Lessons from Oupa (perhaps a final post on this story)

I haven’t written much on Oupa and the coffee shop… whatever you call this thing.  I’ve been observing and processing as it goes along, trying to condense some lessons that would be helpful for other aspects of our work with CRM.  I hope these short nuggets will be helpful for you in your ministry settings, whether that be your workplace, church or non-profit spaces.

  • Multiplication happens when you empower people.  Empowerment happens when you trust people while holding them accountable.
  • Retreat to Advance.  With the holiday season behind the Pretoria crowd, Oupa now gets the chance to take a break himself.  He is being given a week to go back to his home town with his wife and daughter to rest and enjoy time with the family.
  • Listen, Reflect, & Obey.  Oupa goes hard after the scripture.  He wants to get his head and heart around it.  If the scripture was a pool of water that guy would be diving in head first no questions asked.  But what he teaches me is that moving from understanding to obedience is where life (more abundant) really takes off. 

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be talk with a few folks around Pretoria about this process we’ve been playing around with here at the Mugg.  I’m not sure what God might stir up here, but I would definitely love to see more people start to follow Jesus as a result of this!  Thanks for praying with Oupa and the other leaders God is stirring together here!

All Parts Together

Coaching is partially (maybe fully) about helping an individual achieve goals through the assets available to them.  When you interact with a visionary leader like Oupa, you quickly realize that he sees beyond his means to achieve.  Leaders like this need a strong structural support under them to achieve the things God puts in their hearts’ imagination.

Enter Rufaro : “the administrator”.

In collecting the names of the people involved in the two different (primary) Bible Studies happening at the Mugg, I came across Rufaro.  In African fashion, you don’t just get a name with a phone number, you get a full on hug and condensed life story introduction.  When Oupa introduced me to Rufaro last week, I listened closely to how she was interacting with the Discovery Bible Study.  She was coming up with fantastic ideas for structuring their times together.  She saw how to maximize the time and find ways to invite other staff into the primary groups. 

Oupa said to me this week, that with Rufaro’s help, this will sustain things through the holiday season (a time when Pretoria literally drains a majority of its population for over three full weeks).  The staff that is not going back to visit family will continue in the process with Oupa at the assistance of his new administrator.

It takes a whole body to achieve bigger ends.  This situation is revealing how flat body leadership really is or ought to be.  This is not a top down model.  Each part is informing the other parts under one large vision : to move the FULL gospel into the hands and hearts of the Mugg & Bean staff.  

“When we carry the gospel to our customers, it changes the way they treat us and how they treat their families and friends.”  - Oupa

Sustaining Movement

For the past few days that I’ve gone to check on our friends at the Mugg, I have had these lingering concerns…

  • Is this really happening or are they just telling me what they want me to hear?
  • Are people starting new groups as a result, really? 
  • How many people are actually connected to this?

It is not that I do not trust Oupa, I was just wondering if the cultural communication gap was an issue for our relationship.  I asked him for help to understand the only way this whitey American can.  “Can you give me names and phone numbers of people in this with you?  Who is part of your group?  Who is leading a group themselves?  Can I talk to them?”

Luckily we have rapport, so it wasn’t this major awkward thing.  Today, I went in to collect the names and numbers.  He then went a step further, and introduced me as the “guy that gave them the Bible stuff” which was welcomed by a smile and a hug from the group members.  The newest person I met today is going to be leading a group at her second place of employment.  I gave her my copy of the facilitation guide.  To date, I have given out 7 facilitator guides to people in Oupa’s groups and today, I have identified the barrier to sustaining this (my cause for the questions I was internalizing) :

COACHING BREAKDOWN.

Oupa is perhaps one of the most influential leaders I’ve met in Pretoria.  When you talk to him, you just want to join whatever he’s doing (glad he’s growing in his love for Jesus!).  But what he told me last week was that he needs help getting better at facilitating.  He’s not ready to coach new group leaders.  Thing is, he’s doing something right because the other seven people in his group are excited to run their own!  But without coaching, sustaining the momentum becomes very difficult. 

Time to adapt strategy… again.

Steadying Rhythm : Mugg & Bean Update

The way everything started in this space honestly felt like a herd of wild horses stampeding across the plains.  It was so fast and furious, I had become worried about the leadership capacities of the primary leaders that had emerged.  Life happens and this job is intense.  I’ve seen these things happen in other contexts (specifically thinking about the university work we started a few years ago which is still growing and passing on to new leadership in January!).  I reminded Oupa again this week that the goal is not mass growth, but rather, active obedience. 

Obedience is hard to do quickly.  It is fun to change your daily habits for a week or two, but eventually, you want to settle back into old patterns.  Staying the course of obedience is long road only achieved with others journeying with you towards deep communion with God.  This is where we find ourselves with the Mugg & Bean crew.

Oupa has been discouraged that the early momentum has waned.  Leaders with this kind of gifting and immediate success, I have found, get discouraged when things begin to settle into steady rhythms.  They need help seeing the necessity of staying the course.  Just like good jazz, once in a while, you have to lay off the intensity to get the base rhythm back in line. 

Kingdom come.

Two Week Reflection : Mugg & Bean

First and foremost, I am becoming more aware of layers of oppressive things happening around this group of leaders in the coffee shop.  Every time we’ve initiated something big or small, we have always been greeted by it.  It’s not new, it’s part of the gig.  Thanks for continuing to pray with us.

I have received a wide variety of emails surrounding this.  From high levels of concern to overwhelming excitement.  I understand where EVERYONE is coming from.  It doesn’t make sense and I’m not sure I really understand everything that is happening yet.  In light of the spectrum, I’d like to make a few key observations of what I see God doing in this specific situation.

