being together. They were home. They ate three meals together, every single day.

They had a structure in place, a support system, that allowed them to read the Bible and pray together every single day. The same thing with family devotions. People used to eat together. When I grew up, we ate supper together every night, the parents and the kids all together. That was true about all my friends. Everyone had to be home for supper.

But with the invention of fast food? McDonald's comes in, and the microwave, prepared meals, frozen meals. It used to take my mother two hours to make the meal. Her attitude was, if it takes me two hours to make it, we're going to be here together as a family, and we're going to eat this together.

Now everything's quick and fast. It didn't take someone two hours. As you know, one person wants one thing, and another person wants to eat something else. Everyone throws what they want in the microwave. They make their own meal. What's happened is the support system of being together as a family has eroded; families aren't together, families are pulled apart.

There's a special interest group for every interest of every member of the family. One son goes that way a daughter goes this way that the mother goes this way the Father is with another group. The same thing happens at church. People go to church, and the kids go here, the young people go there, the father goes there. Everyone is split up into their own special special interest.

Because of that, the family walk with God has disintegrated, fallen apart.

Small groups. It used to be you were part of a small group. It was called your extended family. Your uncles, your aunts, your cousins, you saw them all the time. They lived near you, you did things with them. Now that family structure is falling apart; people move away, they don't live close to each other. You don't see your cousins, you don't know your aunts and uncles.

So the church tries to artificially make small groups &Bible studies. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. My point is, all these things are sort of falling apart.

The church service itself. You know, people used to be faithful. When I grew up in church, I went on Sunday morning and Sunday night. The whole day was sort of bookended by having a service together. Now people come and go. I have people in my church who say, This is my church, I love my church. They come once a month. Why? Because they have other things going on this Sunday; Sunday doesn't work out. Saturday night, we were up late, so we're not getting up this morning.

That support system, the support system of being together with fellow Christians who are trying to live the same way that you're trying to live, is falling apart because people aren't there. They're not being supported. They're not being supported and they're not walking with God every day. They're not walking with their spouse every day. They're not walking with their family. They're not supported by friends at the church service.

The support system to hold them to the things they really want to do is gone. People want to live the Christian life. They want to, live for God's kingdom, but the support system for making that happen is eroding. Because of that, there's a need for coaching. That's my point.

Next, the rise of affluence. Proverbs 30:8-9. give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, Who's the Lord? or I may become poor and steal. And so dishonor of the name of my God.

I spent a year in the Philippines back in 1981-82. And I just spent a little bit of time, about a month ago. I could tell that people are eating way better than they were 40 years ago in the Philippines. Affluence has come to the Philippines. There were malls there. Back in 81-82, there were no malls, I think the first McDonald's came to Manila. But now there's jellybeans and there's all these different places all over the place.

Affluence has come to the whole world. The industrial revolution has taken hold everywhere. More and more, people have more and more things and more and more opportunities. But what does that do?

Number one, it gives people freedom. I'm for freedom. I mean, who's against freedom? But let's think about this freedom and choice. Because we have more money and more time, we have more options, we're free to choose things. I don't have to do this. Back when you don't have much out, you're hungry. And this is the only work you have to do it.

But when there's options, when there's freedom to choose, well, then you know, I might pick this, and I might pick that. Today, we live in a sea of choices. We're inundated with choices. We're inundated with information; we can research everything that we want to buy to death. We don't know what to do.

That's the downside of freedom and choice. The upside of no freedom of choice is here's the one thing, the one option that I have, and I do it. I don't even think about it. This is what I have to do. But when you have a choice, you don't know what to do. Am I doing the right thing? Even as you're doing one thing, you're wondering if you should do something else.

This is a pervasive thing all over the world: people have more freedom of choice, but they don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to handle that freedom. People are starting to have that feeling about everything. I get married, but should I stay married to you? I don't know, because I couldn't get out of it.

This freedom is not always good. Sometimes, if I think about some of the old friends that I have, I went to school for five days in a row and I sat in the classroom with these same people every single day, I was forced to be with them, I was forced to deal with them. I live in the same house that that my wife does. I don't have the freedom to live in another house: we can't afford two houses.

