How a coach can save your ministry and marriage feat. Noah Oldham

Church Planter Coaching Podcast

Noah Oldham, church planter and Send City Missionary for St. Louis, and Dino Senesi, director of coaching for the Send Network, talk about the importance of coaches. Noah shares his story and how his coach played a significant role in saving his marriage and ministry.

• August Gate Church
• Sending Well: Principles and Practices of Church Planter Coaching
• NAMB.net/Coaching

Introduction: Thank you for joining us on The Coaching Podcast. As part of the Send Network, we are

passionate about equipping church planters to live out the call God has placed on their lives. Join us as

we talk through healthy coaching practices and why every church planner needs one. Here's your host

Dino Senesi.

Dino Senesi: Welcome to the Send Network Coaching Podcast. I am the coaching director for the Send

Network. My name is Dino Senesi, and looking forward today to talking to my friend Noah Oldham.

Noah is the Sin City missionary in St. Louis. Hello Noah, how are you?

Noah Oldham: Hello Dino, I'm doing well man. Thanks for having me on.

Dino Senesi: You were telling me about what it's like in St. Louis today and it kind of made me want to

go up your direction, so what's the buzz, what's going on in St. Louis, and what does it feel

like to be in St. Louis today?

Noah Oldham: Oh man, St. Louis is on the verge of baseball season about to start, and today, you can

tell by looking outside, it's sunny, it's mid 50s, actually about to be 60s now and it's an amazing day

getting ready for Cardinal baseball. The city comes alive this time of the year. Everybody comes out

the winter depression, gets outside, it's a great time for mission, it's a great time to be in community.

Dino Senesi: Yes, you know and my friends in the south and of course I live in South Carolina, the

perception is when I go to places like St. Louis and Detroit that I'm going to the North Pole, that you're

under ice nine months out of the year. They don't realize you have some very beautiful weather and

very distinct seasons in St. Louis.

Noah Oldham: That's right we do. We have really, really bad summers and we can often have really,

really bad winters. Spring and fall is hit or miss. It sometimes feel like a second winter and a second

summer, but we're thankful for the weather that we get here.

Dino Senesi: Yes, so what do you love the most about your city, just living in St. Louis, what do you love

the most about it?

Noah Oldham: I love the fact that St. Louis is a Midwestern city. When I say that I mean it's equal parts

city and Midwestern, it's not like a metropolitan hub like Atlanta or New York or Chicago or LA that's

very, very metropolitan. You can be in the Arch, go to the top of the Arch, and look every direction and

in every direction you can see, from the Arch, cornfields. Because we're right there tucked in the middle

of the Midwest. It is a joining point St. Louis is for a diverse cultures, a very urban culture and a very

rural culture right up next to each other. It brings, not only it's challenges, but it brings it's blessings as

well.

Dino Senesi: Kind of give me the spiritual climate. What is I guess the average person in St. Louis, what

do they think about God, how do they process spiritual things?

Noah Oldham: Yes, St. Louis is full of post-Christian culture. St. Louis, even the name, gives it away that

it's a post-Catholic city, but it's also the home for the Missouri Synod Lutheran denomination and there

are a lot of other church movements that have been a part of the St. Louis city. When I meet somebody

who's from St. Louis, specifically a white person that's indigenous to St. Louis, I find out they went to

school here growing up. My second question is Catholic or Lutheran? They always laugh and they're like,

"How did you know?" I say, "Just because, that's the climate here." People here have a little bit of an

inoculation to the Gospel. Everybody has been kind of culturally Christian or has walked away on

purpose from being culturally Christian. You'll be hard pressed to find somebody not that's lost, a lot of

people don't know the Lord and don't care to know the Lord, but a lot of people know religion.

Dino Senesi: Yes, well you know we have a similar issue in South Carolina but it's Baptist or Methodist.

