The Gift of Coaching

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month will focus on the art of coaching and the practice of ministry. Some posts will layout insights or frameworks of coaching and some will be stories of coaching that transformed a pastor or congregation. We hope they will inspire you. We hope that inspiration will turn into actual movement in your own life and ministry so that we might move closer to that vision of the church we long for, closer to the vision of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We invite you to join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

by Jeff Krehbiel

I distinctly remember the feeling I had as I began my ministry at each of the three congregations I have served as pastor: I was on my own. No one from the presbytery said it in so many words, but the overall message I received was “Good luck. We don’t really have high expectations for what you might accomplish in that congregation. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. And, by the way, if we do call you, you’re in trouble.”

Especially in my first call right out of seminary, the shift from regular assignments and grades at the end of every semester, to the open-ended figure-it-out-as-you-go nature of parish ministry, was particularly difficult. Where should I place my energy? What should my priorities be? What should I do first? It’s not that I didn’t have ideas about all these things, it’s that I didn’t really have anyone to talk them through with. I was isolated.

46-next-20140401-110621What I realize now is that I needed a coach– a role that, at the time, didn’t yet exist, at least not in church world. A coach is different from a consultant or a mentor, though I have benefited from both. Coaching begins with the premise that the one being coached is creative, resourceful and whole. The coach doesn’t suggest what you should do. They don’t create your priorities for you. They don’t assess your situation and tell you what they see. They don’t tell you what they would do if they were in your place.

The coach helps draw out your own best ideas and then helps you determine your best path forward. In coaching, you do all the work.

What I have learned over the past two and a half years of coaching and being coached is that the key is accountability. The coach asks where you want to go and how you’re going to get there– and then holds you accountable every step along the way.

For me, the moment of transformation happens when I say out loud to my coach for the first time what I think I should do — and am then held accountable to my own commitments. So often, we know what we should do, we’re just not ready to do it. Most often, the biggest obstacle in our way is ourselves! Coaching helps us get unstuck and move forward by identifying what is really holding us back, freeing us to act with clarity and intention.

So my modest proposal to presbyteries across the country is this: Make coaching part of the Terms of Call for every new call in the presbytery, not just for the newly ordained but for veteran pastors as well. Offer the gift of coaching for the first year of ministry. The dividends that will pay for pastors, congregations, and the presbytery, will be enormous.


 

Jeff Krehbiel is pastor of Church of the Pilgrims in Washington, D.C., a graduate of the coach training program at Auburn Theological Seminary, and is working on certification through the International Coach Federation.

When Our Screw Ups Are Met By God’s Grace

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, we’ve asked some of our 2016 National Gathering workshop presenters to share their thoughts on their importance of their workshops in today’s context. Shavon Starling-Louis is one of our presenters. Learn more about her workshop at the end of this post. We invite you to join the conversation here, on Facebook, or Twitter!

by Shavon Starling-Louis

“Oh crap!” “I can’t believe I got myself into this situation. (…. Again.)” “I can’t do this!”

Those are the words that I hear from the bell tower of my mind when the reality of my f– ahem…. flub-ups hit me like a ton of bricks.

Here’s a truth about me.

I fail.

And when I do, I often feel like poop.

2014 communion tableI don’t often share this sentiment so bluntly with others, but there it is – in black and white no less. On a regular basis we as leaders of faith communities find ourselves lonely, embarrassed, confused, and suffering in bad head and spiritual spaces in light of our fragility and failures.

In the church (and the wider society), we have a stigma around failing.

In the PC(USA), we have a tendency to call leaders who are the best of the best. While this is generally considered a good thing, this way of thinking about leadership means we can lose the creative and spirit-led openness to new types of leaders and leadership. The “best of the best” often equates to the safest of the safe.

But the other problem is that we, as leaders, internalize the pressure to be the “best of the best.” Which means we feel a pressure to perform and assimilate to expected norms of what the best looks like, acts like, leads like.

(Sidenote: As a creative, young woman of color, the unspoken yet acclaimed “best of the best” in the PC(USA) rarely looks, acts, or leads anything like me, and that can feels crappy!)

We can lose or minimize the God-given unique combinations of interest, talents, and gifts that make us who we are because we aren’t the best in certain areas.

We can feel like imposters, failures, and frauds. Everything but the sons and daughters of God.

It’s a reality that a part of being growing creative people means that we will fail – especially when we try new things.

Unfortunately, the reality that we can strangely attempt to avoid or hide. And it’s a reality that can quickly turn from guilt to shame.

Thankfully, we have the theological terminology to name the reality that that “all fallen short.” Through the words and wisdom of our reformed tradition, we can name that are we are all guilty; we all fail. And we can confess in our words and actions that it is only by God’s grace that were are able to move forward as forgiven people.

But the stench of guilt and shame for things done and things left undone as we lead others has the ability to stick to us. Yet, as seen over and over, the stench often dissipates when allowed to come to air and light, love, and compassion.

And in the greater mysteries of God the very situations that once made us say “Crap!” are where we discover the grace and power of God in new and exciting ways.

I am so grateful that as the body of Christ, we are empowered to wade into any place of fear or anxiety compassionately together with hope.

You are invited to join me and my friend Glen Bell at the 2016 NEXT Church National Gathering for an open conversation about leading change, embracing failure, and naming the gifts of Holy Spirit that arise.


shavonShavon Starling-Louis is co-pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Providence, Rhode Island. Glen Bell is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Sarasota, Florida. In spite of failures and falls (literally and figuratively), they are committed to developing their gifts in leading change with God’s help – but sure enough, they are as human as they come. Shavon and Glen’s workshop, “Leading Change: Epic Fails and Spirit Surprises“, is offered during workshop block 1 on Monday.

From Hope to Reality

By Jessica Tate

The Christian story is full of grand visions –

  • the kingdom of God where the last will be first, and the hungry will be filled, and the lowly lifted up,
  • Jesus’ promise of life abundant,
  • swords turned to plowshares and lions lying with lambs,
  • beloved community, in which all things are held in common, the sick are tended, bread is broken, worship is shared,
  • a promised new heaven and new earth where death will be no more, where war and crying and pain will be no more.

Most congregations are filled with church leaders who hold visions for their own communities –

  • worship services that honor God, invite people more deeply into the mystery of faith, and inspire those who attend,
  • mission endeavors that build relationships, show love for neighbor, and make a significant difference in the community,
  • Christian formation that is so engaging and life changing you don’t want to miss it and will eagerly invite a friend,
  • witness in the community that is authentic, humble, and shares the good news of the gospel in ways that people can hear it,
  • true community where people see one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, where honesty is valued and forgiveness regularly practiced.

These visions – the grand and the specific – are essential.

And they are not enough.

Casting a vision doesn’t make it so. I regularly have conversations with church leaders who say, “We can see the vision, but we can’t figure out how to get from point A to point B, let alone steps all the way down the line.” That’s usually accompanied by a litany of reasons ranging from, “I don’t know how to lead a congregation into this,” to “They (it’s always someone else) are throwing up road blocks at every turn.”

People are stuck. Pastors are stuck. Sessions are stuck. Congregations are stuck.

It is that “stuck-ness” that compelled me to attend Auburn Theological Seminary’s Coach Training Program last month. (It’s a week intensive, followed by six-months of teleclasses in an International Coach Federation accredited program led by professional coaches who are also religious leaders – I highly recommend it.)

An athletic coach helps players on a team stay motivated, work together, and sharpen their skills (or as Dean Smith put it: play hard, play together, and play smart). Coaching works in ministry in similar ways. It is a tool that can help us in the church to stay focused and motivated toward the visions our faith sets out for us, to work together to move toward those visions, and to develop and sharpen the skills we need to move closer to God’s vision for us. The International Coach Federation defines coaching as, “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

One of the essential elements of coaching is action planning, or the process of taking the vision and making an actual, measureable plan. As one of the Auburn coach trainers, Chris Holmes said, “Coaching takes hope and makes it a reality.”

The quick template for making an action plan is to answer these three questions:

  • What will you do? (What’s a first step toward the vision?)
  • When will it be done? (What’s the timeline?)
  • Who will be your accountability on this? (How does it stay on the front burner?)

An important related question, that asks us to be honest with ourselves and helps us gauge how likely we are to move forward, is:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you to this vision?

The NEXT Church blog this month will focus on the art of coaching and the practice of ministry. Some posts will layout insights or frameworks of coaching and some will be stories of coaching that transformed a pastor or congregation. We hope they will inspire you. We hope that inspiration will turn into actual movement in your own life and ministry so that we might move closer to that vision of the church we long for, closer to the vision of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.


Jessica Tate1Jessica Tate is the Director of NEXT Church. She lives in Washington, DC. 

Our 2016 Ignite Presentations

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We received more than a dozen submissions for Ignite presentations – and we’re thrilled to share the five we’ve selected for the NEXT Church National Gathering in just a few weeks!

These Ignite presentations will occur at 1:45pm on Tuesday of the National Gathering. And without further ado, here are your previews of the presentations!

Farm Church (@revallenbrimer)

Robert Hay, Jr. (@HayJr)

Tim Hughes and Gwen Brown

Danita Nelson

Trinity Presbyterian and Herndon Elementary (@TrinityHerndon)

But that’s not all! There is a second block of Ignite presentations on Tuesday at 11:30 am. Here are the Ignite presenters we invited to share with us:

Miriam Mauritzen
Michael Mair (@MichaelMair)
Jeff Krehbiel and Don Meeks (@jeffkrehbiel)
Lori Raible and George Anderson (@lraible)

Finally, here are our participant-submitted runners up:

  1. Hunter Farrell – https://youtu.be/ocUwDrdRfpU
  2. John Vest – https://youtu.be/GvUyV8Vwn5Q
  3. Renee Roderer – https://youtu.be/Q9Dq6DVdxaw
  4. John Cleghorn – https://youtu.be/l2XMLacIGGw (congratulations also to John who won our drawing for a free registration!)
  5. Blake Collins – https://youtu.be/iwauTQ4_oJU
  6. Alice Tewell and Angela Williams – https://youtu.be/vT-83TbP1Jo
  7. Greg Allan-Pickett – https://youtu.be/lspMsQ0zBoI
  8. Laura Kelly – https://youtu.be/4-rZdQlaSvQ
  9. Leslie King – https://youtu.be/bb66yZzA8K4