What I Love About Being a Pastoral Coach
TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
I have a confession to make: I am a pastoral coach. And I love it.
Many in the church are unfamiliar with pastoral coaching, usually assuming it is what it isn’t. They’re always intrigued when I explain pastoral coaching and how we do it at Journey. I invite you to peruse our many articles here at journeypastoralcoaching.com, where you can learn more about pastoral coaching and how we do it here at Journey.
Many in the church are also intrigued that a “former” pastor and “former” missionary would so love pastoring young pastors, church planters, missionaries, evangelists, ministry directors, and tentmakers: “You mean you’d rather coach young ministers than ‘do ministry?’”
So, with their question in mind, let me celebrate why I love doing what I am privileged to do.
1. I’m fulfilling my creation and call
This is first and foremost—no doubt about it.
Personal creation. God has formed each of us individually, personally, and purposefully. He has formed each of us in a way that pleases Him. Simply stated, I can continue to please Him by faithfully living out His personal formation of my life. God has formed me for pastoral coaching.
Personal call. In line with our creation, God calls us to serve Him in particular, personal ways: one person to be a pastor, another a plumber. God gifts each one for their calling. I please God by faithfully living out His personal calling. God has called me to be a pastoral coach.
And I love it. I love living out my creation and call, knowing that, imperfect as I am, I am still pleasing the One who has created and called me to be a pastoral coach. I thank God for creating me for this and calling me to this. I love knowing that my ministry pleases Him.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? It’s where I get to fulfill my creation and calling.
2. I get to journey with quality people
In a word, I love and respect the people whom I am privileged to coach. Individually and as a group, they are quality people. They are quality people who passionately live to serve Jesus Christ and are highly committed to the ministry of the Gospel and the church.
Any pastor knows there is a great difference between pastoring the sitting and pastoring the serving, shepherding the standing still versus the running.
At one church I pastored, I described my role as that of a “traffic cop”: church members were highly motivated to not only serve in existing ministries but to start new ones: one of my primary roles was directing the traffic of this incredible group of running servants. At another church I pastored, a church initially facing death, people responded to our “everyone to your posts” call with a joyful abandon that inspires me still today – what a wonderful group of people they were.
As a pastoral coach, it is my privilege to pastor the people who are planting and pastoring churches like these – and helping transform churches that aren’t yet like them. It is my happy privilege to pastor the missionaries, evangelists, ministry leaders, and tentmakers who are providing servant leadership to organizations, ministries, and groups – people – like these.
These thoroughbred servant leaders are passionately committed to Jesus Christ, knowing Him, and making Him known. Their purpose in life is to fulfill their creation and their call. And there is no confrontation, challenge, or correction they are not ready and willing to accept from me as they serve the One who died to give them eternal life, the One who lives to lead them in their creation and calling.
And there is nothing so invigorating as walking with them as they do that.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to walk with quality people who are highly committed to Jesus Christ, the ministry of the Gospel, and the church.
3. I get to help young ministers go farther, higher, and do more.
I get to help them go farther than I have gone, higher than I have climbed, and do more than I have done.
Coaches and mentors have been where you want to go, but they live to help you go farther than they have gone. And they take joy in it when you do.
Picture it this way: you’re walking an alpine path, surrounded by the rugged beauty of God’s creation. But the path is new to you. You have a degree in trekking, complete with essential courses in hiking and wilderness survival. But this is the first time you’ve actually walked these alpine paths.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a guide who knows the way because they have been this way before? Wouldn’t it mean a lot to have a guide who knows when to encourage and when to challenge you, when to urge you to move ahead, and when to counsel you to wait? Wouldn’t it strengthen you to have someone who helps you learn how to make sound decisions, and how to use this particular journey in building strength for future journeys that take you even higher, even farther to places never traveled by others before?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a coach?
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to help them go farther than I have gone, higher than I have climbed, and do more than I have done.
4. I get to watch young leaders growing over time.
Local church pastoring is a joy because a pastor is privileged to watch people grow as disciples over time. Being part of that journey is a great privilege, one I have always treasured.
Serving as a college campus pastor at a Bible college is another great joy. What a privilege it is to pastor, teach, counsel, and pray with future ministers of the Gospel. In many ways, the years I spent in this ministry were halcyon days as students so passionately offered their lives to God for His training and preparation as pastors, teachers, missionaries, counselors, etc. I still miss those days.
But nothing can compare to walking with young leaders as they fulfill their calling. They are growing as disciples. They have gone through formal ministry training. But now they are putting their lives on the line, many of them sacrificing greatly for the sake of Jesus Christ and his cause of the great commission. The blending of their discipleship, training, and now growing experience in leading others in the church is a tremendous work of God to watch and be a part of. I get to be there with them day by day. I get to watch them grow through good times and bad. I get to watch them develop and show themselves strong in Christ.
