Coaching bug gaining in Baptist life

PENDLETON, S.C. (ABP)—Courtney Krueger is so excited about coaching he barely can contain himself when asked about it.

Courtney Krueger, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Pendleton, S.C., said ongoing coaching training has enhanced his pastoral ministry skills. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Courtney Krueger)

And it's not the leadership of the nearby Clemson Tigers that gets him so enthusiastic. Rather, it's the training he's nearly completed to become a certified professional ministry coach.

"It has opened a whole new world to me," said Krueger, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Pendleton, S.C.

He isn't alone in either his training or enthusiasm. Observers say the coaching craze is spreading rapidly from its beginnings in the corporate world to just about every sector of society—including churches. And they add it isn't a fad.

"Its effectiveness is what's causing it to spread," said Dock Hollingsworth, executive director for the Center for Teaching Churches at the McAfee School of Theology.

In explaining the concept, advocates usually begin with what coaching isn't.

"It's not therapy," said Rhonda Abbot Blevins, associate pastor for congregational life at the Community Church at Tellico Village in Loudon, Tenn.

Sign up for our weekly edition and get all our headlines in your inbox on Thursdays Email Address Rhonda Abbot Blevins leads a children's service at the Community Church at Tellico Village in Tennessee. Blevins is undergoing training through McAfee School of Theology to become a ministry coach. (PHOTO/Regina Elgin)

It's also not mentoring, spiritual direction or pastoral counseling, although gifts needed in those activities can overlap with coaching, she said.

Like Krueger, Blevins is undergoing training funded by the Lilly Endowment in return for coaching McAfee School of Theology graduates who enter full-time congregational ministry. Hollingsworth heads the program at McAfee.

"Coaching is geared toward action," Blevins said. "If I were to coach you, it would be you deciding your goals, and then I work with you to identify practical action steps."

Those action steps are identified by asking a series of questions based on the assumption that only the student knows the answers, Krueger said.

"We stay away from leading questions—this isn't a lawyer thing," he said. "You are asking questions, and you have no idea what the answer is."

That the process works for seminary graduates is borne out by anecdotal evidence and by the Lilly Endowment's continued willingness to put money behind the process, Hollingsworth said.

McAfee received a $2 million grant seven years ago that included providing ministry coaches to seminary graduates who enter full-time congregational ministry. That was followed by a $1 million grant given years later, Hollingsworth said.

Susan Rogers, pastor at The Well at Springfield in Jacksonville, Fla., talks with church members before a recent door-to-door neighborhood visitation. Rogers is using her McAfee ministry coaching training also to start a side coaching business. She hopes the income will take financial pressure off her small church.  (ABP PHOTO/Jeff Brumley)

Participating graduates are assigned a coach who provides a one-hour monthly session for two years.

Hollingsworth defends the approach against those skeptical of it as the latest gimmick, asserting it would have come in useful early in his career.

"We did need it when we were coming along, we just didn't get it," he said.

Nor is coaching meant to replace mentoring relationships between older and younger ministers, he said, adding the two ap-proaches can complement each other.

"A coach is trying to ask the right kind of provocative questions and be a collaborative brainstormer," Hollingsworth said.

Other Baptist-affiliated organizations are using the approach, too, including The Center for Congregational Health and the Pastoral Institute in Columbus, Ga. The institute is providing the training for the coaches in the McAfee program.

"The coaching bug is in a lot of places right now in Baptist life," he said.

Coaching experts acknowledge the profession is met with doubt, and they say that's in large part because it's an unregulated activity.

Anyone can call himself a coach—life coach, executive coach, ministry coach or whatever—and charge money for it, said Janet Harvey, 2012 global president of the International Coach Federation.

But for more than a decade, self-regulating agencies like the ICF have developed standardized training and certification, and coaching is becoming increasingly recognized as a legitimate profession, she said.

The trend began in corporate America with the advent of executive coaches and now is being adopted by religious groups of different faiths and denominations, Harvey said.

In 1998, the organization had 5,000 certified members, and today there are 20,000. There also now are about 8,500 certified coaching instructors.

The pay can be lucrative, according to an ICF study. The median fee for a one-hour session in the United States is $160, and the average fee is $214 an hour.

The coaches in the McAfee program do not charge the seminary graduates, but they are free to use their skills in their own congregations or inside businesses.

That's a crucial part of the deal for Susan Rogers, pastor of The Well at Springfield, a Baptist church plant in Jacksonville, Fla. Rogers already is building a client base in the community, and she hopes her coaching eventually will provide enough income to sustain her as her small congregation grows.

Others pastors she knows are being trained, or thinking about it, for the same reasons, she said.

But it's more than money, she added. Helping two or three people a day sometimes is rewarding personally and is beginning to fit into her overall calling to be a missional pastor—inside and outside of a congregation.

"I'm on a coaching high right now," she said after a recent session in which a client achieved a new insight into her relationship with God. "It brought home for me that this is also an avenue for ministry."