COACHING BASICS: HOW to start a Coaching Ministry in your Church

Hi All,

Coaching is a powerful tool to assist in the task of making disciples in your congregation.


The final installment in the "Coaching Basics" series relates to HOW?  We've already covered the WHY you need a coaching ministry and the WHAT coaching is.  Plus, last week I gave you that inside look at one recent coaching session which I completed.  So, now...HOW do you get a robust coaching ministry started in your church?  I'm going to be sharing with you much of what we did at our church, and hopefully you will find some of it useful for yourself.

There is a great Christian coaching ministry out there called "Coachnet.org".  It is headed up by Bob Logan, who is the author of "Coaching 101".  This book is a great primer on how to do non-directive coaching.  Non-directive coaching is very effective, because the three rules of non-directive coaching are: "1. The client does the work.  2. The client does the work.  3. The client does the work."  The book focuses on the five stages of coaching, as Logan uses them, of:  Relate, Reflect, Refocus, Resource, and Review.  And the Coachnet. org website is filled with great and awesome tools to help you coach well.

So, the first thing I would say is connect with Coachnet.org, and check out the site.
Second, sign up for some training, which Logan provides.
Third, read the book "Coaching 101".

Those are all preliminary steps, and it is best to do it with a team.  We had a very strong start to coaching at our church, as we sent three staff people to get the training they needed.  The training consisted of several days in Hollywood (the unpopular side of town), followed by another couple days of training several months later in Chicago.  Because there were three of us, we were able to glean so much more from the training than just one.  That gave us a great foundation for going back to our church and getting it started.

The Coachnet.org actually has a coaching excellence performance test which you must pass in order to be credentialed by them and able to use their system and mentor others as coaches.  It consists of a series of on-line questions which review your behavior and how you handle the various aspects of coaching.  It is a surprisingly accurate survey, and we use it with all of our coaches in training before we certify them as Coaches or Coach Mentors.

In our system, we define a Coach Mentor as someone who has completed the 9-month training process and has passed the on-line assessment.  They are then in a position to train other coaches in our church.  A Coach is simply someone who has completed the process but does not desire to train other coaches.  They simply want to coach people in our church who are looking for help in various areas.

We are looking to train Coaches for four areas in our church:  Life Coach, Small Group Coach, Ministry Coach, and Money Coach.  The last one is a specialty area which also requires some training from Crown Ministries.  Currently we are doing the best at Small Group and Money Coaches.  The reason for that is because we have a more clearly articulated need, and a concrete process of training for each of them.

Once your coaches are trained, they must each take on two other people to be coached, the coachees.  Two is just about the perfect number because if you are going to do it right, it is a bit time-consuming, and any more than that gets to be unmanageable.  One of our staff initially started with three and it almost overwhelmed him.  Two is also just about right because sometimes, one of the coachees doesn't work out, and that way you still have one good coachee whom you are working with.

So, if you have read the book, gotten the training, and begun coaching then you are on your way.  Now, this part is very important:  Don't try to do too much at once.  Quality is better than quantity.  Logan has noted that many, many churches start with a whole crew of people, because they may be a large church and need a lot of coaches.  The problem with this is that you cannot maintain the quality.  It takes a lot of infrastructure and one-on-one meetings to maintain a high-level coaching ministry.  The number one mistake which churches make is to try to do too much.  As one of my homiletics professors said in seminary, "Start low, go slow, rise higher, catch fire".  What applies to preaching can apply to coaching as well!

We have been coaching for a while as a church now, and what we have discovered is that the hardest part is finding people who are willing to coach, and put in the time commitment.  A lot of people try to squeeze coaching in with everything else they are doing in the church.  That will not work.  You must find people who want to focus on being coached, and coaching two others.  If you start slow the first year, and each of them find quality people to coach the next year, and so on, in a while you will have a very strong coaching ministry.

We have also discovered that we very quickly needed some infrastructure and regular coaching meetings to keep it going.  So we are in the process now of training two men to be our coaching directors.  And we have just started to gather all of our coaches together for breakfast meetings to stay in touch with them.  Coaching is a decentralized ministry, but you need some structure to help hold it together.