It's kind of a different side of it but it's very much the same thing. People in the South kind of feel like,

"Well hey, I was born in the right place and I go to the right church so I must be going to heaven."

Noah Oldham: That's right.

Dino Senesi: Yes, so that's a big hurdle to get over. Very good. Now you're a church planter as well. I

didn't say that on purpose at the beginning. You planted August Gate Church and we want to talk about

your coaching story today, there's a lot of coaches that listen to us and I want them to be encouraged by

how God has used coaching in your life as a planter, but first tell your planting story. How did August

Gate come into being?

Noah Oldham: Yes, so I went to college just outside St. Louis from 2001 to 2005. Came here to play

football. I was a brand new Christian, saved in high school, and in college I saw people my age leaving

the church in a mass exodus. As we begin to ask questions my Christian friends and I, people on the

football team, people in our classes, why were they walking away from the church? The main reason

they said was they felt like the church was irrelevant for their stage of life. I was a brand new believer

and the gospel is relevant to everything that I was going through, so I wanted them to know about

Jesus. My roommates and I, we started to tell funny stories about what it'd look like one day to start a

church for people like us, our age, and God birthed that idea when we were just 20 years old.

Then after college I went to be a youth pastor back in my home town. That burden never left me, and so

a couple years into being a youth pastor in Southeastern Illinois, God birthed a call in my heart to move

to a city to plant a church to reach the unchurched demographics of 20s and 30s. My college roommate,

my best friend, was the first person I called to invite, and God had been birthing that in his heart as well.

After a couple years of preparation, we moved to St. Louis, both of our families plus a third guy as well.

We all moved down and parachuted and planted August Gate in August of 2009 with about 15 people in

our living room. By God's grace today, actually in a couple weeks we're launching our third gathering of

our church, and we've been a part of planting over six churches in St. Louis since that time.

Dino Senesi: Well God's doing a lot of neat things in St. Louis from my seat on the bus, and of course

what God's doing through you and August Gate and through the entire Send Network there is incredible.

A real unusual sense of community I think you guys have accomplished and enjoyed hearing you speak

to couple of hundred church planters this past fall about community. What do you think’s important for

planters to help them in the early phases?

Noah Oldham: Yes, I mean early on they're going to need that brotherhood. That's what I love so much

about where Send Network is at and where we're even going is we need people around us, we need

coaches like we're talking about today. We need a brotherhood with other planters, we need a support

system, especially those guys who come into a city, they know no one, they need to have this already

put together circle of trust and circle of care and that's what Send Network is doing. Because without it,

man, you know, you've seen it, I've seen it, guys shrivel up and almost die and the work doesn't flourish

and God doesn't get the glory He deserves out of that situation.

Dino Senesi: Very much so. Now specifically your coaching story, there was some acute challenges that

you had. It sounded to me like you were under attack from the enemy in the early phases, and God used

a coach very much to help you walk through and used him in some unusual ways, mutual clients of mine

and becoming a friend, a very close friend of yours Mike Hubbard, but tell a little bit about your

coaching story within your planting story.

Noah Oldham: Yes, so part of our planting story was that the years that we went to prepare to come to

plant in St. Louis, 2007 specifically, was what we used to call the year from hell. It was horrific. It started

when I resigned my position as a youth pastor, the night I resigned I was life-flighted to a hospital with a

heart condition, I was on bed rest for over a month on medications that did all kinds of stuff to my body,

I gained a tremendous amount of weight, I had nowhere to go and ended up going to a church that I

didn't know very well under some promises that didn't come through. We ended up losing our house

after I lost that position. We had to move in with my in-laws. I went bald that year. I gained a

tremendous amount of weight. My mom died, and we found out we couldn't have children. All in the

course of about seven months.