That one house forces us to be together to work things out. We can't just get angry at one another without saying anything because we live in the same house. That lack of freedom sometimes forces you to do the things that you should do.

Whereas when you have the freedom? Well, I don't like this job, I'm going to get another. I don't like this friend. I'm going to get another. I don't like this church. I'm going to get another. It leads to all kinds of brokenness in people's lives, and they can't stick with anything. They can't get anything done. Tthey can't succeed.

I'm saying this it has caused a need for coaching, a need for someone to come alongside and say, okay, freedom has caused all this chaos in your life, you don't know what to do with your freedom. As a coach, let me help you manage this, so that you can actually succeed.

I think another support system or something that's causing this brokenness, and therefore a lack or the need for coaching, is I think we're becoming more and more self-absorbed, a self-absorbed culture. II Timothy 3:2-4, People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, Without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good treacherous rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God.

I think the word self-absorbed is a good one. Self-absorbed is not the same thing as selfish. Selfish is when I'm going to do something for me, and I know it's going to hurt you, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm selfish. I want something at the expense of you.

Self-absorbed is I'm not even thinking about you. I'm not even aware that you're going to get hurt by me going after the thing that I want, because all I'm thinking about is me. Selfish is when you do it on purpose, self-absorbed is when you don't even think of the other person.

I think that's where our culture's sort of heading, very self-absorbed. We don't understand the hurt that we cause the people around us, often. In a marriage one is self-absorbed, they just don't see the needs of the other. In churches, people become self-absorbed, and what happens when everyone's self-absorbed is that everything falls apart.

This support system of a community, where the community comes together and helps everyone succeed, is lost. If everyone is only concerned about themselves, then nothing gets supported, and you're on your own. That's how people feel. People feel unhappy, they're self-absorbed and they’re unhappy because things aren't going well. They don't know why, they can't see that they have to start thinking about others.

Again, we see the need for a coach to help people to get past this self-absorbed, attitude.

A.D.D. culture, attention deficit, people that can’t stick with one topic, they tend to bounce around, even in the conversation. You started one thing and next thing you know, you're talking about something else, because one thing leads to another. A lot of people suffer that today; it would seem to focus on something, maybe you struggle with that to get something done. You have to think about the step and the second step and the third step, and you have to keep working in an organized manner.

But if you're working on one thing, and that sort of relates to a totally different thing, all of a sudden you're thinking about something else, and you spend 10 minutes over here, and then you don't get the thing done that you were working on.

I think we live in an A.D.D. culture. If you go back in history, 100-200 years, there wasn't television, there was no Internet, a lot of people didn't read, you couldn't easily get to the library. You were alone, you're working on the farm, there's only one thing that you're doing here, there's no other options. There's no one distracting you. There's no music, there's no radio, there's no CDs, there's no mp3s, there's nothing.

Whatever it is you're doing is not competing with anything. Now, we're never alone. People have their cell phone, maybe you're taking this class on a cell phone, maybe you're on the subway going somewhere, and you're oblivious to what's happening to the people around you. You're sitting there listening to me talk about coaching. We have things going on all around us.

We get easily distracted.Because we're so easily distracted, we can't hang on to a goal. I want to try to make this. I want to make my marriage better. Three days later, I don't even remember that I said that. We bounce from one thing to another bounce from one thing to another and we don't get any of them done.

We need a coach that helps us go okay, what is it you really want to do? What are you going to do this week? And then we meet next week and what did you do? You’ve got to stick to this one thing.

Matthew 9:36 When he Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. I think that's a good description of an A.D.D. culture: nothing to follow. They don't know which way to go. The result is the feeling of being harassed by people and everybody that wants something from you, all the competing desires that people have for your time. I'm helpless What can I do about it? So much noise in our culture, what can I do about it?

Which relates to this one, many conflicting voices. Isaiah 30:21 Whether you're turned to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way walk in it.

Advertising. The whole world is about advertising here in the United States. We can't even have an arena called the arena, it has to be called the Ford car arena or the Something Else arena. Everything is sponsored by some company that's trying to sell you something. Movies with the commercials and Facebook ads. People are trying to influence us at every step, Buy this! You want a happy life? Then this is what you need.