So, that is where we are at.  This is certainly not the only way to do it, but it is how we are doing it, so I thought I would share that with you all.  Coaching is a powerful tool to assist in the task of making disciples in your congregation.

That's all for now,
Yours for the Kingdom of Heaven,
and the Church of Jesus Christ,

Dr. Bill

Church Health Resources

Hi All,

There's a lot of great help out there for pastors who want to make their churches strong and healthy.

Recently I was reading "Winning on Purpose" by Kaiser, and he had a section entitled, "Training and Coaching for the Team". He provided a list of the following sites for congregational ministry help:

Accountable Leadership (Kaiser) www.accountableleadership.org
ChurchSmart Resources (NCD) www.churchsmart.com
CoachNet (Logan) www.coachnet.org
Easum, Bandy & Associates www.easumbandy.com
GHC Network (Church Multiplication) www.ghnetwork.org
Gospel Communications www.gospelcom.net
Griffith Coaching Network www.griffithcoaching.com
Leadership Network www.leadnet.org
NexStep Coaching (Hoyt) www.nexstepcoaching.org
PastorPreneur (Jackson) www.pastorpreneur.com
Purpose-Driven Church (Warren) www.pastors.com
Willow Creek Association (Hybels) www.willowcreek.com

And, of course, my favorite, www.HighPowerResources.com, where you can find the Software, Sermons, Seminars, and Coaching to empower you for church success.

These are all great helps in building a great church.

Remember, we are all working for King Jesus to build up His Church for which He died.
We didn't die; He did.
So it matters to Him how you lead HIS Church.

God's best to you,

Dr. Bill

VARIETIES OF THE COACHING EXPERIENCE

Hi All,

There is something new I am learning in the realm of coaching; something that is obvious when said, but not so obvious when experienced; that is, there are varieties of coaching experiences. Or said another way, not all coaching experiences are equal. I've found that depending on the needs of the individual, the coaching experience will vary widely from person to person, or even from session to session with the same person.

Here is the ideal theory: you walk a person through the 5 R's of Bob Logan's Coachnet.org. Those 5 R's being:
Relate - reconnect relationally and find reason to celebrate
Reflect - help the client to consider where they are at in terms of their mission and goals
Refocus - help the client to consider next action steps needed to take
Resource - help the client to discover and locate any resources which will help them in their endeavors
Recommit - to the selected action steps

But the reality is that many times, depending where a person is at, a large amount of time may be spend in just one of these categories as you help someone make their way through their current dilemma. At the start of a coaching relationship more time may be spend at the Relate session. Or, if you meet w/ someone frequently enough, you may need to only apply a cursory review of the Reflect stage, if they feel they are still on track with their mission. Refocus, Resource, and Recommit will also vary from person to person.

Here is another insight; it is related to the issue of directive or non-directive coaching. Bob Logan's organization has an excellent goal to ask the client to direct the entire coaching process, through non-directive coaching. It is equivalent to always asking, "What do you want to talk about today", and then proceeding forward on that chosen path. This system works really well with highly motivated coachees, such as I often work with in the ministry field; men or women who are highly directed and goal-driven. But what I have been discovering as we branch out our coaching more broadly in the congregation, and begin involving volunteers in the process who are not full-time in ministry, is that they sometime need something a little different from their coaching. They sometimes need a little bit of direction and help. When I begin the coaching sessions with them they will sometimes say that they are quite sure what they want to talk about or work one; they ask me for some guidance. And if I am judicious with my comments, I may be able to get them back on track without interposing my own desires upon them. So, I've begun to prepare a bit for some of these encounters with volunteers who need guidance. I've prepared a "Seven Steps to Life Success" coaching guide [which you can download from my website, under Coaching Resources]. I also sometimes walk them through a mental grid of steps they are taking towards personal growth; the 'personal growth' set of coaching questions. Each of these have been helpful tools to use when people need just a bit of directed coaching.

Coaching is a very personal activity, which needs to be tailored to the needs of the individuals being coached. The recommended systems are all very good, but they are just guides which serve the needs of the coachees.

