How to Experience a Good Coaching Call
Pastoral coaching-mentorship is a biblical leader development approach, not a leadership development approach: our focus is not on the doing of leadership, but the being of the leader. It is modeled by Jesus as He walks with The Twelve, continued by The Twelve as they walked with John Mark, Barnabas, and others. It is the approach Barnabas used with Paul, and then Paul with Timothy, Titus, and others.
Lost to much of the church during its dalliance with the church growth craze and its obsession with CEO-pastors and productivity, New Testament coaching and mentorship are making a strong return in the 21st Century Church. We thank God for this, for it means a return to leader development through a relational approach rather than leadership development through the application of techniques. However, as is true with any model, it must be used according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Pastoral coaching and mentorship are simply modern terms for “pastoring”: coaches and mentors pastor Christian leaders, helping them live fully in their Jeremiah 1.5 creation and calling. Where for most of Church history, this ministry had to take place face-to-face, today we can use technology like cell phones, video communication, and apps to coach ministers almost anywhere in the world. Using these modern means at Journey, we have coached ministers in America, Europe, southern Asia, and the Middle East.
So, given the biblical model and technological means, how can I experience a “good” coaching call?
Yes, “good” in terms of, “That was helpful,” or, “That was great material,” but “good” in a deeper, life-changing, and longer-lasting sense. A biblical, God-intended sense. Let me briefly illustrate.
In Journey Pastoral Coaching, we look often and deeply to the story of the Emmaus Road Disciples in Luke 24. Only three days before, Jesus has been crucified. Now, this Sunday, two followers of Jesus are walking home from Jerusalem to Emmaus, unsure of how to move forward in life. As they talk together along the way, a face in the face of a stranger joins their journey. He opens the Word of God to them, showing them how God has prepared the way for them in this life and the next. Then, He sits at table with the two disciples and breaks bread with them. As He does, the eyes of the two are opened, and they realize just who it is who has joined their conversation and shared journey: Jesus Himself! With this unveiling comes the recognition that even back when Jesus had walked with them along the way, their hearts had burned, and were even now, burning within them. They were ready to run and tell the world about Jesus, beginning with apostles in Jerusalem – not because of a momentary feel-good experience, but because something of God’s goodness had filled them.
Yes, their time with Jesus was “helpful,” and it was “great material.” But even more, it was good: the virtue, strength, holiness, and life of God flowed into their souls in life-changing ways.
Just so, every time you meet with a pastoral coach, in person or by phone, the goal of that conversation is not just a helpful exchange filled with great material. The goal is an Emmaus Road experience where the goodness of God – His virtue, strength, holiness, and life – fills you, and transforms you, how you live, and how you serve God. You walk away encouraged, convicted, comforted, challenged, and refreshed by God. It happens as two followers of Jesus, one more experienced and one learner, join their journeys with the express purpose of talking and breaking bread with Jesus as what A.W. Tozer called “children of the burning heart.”
How then can you have a “good” call with your pastoral coach?
1. Choose a pastoral coach you match up well with.
Click here to read our article on Choosing the Right Pastoral Coach for You.
2. Focus on building a relationship and commit to that relationship.
Good pastoral coaching calls don’t happen in one-off calls. Advice-giving yes, but not coaching.
Good coaching calls are not built on learning techniques and methods, but relationship
Relationships develop on trust; then, as trust is honored, deeper relationships develop.
Trusting relationships open the shared journey to full-sail adventure into all God has for you.
The more you invest in the relationship, the more you receive.
Little investment, little dividends; greater investment, greater dividends.
Pro-tip: the more I walk with a minister, the deeper we go, the stronger we grow. And the inverse.
Limit #1 to coaching: the commitment level of the coach and the one being coached.
3. Be on time.
You’ve made a commitment; keep it.
Don’t waste your coach’s time; it’s disrespectful and it may crowd the rest of his/her schedule;
Don’t waste one minute of this opportunity;
Being on time is a part of developing self-control, and discipline, aka, discipleship.
Pro-tip: I’m fresher for the next caller when I can end the previous call on time. Wash feet.
4. Be alone.
Have no one else with you while you talk with your coach.
The presence of others distracts you from focusing on your call.
The presence of others will prevent you from being transparent and vulnerable.
You won’t – you can’t – be as transparent with your coach when others are listening.
Your call is another section of a one-on-one shared journey on the path of life in ministry.
5. Pray with your coach – invite Jesus to join you on your Emmaus Road.
This isn’t a consulting session; it is a sacred moment between two ministers and God.
Because it is sacred, it requires prayer.
Not “opening prayer,” but real prayer, from-the-heart prayer.
Not only in the coaching call but leading up to the call and after.
In prayer, Jesus reveals Himself, breaks bread with you, and causes your hearts to burn.
Pro-tip: Perfunctory prayer in a coaching call keeps the call two-dimensional.
6. Focus: Don’t do anything else during the call – drive, scroll phone, check messages, etc.
Write it down: multi-tasking is an obstacle in relationships and relational moments.
Doing more than one thing distracts you from focusing on hearing your coach in your call.
Doing more than one thing distracts you from focusing on your heart – and God – in your call.
No, unless you are a machine, you are not the exception – studies prove it.
Pro-tip: As a pastoral coach, I never do anything else while coaching but focus on the caller.
7. Bring an agenda, a set of issues you want to talk about.
Limit Number Two to Pastoral Coaching: Calls without focus.
Don’t make your coach work to find something to talk about.
The value of a coaching call depends as much on the one being coached as it does on the coach.
What you take away from the call is determined by what you bring to the call.
Coaching is an opportunity to ask a more experienced minister to join your journey.
When you bring your issues to the call, you give your coach material to work with.
the potential for this call – and future calls – goes up accordingly.
Pro-tip: The longer it takes me to get to where you need to go, the less we grow.
8. Be open to your coach presenting different topics for discussion.
We tend to want to talk about the areas of our lives where we are comfortable.
We all have blind spots or even areas we don’t want to look at.
Many who ask for coaching do not really want coaching, but only someone to listen as they talk.
A pastoral coach can help us look at areas of our life we can’t see or don’t want to look at.
Allow the coach to take the issues you bring and take them outside of what you expect.
Pro-tip: A pastoral coach reads words and tones, seeing the unseen and unspoken.
9. Be transparent.
Limit Number Three to Pastoral Coaching: superficiality.
Without transparency, you’re wasting your time and that of the pastoral coach.
Why wade in the shallow end of life in ministry when you can go deep – now?
Yes, move in deeper at a pace that is comfortable for you, but also stretches you.
If you can’t be vulnerable with your coach, you need to find a new one, or
If you can’t be open with your coach, ask yourself about any insecurity.
10. Ask questions.
You have the undivided attention of one who has already walked where you are.
To talk to a mentor-coach and never ask questions is a speech, not coaching.
Asking questions of an experienced minister is how we learn the whats, whys, and hows.
The questions we ask, or don’t ask, reveal who we are and who we want to become.
Pro-tip: Asking questions is the mark of humility, and . . .
Humility is the father of all virtues, the mother of all learning.
11. Come to learn, not teach; to experience change, not defend yourself.
A coaching call is a potter’s wheel; we climb on the wheel to be formed by God.
We trust God will use the pastoral coach to help form us; we long for this formation.
Formation requires transformation.
A coaching call is an altar: we climb up on the altar and invite God to transform us.
We come as living sacrifices unto God, seeking His direction. We long for this direction.
Direction requires change.
12. Talk being rather than doing.
Ministers are too easily distracted by doing, bypassing the process of being formed in Christ, for Christ.
Ministers burn out because they are obsessed with doing while ignoring being.
Character is our first calling: to be conformed to the image of Christ is our first ministry.
As we grow the minister, we grow the ministry. As we build the minister, we build the ministry.
Put first things first and second things, i.e., fruit, will naturally grow.
Come to the call ready, excited, to talk about your character and soul.
Talk character/soul not for the sake of producing, but to become. God gives the increase
13. Take notes in each session; keep a call diary for the year.
Your pastoral coach is probably taking notes of your call.
Taking notes helps you prepare an agenda for your next call.
Taking notes helps you track your life and progress over time.
Taking notes helps you remember insights, resources, ideas, challenges, and encouragements.
14. Don’t come for answers to problems but to build relationship and join your journeys.
To see your pastoral coach as a problem solver is to miss the value of coaching: growth.
Pastoral coaching is not focused on problems; for this, find a great counselor.
Pastoral coaching is a shared journey between one more experienced and one less experienced.
Pastoral coaching is an opportunity in the present to reach back into the coach’s experience.
The value of pastoral coaching is found not in solutions, but in relationship: growing.
15. Block out time after your call for reflection on the call.
Far too many ministers live on the run, and so, miss God’s “moments.”
A coaching call isn’t a drive-through meal; it is a fine dining experience, one to savor.
Strike while the iron is hot. In the call, God spoke, you made decisions, etc., so “make an altar.”
Pray. Worship.
And then make notes on your insights and decisions, on thoughts for the next call.
FINAL THOUGHT
I remember the evening I received a text from a Journey member telling me that after many months of prayer, the Word, and walking with me and others, he had had a breakthrough. In our exchange of texts he said, “It’s really all about ______, isn’t it? As I focus on these things and forget those things, I can really live in Christ as God’s son, I can know Him, and serve Him in freedom!”
The text was much longer and fuller, but you get the idea. And I hope you can in some way sense the great amount of work he had done for months and months before announcing his epiphany, one that had not come during our call, but as a result of our shared journey in Christ
This young minister had put in place every one of the fifteen essentials listed above.
He not come to calls looking for the clichéd, quippy, alliterative leadership sound bites that tickle ears and elicit grunts and expressions of “Ooh, that’s good,” but do little to feed and strengthen the soul. Instead, he had considered our calls to be “walking altars” on the Emmaus Road, times when we would step up on the altar of God, trusting Jesus to join our journey, reveal Himself to us, break the bread of life with us, and cause our hearts to burn.
For months and months, he had invested so much in our shared Journey with Jesus. As a result, he reaped much: he had been transformed in a powerful way. Today, in Journey among his peers, and in his place of ministry, he is acknowledged as a leading, pastor-coach in people’s lives.
It’s a new day for helping young ministers build strong for a lifetime of healthy and effective ministry. And we have new ways (technology) to make this eternal way (growth through mentorship) happen. Let’s make sure it remains a “good” day as we walk in it.
For the glory of God, the strength of His people, and the salvation of those who are separated from Him.
_________
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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