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About Me
- Gary Collins
- Gary Collins (that’s me) is a life coach, licensed clinical psychologist (with a PhD from Purdue University), and professor of leadership and coaching at Psychological Studies Institute. I’ve written a bunch of books, founded and edited "Christian Counseling Today" magazine, and was co-founder and first president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. I am still writing books, am an avid reader, work out most days at a local fitness center, and am determined to be committed as a follower of Jesus. I speak at conferences (frequently overseas), most often concerning the emergent church, coaching and coach training, leadership, and trends in Christian counseling. In addition to personal coaching and consulting on issues relating to leadership and coaching, I have a special interest in the emergent church and in mentoring and learning from next-generation leaders. My wife Julie and I were married in 1964, have two daughters, and live in Northern Illinois. This newsletter usually arises from my reading, student contacts, and opportunities to interact every week with creative and interesting people – including the people who read my newsletter and respond to this blog.
5 comments:
I hate to see someone in ministry (or in any people helping profession for that matter) serve at the expense of their own health. Working with people and sharing their burdens can take a toll on the best of servants.
That's why I feel God has led me to create a resource and coaching beneift for individuals in the people helping professions:
www.servingstrong.typepad.com
www.servingstrong.com
I feel like I'm making a difference when I can keep the matters of life balance and self care in the forefront of daily routine.
I know what it's like to burnout. I did when I was a music minister. It was because I allowed my calling to become a job and I was serving out of my own spiritual poverty. If I can help one person avoid that season, I feel I am successful.
Thank you for sharing about "Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision." That's exactly what led to my vision of helping famlies stay together. I have "a firestorm of frustration" when I see Christian women lead defeated lives instead of the abundant life Jesus promised. Their busyness keeps them from the truth. We as women have to be reprogrammed since we live contrary to God's ways. God is a God of order, and if we don't know and follow His order, we lead destructive lives. I have a passion to coach women to correct the wrong thinking and patterns of beliefs that have destroyed their homes. It was my own personal experience with a marriage crisis of my own, my parents', sisters' and friends' that fueled the vision to see families stay together and prosper. My discontent for disharmony in the home and children without fathers to lead them adds to the fire of frustration. This has caused me to pursue a ministry in coaching women to be Christ centered whenever wherever so that families stay together and communities prosper. I've started a blog to share what I've learned...
http://www.buildandtheywillcome.blogspot.com/
Hi! from David, Street Chaplain in the UK.
We run a Drop-in centre for needy, disadvantaged people - often homelss folk, single parents, ex offenders etc. We provide support through counselling, free food, free clothes, social inclusion etc.
We are so grateful for God's grace to us at Crossover as we're about to see all the Churches in the town working together at a new premises.
What gets to me are
1. Demands by the authorities for a homeless family to find a £25,000 p.a. sponsor before they can get accommodation with housing benefit.
2. Guys we are trying to help off drink/drugs killing themselves by inches and me not knowing what to do to help them apart from love them,
3. The lack of decent paid work in the area so that there is an increase of families in poverty.
I hate seeing talented people not being able to work out and their leaders pulling their hair out because things should be "clicking and they are not". I like working with leaders and teams and creating passionate collaboration toward a common goal. "One Band, one sound."
Thank you everybody for your comments.
Scott: I think you speak for a lot of us when you tell your story about being a music minister. How easy it is for any of us to get into the slide of allowing a calling to become a job and serving out of our own spiritual poverty. Thanks for alerting me (and us) to your site and your work. Bravo.
It is exciting for me to see how others have been stirred to think about the holy discontent that probably we all feel within if it has not been squelched. All four of you (me too) are fired up by things that stir you and form the basis of your calling and your work as coaches.
Probably this was not the purpose of your posts but I think that anybody who reads what you have written will be inspired to see four dedicated people doing what God has equipped you to do so that the injustice that stirs a holy discontent in you will be reduced or eliminated.
You inspire us all. My God richly bless your efforts.
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