Just a thought to shine up your coaching...

Dr. Bill Miller

QUALITY COACHING WANTED!

Hi All,

Hey it is tough to develop a high-quality coaching experience on the church-wide level. It takes a lot of advance planning, excellent coordination between ministries, and a system to monitor and continuously develop existing coaches, as well as find new ones. We are making great progress in our church, but it is taking a lot of work.

Here is what we have done & are doing:
1. We received a year's worth of training in coaching from Bob Logan's coaching organization through Coachnet. This included a 3-day seminar in Hollywood, focusing on basic coaching skills, followed by a 3-day seminar in Chicago, focusing on making a movement in our organization, and developing excellence.

2. We spent one year developing our coaching curriculum. We took the things which we learned in Logan's two seminars, and then, under the supervision of one of Logan's Coachnet mentors, we developed an 8-week coaching seminar for our church.

3. Then the three of us each selected two coachees, whom we would train to be coach mentors. We signed them up on Coachnet too. We had them sign up for a two year commitment!

4. We took these trainees through our coach training small group for eight weeks.

5. Meanwhile, they each began finding two coachees, whom they would each work with for six months. These coachees were there to help our Coach Mentors have someone to practice on with their newly developing coaching skills. These Mentors in training, then signed each of their trainees up with Coachnet. (It was free for them as part of the training.)

6. We three pastors who began this process, after having received our own certification as Coach Mentors, continue to meet with each of our Mentors in training, once a month. They in turn, continue meeting with each of their two coachees once a month.

7. We three who are the current coach mentors, meet regularly to monitor the progress of our Mentors in training.

8. We are developing the final half-day seminar, called "Coaching for Excellence" (using Logan's teachings from his seminars). This we will administer this May, as an important part of the Mentors in Training experience.

9. Then each of the Mentors in Training will have to be qualified by the Coachnet organization through use of an on-line evaluation tool, which is completed by their two coachees each.

Then, and only then, we will have our first batch of Coach Mentors successfully trained!
And all of this is under the watchful eye of Logan's organization, Coachnet.
We are extremely lucky and grateful as a church to have them experimenting with the delivery of quality coaching through the local church, so we are being careful to do it right.

Look at how the number grow, and you will begin to see why it is difficult to keep the coaching quality up nice and high:
First, we started with 3 pastors, who all received Coaching Certification.
Second, each pastor found 2 coach mentors, who are in process of being certified.
Third, each Mentor in training, found 2 trainees to practice on.
So, we moved from 3 to 9 to 15 people going through coaching in just a matter of months.
Next year, when we have a total of 6 Coach Mentors, it is going to really start to get tricky to maintain quality.

And Maintaining Quality is the key goal here.
It is relatively easy to get a lot of people into coaching; many churches have tried it. But many have also failed as they let the movement grow faster than their ability to maintain quality. So we are being slow and methodical, and so far are pleased with the results. But we can see that we need to maintain constant communication and set standards continuously in order to continue with an excellent coaching process.

Just thought I would share our progress so far, in case your church is thinking about developing a coaching program.

In Christ, for the Kingdom of Heaven,

Dr. Bill

LOCAL CHURCH COACHING CERTIFICATION

Crossroads Church , where I serve has just completed development of an 8-week coach certification course, in cooperation with Bob Logan and Coachnet. After sending three of us from staff to Logan's coaching training in both Chicago and Hollywood over the past year, we took that training, retooled it into an 8-week small group experience for the local church (with Logan's permission), and began training local church coaches. Over the next 6 months, those coach mentor's in training will receive one-on-one coaching from the three of us staff pastors who have already received certification. Then after they complete a final half-day seminar in May, they will be ready to coach others at our church.

We are convinced that the program will have a strong impact upon the overall health and well-being of our church. The reason is that, as Logan has often stated, the process of coaching an individual often helps them to be twice as effective as they otherwise would be. As we help people to deal with the individual blockages to their own spiritual growth, we will be on our way to developing quality Christians and future leaders of our church.

We have defined several unique end results from our efforts. The first and primary result will be "Coach Mentors" who will be certified by our church (through Logan's organization) to train other coaches, or just to coach individuals towards spiritual formation. Two other outcomes will be small group and ministry team coaches. A final outcome will be coaches who can assist Christians in a general way towards life coaching or spiritual formation.

We are keeping the numbers intentionally small and the quality high. We have been warned by Bob Logan's organization that the most common mistake for churches is that they try to coach too many people initially, and then they lose the focus on quality. So we have limited ourselves to coaching only two people at a time. So the three of us are coaching six people. By the time this year is over, our church will have 9 certified coaches. We will grow from there, and continue to focus on quality coaching experience for everybody.

I will keep you informed on the progress, but so far it has been very satisfying to see the coaches in training 'get it' and begin to understand how coaching is totally unique from other discipleship plans they may have tried in the past.

God's best to you and your ministry,

Dr. Bill

COACHING: Quality not Quantity

I am usually all for growth in all of its forms, whether it is a larger church, better attended Bible studies, or a greater quantity of small groups in the church. But when it comes to coaching, I have been convinced of the opposite; there is great virtue in starting small and not going for it all in one shot.

Bob Logan, whose organization is helping us to get coaching started in our church has worked with many churches and denominational organizations. And one of his great learnings is that many people try to start coaching in their organization in a big way, and it is almost always a mistake. You must start small and you must achieve quality before you go forward. It is more important that you develop quality coaches, by giving them a top-notch coach training experience, than it is to train a lot of people at once.

Now the natural response of pastors in large churches, is that 'if we start small, it will take forever; do you know how large our church is?'. This is natural, but it is a mistake. Coach training takes time to learn well, and it takes very close and intense learning with a coach who already knows how to do it. It is such a subtle art, that it is too easy to think you've 'got it', when you really don't. Coaching is not like consulting, nor counseling, where you can say whatever is on your mind. The true beauty of coaching is that you are trying to help the coachee to say what is on his or her mind. The Proverbs say that a man's thoughts are deep waters, but a man of wisdom will draw them out. That is the challenge and beauty of coaching. It must be learned well.

So here is what we are doing at our church. We have a church of 750 people, but just three of us received off-site training in coaching. From there, we are developing an in-house coaching experience in our own church. But we are starting with just 7 other people. So, if we are successful in our coaching efforts this year, and we have no attrition, we will have 10 trained coaches at the end of this year. (Our coach training is 9 months long.) So we will have just 10 people out of a church of 750. The goal is quality not quantity. But if you do the math, you can see that if each of these 10 newly trained coaches train two others, that we will begin to develop some good coaching momentum in just a couple of years. And it is very important to keep quality control over the whole experience, or else the coaching movement in your church will break down due to poorly trained coaches.

That is the major goal for us: quality not quantity. We are willing to pay the price, because we believe that if those being coached, experience the true power of coaching in their own lives, and the natural life transformation which is caused by quality coaching, that they themselves will also be more committed to providing a quality coaching experience for others. And if we can touch the lives of God's church in a quality way and bring about life change, the whole church will be stronger and healthier. And that will bring glory to Christ.

In His Service,
Dr. Bill

Coaching vs. Mentoring

I'm currently in a national seminar on coaching taught by Bob Logan. A great question was asked about the difference between a Mentor and a Coach. In general, here is the difference:
MENTOR - has gone before, and pours in.
COACH - someone who comes alongside, and draws out.

MENTOR - when asked a question will answer it.
COACH - when asked a question, will 'unpack' the thinking of the other person, and reflect that back to them.

The key difference between a Mentor and a Coach, is that a coach practices "discovery listening".
Here are the 3 steps to Discovery Listening:
1. Summarize Periodically
2. Invite to Say More
3. Unpack Fully before giving your input

The best coaches are quite non-directive. They help a person to discover their own values, decide their own action steps, and set their own measurement goals.

Coaching is an incredibly effective tool for multiplying ministry effectiveness. Logan claims that any ministry initiative will be twice as effective if it is coached, rather than not coached.

That's all for now.

More later,

Bill