Podcast appearances and mentions of august gate church

Episode 645: Preaching to a small crowd offers both unique opportunities and particular challenges. Host Clint Clifton discusses them with Noah Oldham, planter and pastor of August Gate Church in St. Louis.

Episode 637: One of the biggest problems a pastor faces is developing leadership. Host Clint Clifton talks with Noah Oldham, pastor of August Gate Church in St. Louis, about how you can find the future leaders for your church planting work right in your own congregation.

Episode 636: Residencies are crucial to multiplication in church planting, but how do you start and organize them? Host Clint Clifton discusses the practical components of residency with Noah Oldham, pastor of August Gate Church in St. Louis.

God loves us with a costly love, a love that went to the cross for us. He calls us to love in the same way: to take up our cross and limitlessly love Him and other people. This is the first core value of August Gate Church, the ultimate reason for why we do all that we do.

In another shot-clock-style episode, Heiden asks Noah questions on topics from Bible translations to multiplying church plants, along with where the name August Gate Church came from. A couple of surprises make it in there too, like home-run wars and missional beard oil. To find out more about church planting with Send Network, text “Send Network” to 888-123 (Msg&data rates may apply), or visit us online at SendNetwork.com.

In another shot-clock-style episode, Heiden asks Noah questions on topics from Bible translations to multiplying church plants, along with where the name August Gate Church came from. A couple of surprises make it in there too, like home-run wars and missional beard oil. To find out more about church planting with Send Network, text “Send Network” to 888-123, or visit us online at SendNetwork.com.

Noah Oldham is Senior Director of Deployment for the Send Network, and pastor of August Gate Church in Belleville, IL. A passion for the gospel and church planters is easily seen and heard in Noah, and it comes out in every way on this episode. Hear his own conversion story and the ripples it has had in his family as he opens up about evangelism, the call to ministry, and multiplying from the very beginning. Plus, the story about his dad is a don't-miss!

COVID-19 has brought Sunday services—and the world—to a temporary halt. These are unnerving, unpredictable times. As pastors and church planters, our initial impulse could be fear — fear of what’s going to happen to our church, our community, our family. In this special episode, Dhati Lewis sits down (virtually, of course!) with Clint Clifton, church planter and lead pastor of Pillar Church in the D.C. area and the new senior director of development for Send Network, and Noah Oldham, church planter and lead pastor of August Gate Church in St. Louis and the new senior director of deployment for Send Network. Together, they discuss what pastors need in these unprecedented times, initiatives their churches are doing to stay connected and the hope we have as God’s people. More information about pastoring amid COVID-19 available here.

COVID-19 has brought Sunday services—and the world—to a temporary halt. These are unnerving, unpredictable times. As pastors and church planters, our initial impulse could be fear — fear of what’s going to happen to our church, our community, our family. In this special episode, Dhati Lewis sits down (virtually, of course!) with Clint Clifton, church planter and lead pastor of Pillar Church in the D.C. area and the new senior director of development for Send Network, and Noah Oldham, church planter and lead pastor of August Gate Church in St. Louis and the new senior director of deployment for Send Network. Together, they discuss what pastors need in these unprecedented times, initiatives their churches are doing to stay connected and the hope we have as God’s people. More information about pastoring amid COVID-19 available here.

In this episode Josh Turansky talks with Noah Oldham from August Gate Church in St Louis, MO. Noah Oldham Planted August Gate Church in 2009 and has been leading it ever since. Noah is married to Heather, and has four or five wonderful children depending on whether you read his Twitter Profile or Pastor Fit website. PastorFit WebsiteAugust Gate Church Website

Noah Oldham lives in St. Louis, Mo., with his wife and four children. He grew up in southern Illinois and graduated from McKendree College and Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. He now serves as the Send North America: St. Louis city coordinator for the North American Mission Board. He is also the lead pastor of August Gate Church, a church plant in the Tower Grove East neighborhood of downtown St. Louis, which he planted in 2009. In his spare time, Noah enjoys date nights with his wife, cuddling with his kids and following the St. Louis Cardinals and Florida Gators.  

