Now is a great time to try out coaching

It's the most customized professional and personal development tool out available.

Photo of an arm sculpture supporting a tree is by Neil Thomas on Unsplash.

Take a deep breath, pastors. The summer (culturally, if not meteorologically) is in the rearview mirror, with all the extra busy-ness and/or time away it entailed. The program year has begun, bringing with it a more consistent rhythm. Whew!

And there are big things looming.

It’s election season in the United States, stoking a whole lot of big feelings because of the fundamental difference in worldviews between the two major parties and their presidential candidates.

Many churches budget for the coming year and run stewardship campaigns in the fall, and money is feeling tighter than in recent memory because of inflation and the decline in church engagement.

For congregations whose lay leadership turns over in January, this is the time of year for nominations. Structures that once served churches well now feel unwieldy, with a daunting number of gaps and a smaller pool of potential people to fill them.

And Advent waits for no one. Soon it will be important to pick a theme and put dates on the calendar for holiday events.

You can do all of this! And coaching can help. A coach can help you name how you want to show up - for others and for yourself - in the midst of both challenges and celebrations, busy stretches and down times. A coach can help you clarify the landscape, identifying what is most important and what is yours to do (and not do). A coach can then strategize with you ways to lean effectively into those essentials.

Coaches don’t tell you what to do. After all, YOU are the expert on you and your context. Coaches draw out your wisdom and your experiences so that you can examine, appreciate, and combine them in new ways. Coaches nudge you to take stock of the tapped and untapped resources within your grasp that you can use to reach goals and overcome struggle. Coaches encourage you along the way and welcome the emotions that come with deep awareness, truly hearing, seeing, and valuing you.

Here are some of the most recent coaching goals I’ve been working with clergy on:

• Discerning what’s next vocationally

• Making a vocational change (within and beyond ministry)

• Discovering a more authentic leadership/supervision style and stocking the toolkit for it

• Identifying support for a more sustainable rhythm of work, play, and rest

• Assessing and prioritizing responsibilities 

• Restructuring staffing or lay leadership to reflect current needs and realities 

• Planning for a sabbatical that is rejuvenating and reflective

• Leading a congregation through a pastoral change

• Ministering while deconstructing

• Leading a new worshipping community 

• Facilitating conversations to help a newly-formed staff team get on the same page

Make sure your support team - including but not limited to a coach - is in place before the next big challenge or opportunity arises. That way you don’t have to expend valuable time and energy building your support structures at the same time that they are most needed.

If you’d like to talk about coaching and how it could benefit you, I invite you to schedule a time to talk.