“The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray.”

This past weekend I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Purdue’s (my alma mater) new football coach, Jeff Brohm.  When he was announced a couple of months ago, I was impressed with his playing, coaching and success credentials.  But, as I heard him describe his new coaching staff that he has assembled, he won me over without reservation.  Why?  Because, he described the most important coach on his staff as the Player Development Coach.  This position, as he detailed it to us, is the role that is responsible for the wholeness of the life of his players, focused on their spiritual and emotional strength.  As I listened, I have to admit, I was not only in awe that in today’s day and age, a high profile collegiate football coach of a public university is as forward as Coach Brohm is about the critical nature of this position to the team’s success, but I also found myself a little envious, as I thought about how much stronger I personally might have become during my career had I had a development coach like this!  What might happen in our workplaces if we paid as much attention to the strength of our teams spiritually and emotionally as we do to their ability to be productive?  Or, are we indeed missing out on the potential of each person because we aren’t placing focus on all the areas that allow us to perform at our best?

It’s not too late for each of us to have a Player Development Coach.  We probably won’t be assigned one from HR if we went asking, but we do have brothers and sisters in Christ who can be that coach for us and us for them.  I can personally attest to the power of being in small accountability group and the development that I receive from the two others who I meet with weekly, early in the morning over coffee, to talk about life and how we can assist each other to grow and develop in our spiritual strength.  What every good coach knows is that to strengthen ourselves we have to be willing to let ourselves be broken down first (muscles, habits, attitude) and so it is too with God so He can get into us and do His work within us.

Reference: Proverbs 12:26 (New Living Translation)