Mining for Gold

Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching

Tom Camacho

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781783599325
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783599332
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Godly thriving leaders are precious and valuable, but developing those leaders is not easy. Many leaders feel stuck, tired and frustrated in their growth and calling. This can change. In Mining for Gold, pastor and master-coach, Tom Camacho, offers a fresh perspective on how to draw out the best in ourselves and in those around us. Cutting through the complexity and challenges of leadership development, he gives us practical and effective tools to help leaders grow personally and develop those around them. Coaching, through the power of the Holy Spirit, provides the clarity and momentum we need to grow. When we get clarity, everything changes. Coaching helps us better understand our identity in Christ, our God-given wiring, and how we naturally bear the most fruit. There is gold in God's people, waiting to be discovered. Let's learn to draw out that treasure and help others flourish in their life and leadership.

Part 1

GOD’S MINING PROCESS: DISCOVERING GOLD

1. Eyes to see

Seeing as God sees

In a small town far from the places of power and prestige, a story was unfolding that would change a life, transform a nation and alter the course of history. A group of brothers, a father and the national prophet were standing inside the home of a shepherd family near Bethlehem. At the request of the man of God, they were waiting for the youngest son, barely older than a boy, to come down from the hills where he was watching the family’s flock of sheep.

Stick in his hand and a leather sling across his muscular shoulders, he was nothing special to look at . . . on the surface. Tanned from the sun, smelling of sheep and comfortable with the outdoors, he looked much like other boys in Israel; but this boy was different. God had a plan for this young shepherd. God was looking for a leader in the young David.

His brothers saw an annoying and precocious little brother. His father, Jesse, saw a faithful employee in the family shepherding business. The young man could only see he was a shepherd, a lowly vocation, and he was the youngest in his family. He often got left with the most menial jobs. He did know one thing, however: he was pretty skilled with rocks and a sling.

The boy could not see what his future held. His brothers definitely did not see much ahead for him. His father could not have seen much potential in him. If he had, he would have invited him to be present for the prophet’s visit. The only one who saw the riches and potential inside David that day was God himself. God could see the precious gold in his servant David.

The prophet was on a king-seeking mission. The Spirit had told him to go to Jesse’s house and anoint the next ruler of Israel. You see, Samuel was a man of God who had faithfully obeyed the voice of the Lord all his life. He had done God’s bidding for decades. He knew how to hear from God, and his great passion was to obey the voice of the Lord. It is said of Samuel that ‘none of his words fell to the ground’. That means he regularly heard from God and spoke God’s words to the people. Samuel wanted what God wanted, but on this day, when it came to seeing kingly potential inside David, even the great Samuel missed it.

As the tall, handsome and confident Eliab appeared before him, Samuel said, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.’ He likely thought to himself, ‘What a good-looking boy. He would make a great king.’ Samuel saw Jesse’s boys with human eyes, but God saw them differently. God was about to teach Samuel, and all of us, a huge lesson. He spoke to Samuel.

‘Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’

Humbled but expectant, Samuel kept waiting, while Jesse’s family stood around pondering what on earth was going on.

Then it happened. David stepped into the house, and Samuel’s eyes were opened. God showed the prophet who David really was. By the Spirit of God, Samuel saw the gold inside this young man: the heart of a warrior, the courage of a champion and the noble bearing of a king. Samuel saw that this was no ordinary boy, but Israel’s future king, a national treasure, and a true ‘man after [God’s] own heart’ (1 Samuel 13:14, niv).

‘Arise,’ the Lord said to Samuel, ‘anoint him. He is the one!’

‘Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward’ (1 Samuel 16:13, esv).

God used Samuel to see and draw out the gold he had placed inside David. Then he took David through a refining process to purify the gold inside him. It was a gruelling and painful process, but a necessary one. He does the same with us. He mines for the gold in us and then does the work of refining us for his glory.

David would go on to slay giants, unify a nation and write songs that would encourage millions. He was Israel’s greatest king, and through his leadership, God would defeat all their enemies and bring peace to their nation. God saw a treasure in David and he sees the treasure in each one of us too.

Here is the lesson God wants to teach us through the story of David:

In order to see the gold God has placed in a person, we need to see them with the eyes of the Spirit. To draw out someone’s true potential, we need to cooperate with the Spirit of God.