See under the hood of the church planter coaching system in St. Louis. Hear about the wins and the challenges of providing a great coach for every church planter. Learn the importance of a strong coaching champion to help encourage and develop coaches in a city. And learn the secret of great coaching in your city. Noah Oldham's church: http://augustgate.com/ Principles and Practices of Church Planter Coaching free ebook: https://www.namb.net/send-network-blog/sending-well-principles-and-practices-of-church-planter-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 planter needs one. Here's your host, Dino Senesi. Dino Senesi: Welcome to the Send Network Coaching Podcast. My name is Dino Senesi, and I'm the director of coaching for the Send Network, and today, I have a guest from St. Louis. His name is Noah Oldham. Now, Noah is a utility player. Now you know I'm going to segue into baseball, right? He's a utility player in the kingdom because he's a Send City Missionary, and that's part of his role, and the other part of his role is that he is a church planter and pastor of a multi-campus church in St. Louis, August Gate Church. Welcome, Noah, to the podcast. Noah Oldham: Thanks Dino. Appreciate you having me. Dino Senesi: Yeah man, and so let's talk Cardinals. What are you thinking? What's it going to look like this year because at least now, we're in March, so we're thinking baseball, right? Noah Oldham: Ah man, yeah. I think the Cardinals always kind of look middle of the pack strong, even when we've been the best in the division or ended up best in the division, but folks are pretty depressed right now. We just had a pitcher that we offered money to, and he took $5 million less to go to another city- Dino Senesi: Ouch. Noah Oldham: So that he could win, so I think that people are a little bit down in the dumps right now. Dino Senesi: Well let me tell you, as a baseball fan, I've never been anti-Cardinal, but I've been a Reds fan and a Braves fan, and so great deal of respect for a great organization, and yes, many years, you have looked like middle of the pack, and you've come out with a World Series on those years, so be encouraged. You can do it without what's-his-name, so very good. What's one place I need to eat in St. Louis the next time I come? Noah Oldham: I'm not sure if you've eaten there already. I may have pushed you this direction, but Bailey's Range. It's a restaurant at 10th and Olive downtown. It's a St. Louis original restaurant. The owner, Bailey, everything he touches turns to gold. It's a craft burger, craft milkshake place, all locally sourced, in-house baked goods. It's an amazing place. Dino Senesi: Wow. You’re making me hungry. Yeah, so very good. We went to a good place last time we were there with your coaches, your existing coaches. We got some good food. Do you remember where that was? Noah Oldham: Man, I don't. Oh yeah, we went to Tuckers. It was steak house. Dino Senesi: Oh dude. That was some good grub right there. So, it was very good. What is your wife's name? Noah Oldham: My wife's name is Heather. Dino Senesi: Yeah, Heather. And I met Heather at either a Send Conference or ... I think it was a Send Conference at Long Beach. So I met her, but how's everything with Heather? Noah Oldham: It's great. She's busy these days. She's the pastor's ... The planter wife care advocate here in St. Louis, and she homeschools our four children, and she's a lead pastor's wife, and so she does a tremendous amount. She's busy, but she's thriving. She's doing well. Dino Senesi: Wow. And she is busier than you, and you're a utility player. Noah Oldham: That's right. That's right. She keeps it all together here. Dino Senesi: Very good. What's something your family loves to do in St. Louis together? Noah Oldham: We love to hit up some of the free spots in St. Louis. St. Louis is known to be one of the most budget-friendly, family cities. We got a world renown zoo that's absolutely free, and so we like to hit that up. We like to go to Cardinal's baseball games. We like to spend together. Since we homeschool, we enjoy our time together, and so we try to do a weekly family worship with the kids, break out musical instruments. Some of them dance. We put music on YouTube on the TV and just let loose for Jesus. It's a lot of fun. Dino Senesi: That sounds so cool. Appreciate your family. Appreciate Heather, and I know that's something that's vitally important to what's going on in your world, so I appreciate you as well, my friend. I want to talk about coaching in St. Louis. Obviously, this is a coaching podcast. I'm just a curious guy, and I love big cities and what God's doing in those cities, but we'll just talk about church planter coaching. You gave us a longer story in a previous podcast, but coaching ... There's a personal meaning to coaching to you. Could you give us a thumbnail of that story? Noah Oldham: Yeah. The story goes that we had a miscarriage, early in the life of our church after years of infertility, and then getting pregnant on our own, we lost a baby in the middle of the pregnancy, we were just alone, and we were crushed. It was in that season of life, when we felt like we had no one to turn to that my coach pursued me deeper in conversation and deeper in relationship in the midst of our coaching relationship, and through that, brought his wife into the situation to help care for my wife, and they became some of the most dear people to us. Again, I always say, if it wasn't for the Hubbards, we might not be in ministry today. Dino Senesi: Yeah, yeah. It's really a great story. I would surely recommend to our listeners, if you did not hear the previous podcast, you could find it on the Send Network Coaching page, and you'd love to hear the details as how God used Mike Hubbard as a shepherd coach to walk alongside and shepherd the soul of Noah and Heather during excruciating circumstances, and it gives you a little bit of different vision of the value of coaching. For some planters, Noah, you know they perceive this as, "Well, this is what NAMB is making me do." Or, "This is what my network's making me do. I got to have a coach. Oh no. I hate it." And when, in reality, a great coach is a gift from God. Noah Oldham: Absolutely. A hundred percent necessary for the life and the health of a planter. Dino Senesi: Yeah, very much so. And so, tell me ... Give me an update. How are things going for church planter coaching in St. Louis? Noah Oldham: It's going really well. St. Louis has always been, since I've been here, at least, a strong city for coaching. When I was going through the planting process nearly a decade ago, immediately the different networks that exist here were all pushing coaching as something that was necessary and helpful and beneficial coaching, but what's been so cool about the last season for St. Louis ... Dino, you brought it to St. Louis, this unified vision for what our coaching can be, and so while we have a couple different state conventions that we work with and local associations, we've been able, through our NAMB Coaching, our Send Network Coaching, to bring one central lane for coaching instead of three or four or five different avenues, and that's been so helpful. We can track coaching better. We know who and who isn't in coaching, and it helps us to find coaches in an easier way as well. Dino Senesi: Yes. Very much. When you think about something that'll last and something that'll grow, there has to be some unity in what does it mean to have a coach, and how often does someone meet with their coach, and what do they talk about. I've been having these conversations, specifically in the NAMB context, for five years, many years before that as well, and it's ... Coaching has been very random across North America. Some guys, like yourself, you had a great, great coaching story, but there was probably three or four guys in St. Louis that didn't have that same opportunity. The sheer numbers get ahead of us, but by having a system that creates a culture, then the number of coaches that know what they're doing and are passionate about what they do, continues to grow as your church planters grow, and then every planter has what they need, which is a great coach. So, what's your biggest challenge right now with church planter coaching? Noah Oldham: We need more coaches. We have had a lot of guys doing a lot of things for years, and we're trying to grow our pool of coaches. Guys that are interested in it, even guys who aren't connected to church planting. We have a lot of guys who are getting coaching who we think are going to be tremendous coaches after this initial season of planting of receiving coaching, but we need to grow our pool, and so we're beginning to look even outside our region and even outside our tribe a little bit to get guys that are excited about the process of drawing out these church planters and helping them to flourish as they do it. Dino Senesi: Yes, and definition of coaching, I'm thinking of this too. As you find the coaches, as you train them, as you assign them ... Well, there's two things. I want to address the one at the end, but one of the things that our coach developers, such as your top-level coach developer, Kevin Wright, on your staff, they often say, "My coaches just want to hang out with their guys. There's not that level of intentionality." What are you doing, and what could we do to help move our coaches to being more intentional? Noah Oldham: Well I think one of the number one things is finding that coaching champion. Kevin Wright, our coaching champion, I can't say enough good things about. Not only is he, like you said, he's on my staff, we planted August Gate Metro East together. He leads that gathering for our church, but he's a natural coach. He is so good at it. So when this role became available, and it was placed in front of him, it was just a perfect fit, and so he is reproducing that. He's encouraging that culture. He's reminding people of what coaching is and what coaching isn't, because I think in most of our lives, especially those who played sports, we hear the word coach. We often think more like a mentor. We think like a sports coach as somebody who was really good before, and now that since they've got bad knees, all they do is tell people how to do it, but that's not what we're looking for, and Kevin understands that, and he is creating a culture here that is just exactly what we have needed in this season. Dino Senesi: Well, he is doing an incredible job, and I could attest of that from my seat on the bus, and you're a great team because you have the bigger picture. You have the heart. You have the personal experience that says you really need a coach, and Kevin's doing a great job implementing it, and he really does embody what a great coach is like and how a great coach thinks, so I've seen, even in my own journey, I learned the most about coaching through having a great coach and then through coaching reps. Just getting out there and doing it. Kim Robinson spoke to our team. He used something in a broader context, but it's like, "Get out of the huddle and run some plays." A lot of times, we have coaching huddles, right? Let's train. Let's advance our skills. Let's go to advanced training. Let's go a hundred hours of training. It's like the training can help prepare you to coach, but only coaching can make you a great coach. Reps, reps, reps. And so, you got somebody like Kevin around and others. I know some of your other coaches, and appreciate their passion. Of course, Mike Hubbard, the veteran in your coaching system. A great coach, and so I think that's great for your culture. Now, another thing that I get from coaches is my church planter doesn't want to be coached, and so normally who's listening to this podcast is coaches, but I think what words would you give that planter, maybe that's words this coach is going to pick up and give to a planter to help them really want to be coached or be coachable? What are some words of encouragement you'd give there? Noah Oldham: Yeah, we just try to give testimonials. We walk a planter through the process. We really don't make coaching optional. We don't force it on them either, but we tell them, "Here is what NAMB is giving to you. This is what we're going to provide for you." And we just tell the story in a compelling way how this is how coaching can help you and benefit you. We frame it, and we shape it as the gift that it is instead of a jumping through hoops, and we've had a couple guys who have gone through that who feel like they don't necessarily need it, and when that happens, I generally have a one-on-one conversation with them, and I ask them this question: "Have I ever asked you to do something that's a waste of your time?" Dino Senesi: Wow. Noah Oldham: And thanks be to God, they usually say, "No. Absolutely not. Everything you've asked me to do or told me I need to do has been really beneficial." Coaching is even more important than that. And so this is going to be good, and we're going to get you the right coach too. So I think that's necessary. If you have a system where you're matching guys up in a relationship that's going to be beneficial, a guy taste it just a little bit, he's going to be sold on it, and so I just tell a guy, "Trust me, and let's move forward in this together." Dino Senesi: Yeah, that's good. Match-ups are important. Getting the right match-ups. Creating the right culture, which you guys have done, and it really does take time, and so building a coaching culture in most cities, although St. Louis had the benefit of having a longer history of coaching, it takes a while. It takes a few people going through a coaching cycle, those informal conversations that a person coached has, that's worth a hundred points on a zero scale to say ... It just takes one of those from somebody like you with leadership cred that says, "Trust me. This is going to help you." Noah Oldham: One of the other cool things too, Dino, is that in our process, after we do the one-day coaching map, we do peer-to-peer coaching for a few months, and I have grown so much in peer-to- peer coaching, and so I'm able to tell planters that as well. Like, "I've gone through coaching, and here's the ways that it's benefiting me. You want to do this." Dino Senesi: Yes. And at least in our process practicing, Keith Webb says that when you have follow up practice to do after training, the results go up 300%. I would scare to think about what our results would be without peer coaching, and that's where we take two participants, two coaches that are going to be deployed within 60 to 90 days, we let them practice for a couple of months together. We even look in on them and give them some feedback because we don't want it to be okay coaching. Our target is for it to be great coaching, and so those relationships help prepare them for their planter. We want the planter to get the best possible coach they could get. So, that's another word too. If we've got crummy coaching in our city, we're kidding ourselves when we're trying to talk a planter into having one. Noah Oldham: Right. Right. Dino Senesi: So, hey Noah, I appreciate it. This is a lot of value, I think, for our listeners today, and if you'll check our show notes, you'll be able to see a link to August Gate Church, a link to our Send Network Coaching page, and even a way to get access to more podcasts than just this one. The podcast is focused on helping coaches become great coaches, so we appreciate you listening. We appreciate your feedback, and Noah, thank you for the update on the St. Louis Cardinals, but even more important, for church planter coaching in St. Louis. Noah Oldham: Thanks for having me, Dino. Dino Senesi: That's awesome. Until the next time, keep coaching. Speaker 1: 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.

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.