Empower Your Pastors: The Coaching Advantage
by Ircel Harrison
If you are listening to what is happening in churches, you hear statements like these:
“Our pastor is retiring, and we don’t know who will take her place.”
“We are a smaller congregation. We’re not sure that we can support a full-time pastor anymore.”
“Our pastor left us without being called to another church. He was just burned out.”
“We love our pastor, but I am afraid we are overworking her.”
“We want to keep a pastor longer than two years, but we don’t know how.”
Many churches—of all sizes and in all denominations—are finding themselves in the wilderness when it comes to pastoral leadership. It’s not their fault and it is not solely on the clergy leaders. As denominations think about the future of their churches, they are not struggling with programming but in finding and equipping competent leaders. At the same time, denominational resources are limited.
One way to address these challenges is to provide individual coaches for pastors. A coach is someone who can come alongside a clergy leader and help them in several ways.
First, coaching can foster confidence and a healthy personal regard. Often, the challenges facing a clergy leader seem overwhelming. There are many things that chip away at one’s confidence. A coach can help a leader rekindle their sense of calling to ministry and commitment to Christian service.
Second, coaching can enhance one’s agility. Serving a local congregation no longer promises stability. Changes in society and culture, demographics, economics, and membership are challenges that require both creativity and resilience. A coach as thought partner can help a leader discern and pursue new ways forward in their context.
Third, coaching encourages the mental health of clergy leaders. Coaches are not therapists, but their work with clients can contribute to their mental well-being. Helping to identify and apply values, navigating work and family time, and setting boundaries may be part of coaching conversations that contribute to mental health.
Fourth, coaching helps leaders identify hidden strengths. My contention is not only that most of us know more than we are doing, but we have capabilities that we have never tapped because we have not taken time to stop, reflect, and dream with a support person like a coach. A coach can provide a safe space to discover untapped inner potential and increase leadership capacity.
Often, this type of coaching can be most effectively provided by external coaches. Although denominations have the best intentions in supporting clergy and churches, organizational or polity concerns may limit the willingness of the clergy leader to engage. The external coach is enlisted by the denomination to be an impartial party invested totally in the client and his or her needs.
Interested in learning how to provide this kind of support to your clergy leaders? Let’s talk. You can contact me HERE.
