7 Things You May Not Know About Pastoral Coaching
Most young ministers think to call a pastoral coach to help them deal with an issue of the moment: a problem, a difficult decision, or a personal discouragement.
But a pastoral coach is much more than a one-time phone call. The coach represents an opportunity for a shared journey, walking life in ministry with someone who has been where you are, someone who knows the way, but doesn’t make you walk it as they did. Instead, a good pastoral coach helps you find and make your own way as, together, you walk under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit.
In previous articles I’ve shared some of the benefits of walking with a pastoral coach. Here’s just one of those articles, a good place to start.
In this article, however, I’m going to share some surprises, benefits that don’t show up in the box score, so to speak, benefits that may not have occurred to you.
Benefits like these . . .
1. EMMAUS ROAD MOMENTS
In Luke 24, two followers of Jesus are taking the long walk home from Jerusalem. It is the day of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus had promised to rise from the dead, and now He has. But His resurrection has not registered with them – the truth is not setting them free. They struggle with what they know and what they don’t know. They wonder at their past and they question their future: what are they to do with their lives, and how will they find a reason to carry on?
As they walk and talk, a friend in the face of a stranger joins their journey and sets their hearts on fire. Opening the Word of God to them, the friend shows them the truth that gives resolution to their past and direction to their future. Sitting at table with them, the friend opens their eyes to see it is He, Jesus, who gives their lives meaning; it is He who will guide them. Their hearts are ablaze!
Emmaus Roads and hearts set on fire. It was as they journeyed together that they met Jesus. It was as, together, they faced the realities of life that Jesus met them and made them what A.W. Tozer called “Children of the burning heart.” One wonders what would have happened if each had walked home alone that day, each one trying to make it on his own.
Pastoral coaches share our road to Emmaus. They listen to our struggles, helping us sort through what we know and don’t know about our past, present, and future. But more than this, they keep us walking to crossroads where Jesus joins our journey, opens the Word of God to us, and sets our hearts on fire. And then sits with us in life-changing communion.
Every conversation with a pastoral coach is a potential-filled Emmaus Road journey.
2. THE POWER OF STORY
When we enter the ministry, many of us imagine we are the first to experience the questions, challenges, and doubts we encounter, trials that threaten to overwhelm us.
As a result, we are tempted to yield to the darkness and silence these things can bring. “No one has ever felt what I feel; no one has ever been so weak, so worthless,” we tell ourselves. “This must mean God has not really called me to vocational ministry,” or even “God may have called me, but I can’t do it; I’m not up to the challenge.” This is why the number of casualties among young ministers is so very high.
But as young ministers share these questions and doubts with pastoral coaches who have known dark and silent places in their own lives, they discover they are not alone in their experiences. They learn they can – and will – not only survive but thrive in ministry. One of the most powerful tools for making this happen is the appropriate recounting of the journey, the stories, of pastoral coaches.
These stories have two powerful effects. First, they connect young ministers to the “great cloud of witnesses,” strengthening them with the knowledge that they are a member of that band of faithful messengers who have overcome adversity to take the Gospel to the world, making disciples around the world throughout history.
Second, the divinity-encountering-humanity narrative of the pastoral coach puts human heartbeats to the teaching of the Word of God. The promises of God, seemingly unreachable, flow into us through the stories of our pastoral coaches. Their stories lift the ways of God from black ink on paper and transforms them into red blood coursing through the arteries of our souls. God’s promises jump off the pages of our Bibles and are injected into our lives, empowering us to survive and thrive.
Imagine sitting today with a mentor you respect and listening as they share stories from their life in ministry – challenges accepted and met; successes enjoyed and, yes, failures endured. Imagine sitting with them on their back porch on a summer day or by a fireside on a winter night, listening about their lives in ministry, learning about our own.
Walking with a pastoral coach gives this to us, shining a light on our paths and speaking into our lives with the power of story: God’s story flowing through experienced ministers, filling us with commanding assurance of God’s overcoming rule at work in and through our lives in Ephesians 3.20-21 ways.