  • People are acting on the scriptures they are reading.  They are learning new things, which is great, but the more significant piece is how people are behaving as a result.  I’d honestly rather see people being obedient with the level of knowledge they have than try to fix their understanding first.  I’m witnessing how behavior is actually addressing incorrect understanding.  Coaching and good facilitation is also a critical aid.  So, I’m not worried that they aren’t perfect theologians before they enact what they study.  I’m not convinced I’m that strong of one yet either.
  • Openness.  The openness of one man, Oupa, has led to the openness of others.  The Spirit was clearly already at work within Oupa, he just needed freed and called out. 
  • Control.  My natural instinct is to control.  This process is about my coaching relationship with Oupa.  I’m teaching Oupa what I know, and I talk to my friends as they bring me the next cup of coffee.  The Spirit guides and controls what He wants and we can’t contain it.  The only thing I control is my prayer for them and my consistency in coaching.

December really dies down in Pretoria, but when folks get back in January, we’re going to have some conversations about other networks of relationships.

Oppressive Things

I realize I’m blogging a lot about this.  I’m trying to process what I’m seeing unfold.

I took the boys to the Mugg today so Natalie could take an appointment with someone else alone (Ziah is finishing school still).  Oupa had the day off today but asked that I meet with Thelma.  She’s been under some oppressive things.  I think we got to the bottom of it today (but I still can’t find the bottom of that bottomless coffee cup… it’s on my bucket list though).

She began sharing with me some homework that her pastor recently gave to her.  She was carrying it in her order booklet and asking me for help.  She was very discouraged.  One of the questions she was wrestling through was about why people don’t tithe more.  She started crying and told me that she gives half of everything she earns to the “house of the Lord”.  She can’t make rent or tend to her other needs on the salary she earns let alone half of what she earns. 

Coaching in this environment is tricky because they are always having to move.  I try to go after the breakfast rush when it’s more relaxed, but it’s still busy.  While she went away, I began praying for her with the boys.  I wrote her a note with a scripture to carry throughout her day. 

This isn’t going to be the first moment we encounter these things.  Thank you for your prayers as we continue to take new ground… one cup of coffee at a time!

This Is No Game

After yesterday’s interaction with Oupa, I became aware that we want to get smart about coaching from the early outset of… whatever this is.  When I arrived this morning, Oupa welcomed this new element with open arms, turned to me and said, “I want you to coach me on my off day.”  I’m not sure he realizes what he got himself into either!  He wants more time together than the breaks between work duties.  He wants to get more effective in his leadership.  I’m in for THAT ride.

But it’s more serious than this.

“Thelma has not been doing well since she started leading the group.  She feels oppressed, but we don’t know why.”

I wasn’t shocked when I heard this.  For the last week, I’ve been waking up around 3 a.m. from intense night mares.  I pray for my friends at the shop and myself, and go back to sleep.  This is no game.  This is more than just helping friends have a better day at work.  Jesus is meeting people, restoring their hearts and their worlds.  This changes everything.

Coaching Oupa will have to move into a variety of facets.  It’s more than executing a strategy.  He is pastoring the early stages of a movement.  That will carry spiritual realities that he needs to be prepared for. 

This morning, as you sip your morning coffee, remember the Mugg & Bean church.  We don’t sweat against these types of oppressive encounters.  We claim our freedom in Jesus and move deeper down this rabbit hole. 

Oupa, We JUST Started

December months are supposed to slow down in Pretoria.  Everyone is going to the beach for basically the entire month.  Oupa and the Mugg & Bean crew didn’t get that memo.  We have two groups going at the coffee shop.  Now four (possibly five) people are going to start groups in their family networks.  The average size of the groups are ten people.  We are seeing sixty people studying the Bible and enacting what they hear. 

This is moving way faster than I anticipated.  I’m having to figure out support structures to introduce now.  The crazy part of this, most of these people live very close to our specific neighborhood.  They live in flats which, in some cases, house ten or more people.  Apartment buildings are the next relational spaces that could be affected. 

Please pray that we can provide adequate support and training as this keeps going down the rabbit hole.  I was just trying to help my friends have a better day in a stressful environment.  God, please help my unbelief!  And help me shepherd my friends well as they enter into mission!

The Spirit Named Scarcity

Throughout the globe, there is a consistent evil I have come across.  It clothes itself according to the land’s dictated culture, but its main identity remains in tact.  Its name is Scarcity. 

Each encounter I have with this, no matter the culture, it has the same impact on people.  People fight for the last crumbs, even in nations where that last crumb is in the form of an expensive steak.  Hopelessness and fear become our response to life’s circumstances.  But what fascinates me even more than our craving to believe this lie is how we add to it!  We honestly believe that living according to scarcity’s offer is more secure than living the Kingdom of God’s offer.

For the past few months, I feel like I’m consistently confronting this evil with people and within myself.  I have struggled to identify these internal emotions that turn into physical aches.  For whatever reason, I awoke this morning realizing what it was.  This evil has a name and its called “Scarcity”.  It is a lie that masks itself in security and good work ethic.  Work environments, in many cases, demand us to live according to its tenants.  It leads to internal ulcer formation at its best and mass killing at its worse.  What scares me the most is all the implications in between those extremes.

My hope is that having its identity revealed, I can offer better grace to those I have been asked to serve.  That my leadership and my friendship will be laced with this knowledge and that deeper freedom can be extended.  For myself, I hope for the ongoing freedom in Christ to emerge as I identify the spaces in my life I still believe the lie.