From start to finish, it’s a bit like watching a young boy learn to read, then become proficient in reading, go to college and graduate school, learning how to teach others before finally becoming a credentialed leader, teaching others how to read/study history, mathematics, science, or the depths of God’s word.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to watch young leaders develop over time.
5. I get to spend my days pastoring
Most pastors have to divide their time between a myriad of activities, some they enjoy, and some they don’t: preparing to preach, directing staff, committee meetings, budgets, administration, counseling, training, property and buildings oversight, media and tech, etc. I have church search committee questionnaires for prospective pastors that list over two dozen essential activities of the pastor they are looking to call. Pastoring certainly has changed over the years.
But as a pastoral coach, I am privileged to spend my days focused on people, coaching people as they passionately pursue the purposes of God for their lives – they don’t join our coaching ministry unless they are! As a pastor to pastors, planters, missionaries, evangelists, ministry leaders, and tentmakers, I spend my days and evenings encouraging, challenging, exhorting, confronting, examining, and comforting – calling to Christ. I spend my life pastoring quality people as they do the work of the ministry across America and overseas.
Just a few minutes ago, as I was writing this article, a Journey member sent me this direct message:
“Thank you for the support by the way. I love having the Journey coach in my corner!”
Another recently wrote:
“I’m in the ministry today because of you. Without your help, I wouldn’t have made it.”
That’s pastoring. And I get to do it all day, every day. Thank you, Father!
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to spend my days pastoring people.
6. I get to be there when ministers need help. Real help.
You cannot be a minister of the gospel and not take what I call “hits,” those body blows that come as our idealistic view of ministry and church meet the hard, cold realities of what ministry is really like. Like someone close to me told me when I went to the ministry, “Alan, remember Christians are people. We’re not perfect. We’re still people.” Another family member told me “It’s not going to be easy.” Each of them was correct.
And because a pastor’s world is not lived in theory but in reality, because the pastor’s working material is not wood or steel, but people, that world can beat and bruise the strength and suppleness of their soul. Especially in the early years, the vulnerable years.
This collision with reality irresistibly directs a young minister to a crossroads where they will make the most important decision of their life in ministry: will I take the hits of ministry and respond by becoming:
1. Permanently Hard and Bitter (hitting back against those who hit me); or,
2. A Cruiser (turning off emotionally and just going through the motions for the rest of my life); or,
3. Sweet and Deep (taking the exact hits but allowing the grace of God to take me deeper into the character of Christ)?
As a pastoral coach, I am granted the precious position of confessor, comforter, admonisher, and encourager, helping young ministers process their hits and very real hurts.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to be there when ministers need help. Real help.
7. I get to be a part of the new thing God is doing through a new generation of leaders.
As a pastoral coach focused on young ministers, I get to be a part of the new thing this generation of leaders is bringing to the work of the Gospel. And what creative approaches they have!
Young ministers understand culture from the inside out, in the healthiest and holiest of ways. They understand how to communicate the Gospel to people of this culture in this time.
The message is the same, but their methods are fresh and focused, things never thought of before. This is so because, while they are passionate seekers of the truth, they are also persistent students of how that truth can best be presented to this world, and that means a fearless examination of what the church is doing: if this ministry isn’t making disciples of Jesus, let’s find out does and let’s do it! I love them for it.
Though I have grey hair, I am not a “grey hair” in the sense of being disconnected from the new thing God is doing with this new generation of leaders. I have the privilege of walking with young ministers as they have ideas that never occurred to me – as they seek God for, receive, and then walk out effective ways of reaching the world with the same Gospel the church has proclaimed from the days of the Apostles.
I’ll say it again: I believe in the Millennial generation of ministers. Are they perfect? No, but neither is my generation. Do they know everything? Of course not, but what generation in history has or ever will?
This I do know: the young ministers I coach demonstrate again and again their passion for Jesus, for His Gospel, for delivering the Gospel of Jesus to people, to discipling people in that Gospel, and whatever methods make it happen are the methods they will use until even more effective methods are discovered.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to be a part of the new thing God is doing through a new generation of leaders.
8. I receive more than I give.
In every coaching conversation, our members thank me for my time, concern, and help. They often identify some specific question asked, issue raised, or wisdom shared that helped them learn, realize, or understand, or some particular encouragement, challenge, or support I gave that helped them make a decision or take action as they believe God would have them do. They thank me for giving to them.
And there are many days when a member and I process difficult, even heartbreaking, issues and situations. We talk and pray as we wrestle with understanding what is happening and how to handle it.
Sessions like these, repeated sessions like these, lead to comments like these: “Thank you, Pastor, for being there for me,” or “I wouldn’t have made it without your help and support.”
In everyday coaching and special case coaching, I accept their words of appreciation, silently thanking God for all He does to make these moments possible. As I accept their thanks, I smile, realizing how much these young ministers help me learn, discover, understand, decide, and act as God would have me do. And the encouragement I receive as I walk with them! Priceless.