On Facebook, there's all these master classes. Everyone that's ever done anything is now going to teach you in 10 simple lessons about how to do something. You can learn from the best authors in the world. You can learn from the best singers in the world. This is what you want, this is what you want, this is what you want.

If you search for something on the internet, all of a sudden, you get a bunch of ads about that one thing that you searched for. You can't get away from it. People are calling your name, whispering, saying this is the way, walk in it. This is the way, walk in it. It's deafening.

How are you going to figure out what you really want to do when everyone is speaking to you at the same time, telling you and giving you a list of reasons why you should go this way, a list of reasons why you should go that way. If one person is saying you should go this way, and they have all kinds of good reasons, someone is telling you the exact opposite with all kinds of good reasons. You're in the middle of going, I don't know.

What people do is they end up following this one for a while, then they bounce to that one. They just go back and forth. In the end, nothing happens. Nothing changes. Tere's just a lot of confusion.

Breakdown of family culture. Like I said before, it used to be that families lived close together, often in the same house, grandma and grandpa are there, uncle and aunt. When you know a parent is trying to punish a child, grandma's right there to support the parent or if the parent is too harsh, then Grandma says, Now let's not be so harsh. You were like this when you were a kid too, sometimes; there was a culture that shared the load.

Now everyone's isolated, everyone's moved away, everyone is far from family. Maybe you're still in a part of a world where your family is around you. Give God thanks for that support system in your life. But most people are struggling on their own. When you're struggling on your own, it's hard to make anything happen.

That's what we're talking about. We're talking about trying to set goals for our lives, change the things that are hurting, positively go after the things that we want, and sticking with it. Making a goal coming up with a plan. Then being held accountable to follow through with it. People can't follow through with it, because they don't have a support system.

No one cares if I stick with this or not. When I got married, I got married in a church. I invited all the people that were important to me, my family, my relatives, friends, people from my church, and they all came and they were all part of this one event. What are they doing, they're there to encourage me to stick with the promise that I made to my wife to exclusively go through life with her, she is my mate. We're going to try to be whatever God has in mind for us to be as a couple, and I want all of you people to hold me to this thing that I want to do.

That's when the family system is working. The family is holding you to the thing that you really want to do. Now, the family system breaks down. I don't even know where half these people are that were at my wedding. How are they going to hold me to this thing? I'm on my own to stay true to my promise, because no one else is there to help me.

What if my wife and I hit some troubles? We go through some hard times in our marriage, and we go through something that happens. We feel like quitting. Where's the system to hold us to what we wanted to do? That's what's breaking down, the family culture’s breaking down. People's commitment is breaking down as well.

Breakdown of discipline, culture. Discipline is the act of delaying gratification in the hopes of a better future reward. Because of credit, because people can get what they want before they actually have the money to pay for it, people don't typically know how to delay gratification. That's what discipline is. I'm going to work hard for something. I'm not going to get what I want right now, but I'm going to work hard first, and then later, delayed, I will get what I worked for, but now people want it ahead of time.

Then they expect to be motivated to work after the fact, which is kind of the reverse. It's hard to work for something that you already have. It's easier to work hard for something you don't have. So that whole culture, the discipline, is breaking down. Without discipline, people don't stick with what they wanted to do.

That's where the coaching comes in. The coach comes in and says, Alright, let's add a little discipline to your life. Let's add some accountability. We're going to meet every week, or every other week. We're going to talk about the goals that you made, what you did, and we're going to adjust things or we're going to come back to things, we're going to add some discipline to your life so that you can actually succeed.

Ultimately, the need for coaching. This will sort of conclude our whole section on why coaching is needed in this day and age. It wasn't needed maybe 100 years ago. The need for coaching: the coach takes the place of the supportive culture of family, friends and church that used to help a person succeed in doing what they really want to do. That's why this coaching thing is so important now.

Alright, well see you back later.



Остання зміна: пʼятницю 16 січня 2026 08:51 AM