Five simple questions

1. “How did you feel?”
2. “Did you do what you intended to do?”
3. “Is there anything you would do differently next time?”
4. (To the rest of the team) “What did you think they did well?"
5. "Any suggestions for what they could do differently next time?”

Five simple questions…

The Kairos Course is a discipleship course that was developed in the Philippines and has become a global movement offered in over 100 countries and in several dozen languages. The story of its momentum is startling, but it relies on activating ordinary Christians with a shared passion to lead in ways that they have never led before.

Its not uncommon for people to fear and avoid public speaking.

Many of us will do almost anything to avoid it. This fear has a name, ‘Glossophobia’ and the Mayo Clinic even has an article to aid in overcoming it.

How then has the Kairos Course and Simply Mobilizing grown and developed when there is such a reliance on non-professionals with no public-speaking experience being able to stand at the front of a room full of people and lead a session or activity?

Gift discovery and skill development are core values of the Simply Mobilizing movement, home of the Kairos Course. Everyone is a learner—being mentored by someone and mentoring someone else. Training is built in and is ongoing.

It’s this ethos that allows people who have never stood at the front of a room and spoken, to try for the first time…and then try again.

4 Principles Behind the Process

Some principles behind the process:

1. Building a trusting, safe, fun environment in the leadership team allows people to take small risks and try new skills.
2. Levelling the table and inviting input from all, no matter the level of experience, empowers growth, learning, and vulnerability. No one is perfect and no one is the expert. We are a learning community with a shared passion.
3. We learn about something by watching others, but we develop skills by doing it ourselves.
4. Offering opportunity, and a chance to try again, develops confidence and can uncover latent capacities. Some will quickly shine, others will not—but each will have contributed and grown; and each will have been encouraged to pursue their passion with the gifts God has given.

Discipleship as Activation

Shared vision and passion are the motivators to stretch and discover skills that build momentum; safe community is the context that allows for acceptance and integration of constructive feedback that spurs skill development.

Activating latent capacity is a felt need in the Church globally.

Simply Mobilizing’s courses and programs move beyond discipleship as information to discipleship as activation. When the whole Body of Christ discovers and is active in their gifting then we will be reflecting the vision described by Paul in Ephesians 4:16b, “…when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Five simple questions—but these questions, asked in an environment of friendship, trust, and community, are the driving force behind the growth of the Kairos Course and other Simply Mobilizing courses in Canada, and around the world.

To find out more about the Kairos Course or Simply Mobilizing visit Simply Mobilizing Canada.

Lorna Johnston is the Diaspora Ministries Leader at Outreach Canada. She leads two national teams--Loving Muslims Together (LMT) and Simply Mobilizing Canada (SMC). She works with teams of diverse and experienced leaders and ministries across Canada to alert and activate the church in Canada to the changing opportunities to engage God's mission right here in Canada.