Welcome to Living My Faith, a weekly show that celebrates the everyday believers who are walking with Jesus not just on Sundays, but in every area of their lives. From relationships and parenting to health, habits, and home, our guests share how they keep their faith at the center of it all. Hosted in Jacksonville, Florida and supported by Christ-centered partners, Living My Faith is a space where real life meets real faith. Today our host, Morgan Yonge, spoke with Chuck Coker of Lifethrive Performance Systems.
Transcript:
Morgan:
Welcome back to another episode of Living My Faith, where we highlight those who are making Kingdom Impact. I’m Morgan Yonge, joined today by Chuck Coker with Life Thrive Performance System and Yasha Ministries.
Chuck:
Correct.
Morgan:
It is such a pleasure having you on the show. You are a wealth of knowledge, and I’m truly grateful you’re here.
Chuck:
Well, thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.
Morgan:
So let’s start with Yasha Ministries. I love how you’ve trained up all of these black belts who are also leading people to faith. Tell me about that journey.
Chuck:
Yes. About 43 years ago, I closed my commercial schools and opened a taekwondo class at Neptune Baptist Church in Neptune Beach. From there, it continued to grow. We eventually opened schools in different locations, and some of my black belts wanted to teach, so we just kept expanding.
Today, we’re in four states with 16 schools.
Morgan:
Oh my gosh. And you haven’t just developed casual taekwondo hobbies. You’ve developed Olympians.
Chuck:
That’s correct. We’ve had 63 Junior Olympians and four Olympian finalists so far.
Morgan:
That is absolutely incredible. And you’ve got some bling to show for it. Will you show off your bling for us?
Chuck:
A little bit of bling.
Morgan:
I’ve seen it. You’ve got to tell me about it.
Chuck:
Okay. This is from the United States Masters Hall of Fame. It was presented to me based on the long-term growth and development of our students. One of the unique things about our program is that our students don’t pay monthly training fees. There’s no monthly charge. They simply purchase their uniforms, and if they want to advance, they pay for their testing.
Morgan:
That is amazing. What an opportunity for these kids and young adults. That’s truly exciting.
Chuck:
Yes. And we like parents too, because it takes a 21-year-old to open a school. I don’t pay my instructors. They volunteer. They invest in the next generation, and the next generation is where my life is focused and will be until I graduate.
Morgan:
Until you graduate, I love it. And that’s coming from a man with nine amazing children. That’s correct. You are focused on the next generation.
Chuck:
That’s right.
Morgan:
Yeah.
Chuck:
And the neat thing is, they still talk to me.
Morgan:
That’s how you know you’re winning. There you go.
So tell me about Life Thrive. How has that poured into and balanced out Yasha Ministries?
Chuck:
Well, when you teach for free, you still have to make a living.
After running a New York Stock Exchange company for a number of years, the company was sold off. I was then asked to help create a program in the United Kingdom called the Hub Program, which teaches at multiple universities.
There are 12 campuses now, and it’s kind of like an executive MBA. People come in for a week, take two classes, and then I read and grade their papers. We also teach via video, and I would teach two campuses at a time, usually on a Monday or Tuesday during that week.
A lot of the information and research I gathered while I was there focused on emotional intelligence and people development. After 2015, I stepped back. My hearing had gotten really bad, and teaching 300 students at a time wasn’t always workable.
So I took the material and the research my graduate students and I had done over the past few years and built a program called Personal Formation and Development. That became the foundation for the 15 online courses my company now offers, teaching people how to apply essential people skills.
I also did research for a group called MarketingSherpa. They have over 300,000 case studies. We surveyed 1,632 companies and asked: What are the biggest inhibitors to productivity, performance, and profitability?
The number one issue was finance, affecting 74 percent of companies. Number five was technology, at around 43 percent. The other six factors were all people issues.
So 75 percent of the issues that impact productivity, profitability, and performance are people-related. All of that boils down to this: as a leader, are you using your emotional intelligence to engage people?
Here in America, quarterly profit is king. According to Gallup, engagement rose last year to a whole 35 percent. That means 65 percent of employees are disengaged.
What’s especially sad, because I prefer to work in faith-based organizations, is that pastors who go to seminary are taught theology, but they’re not taught people skills. Theology is the foundation for everything, and I have faith, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here. But faith alone isn’t going to solve all your problems.
You have to use the brain God gave you. If you do that, you can engage people and build a healthy organization.
Here’s the scary part. I did a survey a number of years ago and found that 52 percent of church staffs are dysfunctional. The turnover rate in faith-based institutions is 70 percent after five years. Pastors graduating from seminary have an attrition rate of 51 percent after ten years.
People go to school, but they’re not equipped to deal with people. They understand theology, but they don’t understand people. And what’s frightening is that the Bible directly addresses this.
In the pastoral epistles, Paul uses a foundational word that appears in different forms. That word essentially means to speak to a person in a language they understand and can engage with.
Paul told us 2,000 years ago that we are to engage our people, especially in church staffs and faith-based institutions. If we don’t, the result is 70 percent turnover after five years, and people don’t just lose their passion for ministry. Many times, they walk away from God.
That’s what’s truly scary.
Morgan:
Yeah, it really is.
It’s amazing that you’ve taken all of this and made it digestible through online courses that anyone can access. Now that work is also feeding into the ministry. It’s just beautiful how it all comes together.
Chuck:
Well, we teach our black belts the same principles.
Morgan:
Yes.
Chuck:
And I think that’s why God has blessed us and allowed us to be as successful over the years as we’ve been.
Morgan:
It’s really cool to see how you’ve brought everything together and what you continue to do for upcoming generations. Thank you so much for sharing with us today.
Chuck:
My pleasure.
Morgan:
And viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Living My Faith.
If you’d like more information on Mr. Chuck Coker, head over to LivingMyFaith.com, where you’ll find everything you need.
We’ll see you next time on Living My Faith.
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