God is looking for Samuels, leaders who will see the gold in people by the Spirit and draw out those riches for his purposes. God is looking for leaders who will partner with him to see and shape the Davids of the future. Coaching Leadership is how we mine for gold in others and cooperate in God’s refining process. In my work as a pastor, leader and coach, I have seen men and women come alive through the active process of Coaching Leadership. I believe that Coaching Leadership can transform leaders, churches, communities and even nations. Coaching Leadership is a concept whose time has come.

The people around us are like clay pots, being fashioned with care and purpose on God’s potter’s wheel. He is continuously moulding and shaping them. He is fashioning them into vessels he can use. In Coaching Leadership, we become like the fingers of God, in close contact with the lives of people as God shapes them for his purposes. God is doing the moulding and shaping but he is using us in his processes.

---

Coaching leaders help others see themselves the way God sees them.

---

They encourage leaders to take the right next steps to cooperate with God’s design and purpose for their lives. Coaching Leadership becomes an active, ongoing lifestyle of developing those around us.

To live a Coaching Leadership lifestyle, we must cultivate a new vision for leadership. I want to share with you some practical steps for how to see others with God’s eyes, draw out the treasure inside them and help them take steps towards their God-ordained future. Coaching Leadership takes the mystery out of developing leaders and gives us practical ways to engage in helping leaders thrive.

As Christian leaders, we need to thrive ourselves. We can only take people where we have been, and we can only give them what we have received. As we come into thriving personally, we can then help others come into their own thriving through the process of Coaching Leadership. I recommend that you go through the Mining for Gold process yourself as the first step in your journey to helping others thrive. Get a coaching leader to help you come into thriving.

Today, you may feel stuck and frustrated. You may feel you are unable to accomplish all you dream about for your ministry, church or city. You may have lost hope that you will ever come into the fullness of what God created you for. You are not experiencing thriving. I completely get this. I’ve experienced every one of these feelings. It’s painful when you can’t see any gold in yourself, and it feels as though no-one else sees it either. You feel overlooked and forgotten.

When I felt like that at one point, God came and changed things for me. He used many different people and processes to show me my God-given identity and unique design. In particular, he used coaching to show me how to cooperate with his refining process in my life. The tool of coaching changed my life and it can change yours too!

We must get a new lens on leadership. We need to develop the skills of Coaching Leadership. As we become Samuels, asking God to show us the gold in others, we will discover more Davids, Esthers, Daniels and Pauls in our midst than we ever dreamed possible.

My leadership journey

For years I struggled with the pain and frustration of my inability to see. I saw myself through my own broken lenses. I carried a false identity, which didn’t line up with God’s Word and hindered my growth. I felt handcuffed to harmful mindsets and behaviours. With those broken lenses, I remained stuck and small. My false identity kept me from bearing more fruit. I didn’t see myself as God saw me. My true identity was hidden from my view.

God used different leaders to help me see myself as he saw me. Slowly, I started to get a more realistic and accurate view of myself. I started to see my identity as a loved son of my heavenly Father. I began to get clarity about my strengths and weaknesses. I started to let go of false narratives that kept me struggling in broken patterns. I began to understand and accept that I am a treasured and beloved son who has something to contribute to the bigger picture. I began to get traction in my calling. Let me share my story.

I grew up in a typical American household, going to school, playing sports and having fun along the way. At age eighteen, my eyes were opened and I saw the emptiness and selfishness in my soul. I knew I needed something more. At a beach retreat at the end of my freshman year of college, I asked God to forgive me of my sin, and I trusted Christ, placing my life in his hands. That year I also made a radical decision to join the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at my university. My aim was to become a helicopter pilot and commissioned officer. I had a mission and a goal.

From my youngest days, leadership felt very natural to me. I regularly stepped out to lead my peers in sports. I loved learning about leadership in school and on the athletic field. After getting my army commission as a Lieutenant, I went to flight school and became a military aviator. Flying helicopters and leading a platoon was like a dream come true for me. I loved being ...

Table of contents

• FOREWORD
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Introduction: gold
• Part 1
• 1. Eyes to see
• 2. Coaching: a fresh lens on leadership
• 3. Coming alive
• 4. Mining for Gold
• 5. The whole body fully alive
• 6. Multiplying our influence: investing our gold well
• Part 2
• 7. The Holy Spirit does the work of refining
• 8. Our true identity is the foundation of thriving
• 9. We thrive when we cooperate with our God-given design
• 10. Each of us has a sweet spot: the place we most naturally bear fruit
• 11. The cross: God’s great refining tool
• 12. All true thriving is relational
• Epilogue: Next steps to thriving
• BIBLE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS