By Joel Comiskey, March 2020
When I graduated from Bible College, my mission agency (Christian and Missionary Alliance) recommended that I take further Bible education, and I ended up attending seminary, which helped me explore the Christian faith and missions on a deeper level. “Going deeper” doesn’t just involve education, it can apply to all areas of our lives.
The entire Christian life, in fact, is about deepening our relationship with Jesus and learning how to be obedient on a deeper level. The same is true of coaching leaders. Effective coaching is an ever-growing learning experience.
I’ve been coaching pastors and leaders for the last nineteen years. Thankfully, I’m not where I was when I started. In those early days, I equated coaching with counseling, and learned the hard way that people were not interested in being told what to do. I had to learn to listen, come alongside the pastor, and graciously move them to the next step. God has helped me to learn from my failures and make important corrections. And I’m still learning and growing in my coaching.
Last month on the JCG blogs, we talked about coaching basics, which include: biblical basis for coaching, basic content of coaching, and coaching structure.
But coaching leaders and pastors in small group ministry is a broad topic and has many different levels. This month, we’re going to drill down to another level of coaching and deal with issues such as:
- the authority of a coach
- difference between coaching for “maintenance” and “transformation”
- essentials of training a coach
- recruiting and retaining coaches
- responsibilities of a coach
In March, experienced pastors and leaders will write twenty-give blogs on coaching. If you’d like to receive these blogs in your email inbox, please click here. We’ll cover:
- March 02-08: biblical truths on coaching others, such as servant-hood, friendship, and related themes.
- March 09-15: training of future coaches. How does a church prepare future coaches? What training do they use? We’ll explore this theme more deeply.
- March 16-22: Recruiting future coaches. What do you look for in a future coach? What are key characteristics of effective coaches?
- March 23 to March 29:difference between coaching for maintenance and transformation. Transformation is important but so is leadership development. Great coaches are passionate about helping their coachees identify and develop new leaders.
- March 29 to April 04: responsibilities of a coach. We will talk about key requirements for those who engage in coaching other leaders.