I was crushed, man, I was crushed. When we moved to St. Louis the next year to do my church planning

residency, God was putting the pieces back together in our life. I was learning humility, I was learning to

trust the Lord, and we went through very, very costly procedures to have a child. We were told by

doctors it's the only way you'll ever get pregnant and we spent all of our life savings to have a baby. We

had a baby, and a few months after having that baby and launching our church we found ourselves

pregnant on our own out of nowhere, it was the biggest celebration you would have ever experienced.

We just didn't take it for granted at any level because we knew this was a miracle from God.

We celebrated, our church celebrated with us on and on, but then we went to our 14-week

appointment and ready to see how our child was growing, things were happening. Things were different

that day. The tech didn't turn the screen, didn't have the smile on her face like the time before. Long

story short our baby died in the womb and it was, do you know one of the hardest things still to this

point we've ever walked through in life. It made it even more difficult I think because of our history,

what we had gone through.

We were alone. We were planting this church and it was this weird thing of how do we tell people? How

do we let people care for us? What will people even do? Most people in our core team weren't even

that close to us. We're brand new relationships, we're trying to shepherd people, and on top of that my

wife and I were processing things differently. We had given up everything in life to come plant this

church and while this was very, very difficult I was finding ways to deal with the pain outwardly and my

wife was not. For instance, the first Sunday after it happened I went and, as a part of the sermon, shared

our brokenness. People said, "We're sorry and we're with you and we love you," but my wife was so

broken she wasn't able to come to service that night.

No one did that for her and it felt that after that night most people kind of moved on and she still

needed to heal. We entered into a dark, dark season of our life and our marriage and our church

planting. It all shifted, when one day in my monthly coaching with Mike Hubbard, he began

to dig deeper into questions. He could tell there was more going on in life, things seemed kind of

surfaced, and he kept digging. "Well what's going on in your marriage? What's going on in your home?

How are things with your heart?" When he did, I opened up and I shared with him what was going on.

Mike didn't just end our session after 30 minutes or an hour and give me some smart goals to walk away

with for our next session. Mike told me in that moment my wife and I, we want to meet with you, we

want to come alongside you in this. Mike and his wife, Heidi, invited us down to their church, they took

us out, they spent some time with us and they invested in our life. I tell people, when I tell stories of

Mike Hubbard, that I believe in many ways if it wasn't for Mike and Heidi Hubbard, Heather and I might

not be in ministry today because of the way God used that coach.

Dino Senesi: Yes, and I was going to interject at that point Noah. I think that's an encouraging word that

our coaches could hear because sometimes, like in any ministry, you could be digging away, digging

away in a coaching relationship and suddenly there's a divine moment where you know now I know why

I'm Noah Oldham's coach. Mike had the maturity to seize that. I wrote down the one question: How are

things with your heart? We focus a lot in Send Network about you're coaching the planter not the plant,

you're coaching the person not the goal, there is a shepherding aspect of this to keep you grounded

during those difficult times. Tell me more about Mike and Heidi, they invited you in, they felt impressed

to pour more into you, what happened then?

Noah Oldham: Yes, they just walked with us. They were an available ear. They didn't force anything too

Much, like we need to meet all the time and do this and do this. They kept the door open, they have

individual conversations with us, they had joint conversations with us. Honestly, the few times that we

actually walked that with them, was what we needed, was what we needed, my wife and I, to see each

other and hear each other and understand that there was a bigger thing going on around us. It propelled

us, it propelled us into what is now an opportunity for Heather and I to shepherd so many other people

as I lead church planting for a name in St. Louis and my wife leads the coaching for Church Planting

Wives, the care for Church Planting Wives rather.

Dino Senesi: Yes, and I understand the urgent need that a planter feels to get some really good and

timely advice. When there's lots of community around like you have in St. Louis that's readily available

and usually it's readily available, but you're describing a different kind of relationship, someone who will

shepherd the soul. Give me some of your thoughts about that.