This dynamic has given me three-plus years of looking forward to every morning and what God will do in the lives of our coaching ministry members and my life. This dynamic has given me three-plus years of putting my head on the pillow and thanking God for all He has done in all our lives at Journey. Every night, as my coaching day draws to a close, I thank God for giving me far more than I have given Him.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I receive far more than I give.
9. I get to do ministry the way Jesus did ministry.
Jesus talked to thousands, but He walked with twelve.
When He began His public ministry, Jesus focused more on preaching to crowds. But with the passage of time, He focused less time and energy on the crowds and focused more on the few, especially the Twelve and, most especially, the Three.
Why? Pastor Gordon MacDonald said it this way:
“With a world of millions to reach, Jesus budgeted the majority of his time
to be with just twelve simple men.”
Twelve men who could multiply effect out to hundreds, then thousands, and millions. Could this really work? Look in the mirror for the answer. Look to the four corners of the globe.
As a pastoral coach, I am privileged to invest my time and energy in a few dozen ministers of the Gospel.
Through regular, consistent, and focused coaching conversations, as well as helping young ministers understand the importance of walking with peers in ministry, I am privileged to focus my time and energy on multiplying effect through others, just as Jesus did with the Twelve, just as the Twelve did with Barnabas, just as Barnabas did with Paul, just as Paul did with Timothy, etc.
What could happen if the wisdom and experience of “grey hair” ministers could be blended with the energy, innovation, and insights of younger ministers? What would happen if we did ministry as Jesus did ministry? I’m determined to find out.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to do ministry the way Jesus did ministry.
10. I get to foster heart-beating, oxygen-breathing ministry networks of peers.
The number one “killer” of ministers is loneliness. Hands down.
But ministers with a strong network of mentors and peers tend to not only survive in ministry but thrive in ministry.
In the summer of 2023, The Barna Group reported there was a seven-year downward trend in pastoral loneliness.[1] This predates COVID. The same study found 65% of all pastors deal with loneliness, 18% saying they fight it frequently.
The same study showed that 80% of pastors have someone outside of family or church who know them well. But knowing someone well and walking well with that person is different. Even enemies can know each other well. Two friends can know each other well but rarely be in contact.
Pastors don’t just need someone who knows us but someone who is actively sharing our life journey. Lacking or failing to walk with an available mentor is a primary reason for loneliness among ministers. A second primary reason for loneliness is ministry is a friend, a peer in ministry who understands us from our vantage point and place on the road of ministry.
With the above in mind, here’s a surprising finding on ministers and friendship. One might imagine younger ministers are more likely to walk in healthy, life-giving friendships. However, a 2017 survey by Barna found it is younger ministers (under 50s years of age) who are least likely to be living in satisfying friendships.[2] Older ministers, especially those with at least thirty years in ministry, are far more likely to report having healthy, life-giving friendships. Maybe that’s why they have made it so long in ministry.
This one factor is, I believe, one of the leading reasons for burnout and dropout among young ministers: lacking a friend in ministry to talk to you, they simply give up. Yes, a mentor is critical, but the presence of peers – friends born in the same generation who are in the same stage of ministry and family, encountering similar problems, etc. – is indispensable.
As a pastoral coach of a functioning network of young ministers, I am able to help them find those peers.
Many of our ministry members report they have discovered their closest friends in the network we have built. These friends support them with counsel, comfort, encouragement, and, yes, strong challenge. They are brothers and sisters in arms in the work of the Lord. It is a joy, and very satisfying, to see them walking together and supporting each other in ever strengthening ways that will outlast my days on this earth.
What do I love about being a pastoral coach? I get to foster heart-beating, oxygen-breathing ministry networks of peers.
FINAL WORLD
The final word goes to Randy D. Reese and Robert Loane in their must-read book, Deep Mentoring:
“Something in us falls into place when we love and give and serve and lead in a way that empowers another, which, at the same time confirms that which is also deepest within us. In the season of legacy, there exists a freedom to give of ourselves, not for our own benefit, but for the sake of the other.”
Coaching younger ministers and helping them maximize their potential, I help them be as good as they can be. And in doing this, I help churches and ministries maximize their potential to be as good as they can be. For the glory of God, the good of His people, and the salvation of those separated from Him.
Ten years in, I can say it with more feeling than ever:I love what I am privileged to do with my life. I love being a pastoral coach.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this article above previously appeared on our site February 1, 2018. For our 10th Anniversary, we have expanded the article to include three new “realizations.” This list could be greatly expanded, but we have chosen to keep it a “ten-for-ten” offering. With it comes my thanks to every Journey member, past and present, as well as to all the churches and individuals whose financial partners have made these ten years not only possible, but so fruitful.
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.
We also invite you to click and subscribe to our twice-monthly blogs at journeypastoralcoaching.com
“Of all vocations, surely the gospel ministry is the one whose paradigm is most radically formed by the dynamics of godly mentorship.”
Stephen Baldwin
[1] https://www.barna.com/research/pastor-support-systems/
[2] https://www.barna.com/research/healthy-pastors-relationships/