3. ROAD BLOCKS
“Roadblocks? Coach-mentors give us roadblocks? How is that a good thing?”
“In a day when people assume that every problem has a solution, every question and answer, every malady a remedy, Paul is saying “not so” in his experience. But he is not thrown, his faith is not shaken. The fact that this thorn (whatever it is) is to remain offers a new perspective to Paul. Rather than become resentful or doubtful, the man embraces the obstacle and chooses to squeeze an alternative possibility out of it. My weaknesses, his strength. You cannot defeat a man who thinks like this.”
Gordon MacDonald
The most significant life lessons in ministry are learned in the classroom of roadblocks – hardships that tempt the inexperienced to surrender and walk away. But, as scripture teaches and life demonstrates, adversity plus trust in God is our best teacher, a true vessel of God’s grace to us.
If we resist roadblocks or rush past them without stopping to learn all we can from them, we miss the full plan of God. And more, we miss the God-opportunity in it that is there to strengthen our souls.
Like a weightlifter pumping iron, pressing through hardships develops muscle in our soul – fibres of faith and faithfulness, determination and perseverance. As we press on, we see God is at work in our trials, revealing who He is and who we are in Him. At each roadblock, He trains us in righteousness, trust, and courage.
Having experienced their share over the decades, pastoral coaches don’t shield young ministers from needed roadblocks. Instead, they direct them through these challenges, helping them face hard questions, difficult people, demanding decisions, and more. They are determined to help servants of God look through life’s roadblocks to the God who bids them come for His lessons in the school of the soul.
4. DISCOVERY
Some lessons are taught; others are caught. Both approaches are appropriate for teacher and learner alike – read the Gospels and it is clear Jesus blended these two models as He formed the Twelve in discipleship and ministry. But it is also true that lessons caught burrow deepest in our souls, making the truth come alive and become liveable.
Good pastoral coaches work more in the sphere of the caught than the taught. They are slow to give answers and quick to ask questions in pursuit of truth-caught rather than truth-taught answers. Instead of dictating success formulas or dispensing guidelines, they guide young ministers in a process of discovery that leads to “aha! moment” lessons they will retain and be enriched by for a lifetime.
This process of discovery has two more crucial benefits for young ministers. First, it builds confidence: as they make their own discoveries, they feel competent to make their own decisions. Second, because they and not someone else make these decisions, they will walk them as their own, accepting the results and consequences as their own – the powerful gift of discovery and response-ability.
5. DISCIPLE 12
“With a world of millions to reach, Jesus budgeted the majority of his time to be with just twelve simple men.”
Gordon MacDonald
“Jesus not only spent time instructing, training and informing; he spent much time forming a community.”
Keith R. Anderson & Randy D. Reece
The American church has strayed far from the ministry and model Jesus gave us. Attracting attendees has displaced discipleship as the “Great Commission” of much of God’s church. Making disciples of Jesus sets on the shelf collecting dust with Baby Boomer Sunday School curriculum. Decades of studies reveal a sharp decline among Evangelicals in adherence to cardinal doctrines and a consequent deconstruction and degeneration of discipleship.
And, perhaps ironically, perhaps not, church attendance mirrors these declines.
Still, the ministry machines continue to churn out programs calling ministers to reproduce these models that are not only failed but crush ministers’ spirits, convincing them that they too are failures.
Pastoral coaches remind young ministers that their ministry flows not from external programs but from their internal discipleship, their walk with Jesus Christ. Pastoral coaches call them back to the heartbeat that called them and launched them into ministry in the first place, the ministry model of Jesus: discipleship.
Finally, pastoral coaches not only call young ministers back to the ministry and model of Jesus, but they give them the opportunity to experience it in a community of peers, all walking together in Jesus. Pastoral coaches help young ministers become a “12th disciple,” learning The Way of Jesus in life and ministry in a shared journey of encouragement, challenge, and shared wisdom. The pastoral coach gives them the great gift of doing life with others who share the same journey of life in ministry. Just like Jesus and the Twelve. Disciple Twelve.
6. CONFRONTATION
Only one thing can separate us from God; only one force can keep us out of His blessing on our lives: sin. And not just our specific sins – attitudes, words, actions, etc. – but our general sinfulness, our natural bent toward sinning. This is true before we know Jesus as Savior and it is equally true even as we know Him and serve Him as Lord. Sin is a liar, thief, and destroyer that cannot be ignored or covered over. We must confront it daily for the sake of those whom we serve and for the sake of our souls.
But who can we trust? With whom can we be transparent? Who can we open up to in confession? In whose hands can we place our lives and futures?
Pastoral coaches serve us by not allowing us to avoid our sins or make little of our sinful nature. With the grace and mercy of God, they help us confront this liar, thief, and destroyer and, through the blood of Jesus Christ, conquer it! An experienced pastoral heart helps us know God’s forgiveness and cleansing, as well as His sanctifying power to live a holy life, the whole life God intends for us.
By reminding us of our sinful nature, a pastoral coach helps us grow in sanctification, not only separating ourselves from the sin that would consume us with despair and death but setting ourselves apart unto the God who waits to consume us with His love and life.
A good mentor-coach helps us experience James 5.16, the healing that comes through confession.
7. AMAZING GRACE
Many young ministers find it difficult to walk in time with the heartbeat of God’s grace. They do so in one of two ways: pride or self-condemnation.
Because they are young, they tend to depend on their strengths and talents (very prevalent). Or, they condemn themselves for their weaknesses and failings (even more prevalent). In either case, they are not living in the heartbeat or flow of God’s grace. Compounding this problem is their inner sense that they can’t find their way home to grace.
Nor do they know who can guide them there.
Pastoral coaches call young ministers back home to grace. And they help them learn how to live there.
They remind the proud that absolutely nothing good can be done for God except by the grace of God, a grace that works in us and through us, far greater than our talents (however great we think they are).
They refresh the self-condemning with the truth that while beating ourselves with guilt only leads to death, responding to God’s loving conviction leads to confession leads to repentance leads to life abundant.
They remind young ministers that God gives us grace so we will not sin through pride or self-condemnation. At the same time, knowing we will sin, He gives us grace to forgive us, cleanse us, and empower us so we will not sin again. The mentor-coach continually calls the minister back to God’s fathomless streams of a grace-filled, grace-directed life.
FINAL WORD
Aside from helping young ministers walk the issues of life in ministry, pastoral coaches offer them many and varied practical helps.
They complete vast numbers of references for denominational credentials, graduate school applications, vocational positions, missionary appointments, and ministry opportunities.
They help ministers locate new positions and walk with them through their interview process. They are there to share the celebration when the process leads to a new opportunity. And they are there to comfort and encourage when the process leads to a closed door.
Pastoral coaches read and critique first, second, and third drafts grad school papers, blogs, and books young minsters write for publication.
They help ministers research grad schools and seminaries.
Pastoral coaches suggest and send books to those whom they coach.
They convene special gatherings of leaders who share similar roles or situations – our Journey Lead Pastors’ Gathering is just one example. They connect young ministers with experts who can offer help beyond what the coach can do.
Pastoral coaches even travel to preach and teach for the ministers they coach.
A pastoral coach does more than talk about life in ministry. A pastoral coach walks with ministers, helping them with the practical issues of life in ministry.
In the most surprising ways.
If you’re not walking with a pastoral coach, we in the Journey Pastoral Coaching community invite you to find a quality coach and begin your shared journey. We invite you to discover these and many other surprises awaiting you.
Saddled with large student debt, just beginning to set up homes and start families, and serving in low paying first and second positions, Millennials are those who most desire but can least afford to pay for pastoral coaching.
We are able to do so thanks to the faithful and generous support of individuals and churches like yours who want to see young leaders not only enter the ministry, but remain in the ministry.
Now, more than ever, we need your help.
If you or your church would like to help Millennial ministers across the US and overseas build strong for a lifetime in ministry, please click here to support Journey monthly or with your one-time gift. Thank you.
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