Noah Oldham: Yes, I think that's one of the most important things, that's one of the things I love about

Mike and I love about many of our other coaches in St. Louis is there is this urgency to know the most

important thing, at the end of a career of ministry, it isn't the number of people that we had attend our

services, the number of small groups we started. At the end of career in ministry, do we, do our family,

do our children, do they love Jesus, and do they still believe in His mission in the local church? They

believe that's primary, and so all the other things that come along with that are secondary to the health

of that planter. That's why coaching is so important, it's to important here in St. Louis, it's so important

for the Send Network because without a healthy planter, we'll never plant healthy churches.

Dino Senesi: Excellent, and then that healthy coach is the backup, so we have to have healthy coaches

too right?

Noah Oldham: Amen. Yes coaches that are walking in step with the Lord, too. If Mike was just going

through the motions and was just fulfilling a role to be a "coach" and he wasn't following the Spirit I

don't know that the conversation would have gone that way, but because he was in tune with the Lord,

growing in his relationship, God used him in such a powerful way.

Dino Senesi: Well, and so much, and again enjoyed meeting Mike last fall, but so much in tune to what

was really, really important at the moment. He could have totally missed that, he could have said, "I'm

praying for you." He could have prayed for you but boy he really sensed, and no question from the Lord,

what a critical stage you guys were and in your own words probably wouldn't have made it without

having a coach like Mike.

Noah Oldham: Amen.

Dino Senesi: Just in closing, because we have a lot of coaches listening, I asked you to kind of think

about so you're speaking to a coach out there, you're using Mike's example, which is very encouraging

inspiration to all of us, so what word of encouragement or two would you give to a coach?

Noah Oldham: Yes, my main word that I think of when I think of coach is pursuit. As you are pursuing

that planter, planters they're going to be flakey, they're going to miss meetings, they're going to have

scheduling mishaps, they're going to make you feel maybe sometimes like coaching isn't the most

important thing on their daily schedule. Whether they know it or not, it's one of the most important

things that they can be doing, and so that coach being tenacious to pursue that planter, to pursue him in

questions in the middle of that coaching session, to pursue him and the Lord through prayer in between

those sessions, and to really not let him off the hook. Mike could have let me off the hook, I probably

would have been surface level, I probably wouldn't have shared what I needed to share and I wouldn't

have walked into the health that I feel like I'm able to walk into today because of that. Pursuit and

intentionality and tenacity with those guys and it's going to go well.

Dino Senesi: Yes, well I think you gave them. Pursuit, intentionality, and tenacity right?

Noah Oldham: Yes.

Dino Senesi: Very good, and I love that profile because there is a stream of thought in a professional

coach that they make the person being coached 100% responsible for everything. I get that a coach can't

be codependent or those types of things, but there's a reality in our context we're coaching for the great

commission, we're coaching with the co-mission that we have with God, thus the pursuit of the planter

is everything. Be not weary and well doing coach.

Noah Oldham: Amen.

Dino Senesi: Yes, so very good. Hey Noah, I really appreciate this snapshot of your story and your

vulnerability. I know there's other layers because I've heard it, but I think that we've gotten the

highlights of Mike Hubbard and your relationship with him, and also your heart to see coaches

reproduced in St. Louis. If you'll check in our show notes we will include the link to August Gate Church

so you could learn more about Noah Oldham. Also, my e-book has been updated for Principles and

Practices of Church Planter Coaching. If you'd like to sharpen your skills in coaching it's more of a

narrative version of the training we do. If you say, "I just want to read a list of things on how to ask great

questions," or "I want to read a list of things on the value of pure coaching." You're that kind of reader,

well that's free available on the Send Network coaching page. We'll put that link in the show notes as

well to help you sharpen skills as you coach church planters.

Noah, thank you for today.

Noah Oldham: You're welcome, thanks for having me.

Dino Senesi: Yes, very good. Until the next time, keep coaching.

Closing Remarks: You have been listening to The Coaching Podcast. A resource of the North American

Mission Board. Are you a church planter in need of a coach? Visit NAMB.net/Coaching to learn more.