Does your congregation or church leadership team need to have some thoughtful conversations? I can help with that.
Over the past several months I’ve seen a big uptick in inquiries about congregational coaching. Usually these requests stem from a pastor or lay leader knowing that something is changing or needs to change but not knowing how to go about making that transition as positively as possible.
I can help with that. In congregational coaching I work with leadership teams or entire churches on moving forward with faithfulness and curiosity. This work begins with listening for a congregation’s gifts, circumstances, and yearnings. Based on what I hear, I design the parameters, process, and prompts for congregations to have fruitful conversations among their members and with God. While I carry over some tools from one church to the next, I largely start my approach from scratch because I believe each church’s story is one of a kind.
Here are some of the coaching conversations that I have had recently or are in process:
Creating structure for a congregation to rebuild trust and imagine its way forward as a result of renewed relationships.
Rediscovering purpose as a church after years of neglecting or eliminating needed procedures and in the aftermath of major damage to the physical plant.
Helping a newly-called pastor and church begin their journey together with expectations and boundaries that lay a good foundation for mutual ministry.
Searching for a new pastor, with complicating factors overlaid on the search process.
Designing a new pastoral staffing model that better meets current and future needs.
Making difficult decisions about church buildings and land and the accompanying debt in ways that contribute to identity and mission.
Identifying how best to regather after lockdown, using this transition to ease into bigger-picture discernment.
I can coach your congregation through transitions like these, encouraging you and broadening your sense of what you’re capable of and what God might be inviting you to consider along the way. These coaching conversations take place by Zoom, making them easier for your leaders to schedule and lowering the cost of processes that can have a big impact on your church.
Is your congregation facing a change with a bit of uncertainty and trepidation? Let’s talk.
Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash.