Every December I offer a “round up” special to former, current, and potential clergy coachees: I will round the amount left in your professional expense line item up to the next session value. This is my way of helping you make sure you don’t leave any of your hard-earned money on the table at the end of the calendar year. Here’s what you need to know to access this special:

• If you are a prospective coachee, I welcome you to schedule a discovery call so that you can ask any questions you might have about coaching or the way I approach it.

• Contact me about your desire to use the special by noon your time on Friday, December 30.

• There is no minimum number of sessions you must purchase.

• If you are a current coachee, the session(s) you purchase using the offer will be added on to the end of your coaching package.

• You can use this special to pay now for sessions that start at your convenience, whether that’s immediately or after the busyness of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Those are the nuts and bolts. Let’s get to the good stuff, which is why you might want to explore coaching. The Church and world are in major transition, which means many ministers want to discern what this means for them and their congregations, re-think and re-tool their leadership, and take good care of themselves and the people they love in sustainable ways. Coaching can help you move ahead in all of these open questions. In fact, coaching is one of the best uses of your professional development funds because it

• is done remotely,

• takes place at your pace and on your schedule,

• is geared toward reframing your particular situation in helpful ways,

• helps you make positive steps forward, and

• can be completely customized to your goals, leadership style, and context.

Invest in your 2023 with 2022 money. Contact me or schedule a discovery call to activate the round-up special by December 30.

Whew! You’ve almost made it through 2020. It has been a year of unexpected challenges, hasn’t it? This has manifested in a number of ways, with just one of them being the inability to go to in-person denominational meetings, conferences, trainings, and retreats. This means that you might have a good bit of money remaining in your professional expense fund, even after you’ve attended all the virtual events and bought all the books.

Every December I offer a “round up” special: I will round the amount left in your professional expense line item up to the next session value. My intent has always been to keep you from leaving any of your hard-earned benefits on the table and to encourage you to invest in your leadership growth for the coming year. I can’t imagine a better time to hit both of these marks. While it’s important to steward your church’s money well in these uncertain times, it’s also essential to use your available resources to prepare to pastor in a rapidly-changing world. Coaching is a great way to do that, because it

• is done remotely,

• takes place at your pace and on your schedule,

• is geared toward reframing your situation in helpful ways,

• helps you make positive steps forward, and

• can be completely customized to your goals, leadership style, and context.

If you are looking to make progress in such areas as

• finding a good oscillation between caring for others and caring for yourself,

• developing and grounding yourself in your pastoral identity when others are projecting their anxieties about the state of the world on you,

• searching for a new call and/or leaving your current one well under the restraints imposed by Covid-19,

• helping your church members engage well among themselves and in the community when there is no end to the pandemic in sight, or

• addressing conflict that is even trickier when those involved are unable to gather in person for conversation,

coaching can help.

The round-up special is valid in December only. Contact me or schedule a free exploratory call by December 30 to take advantage of this offer.

I have had a few mentors over the seven years that I have been coaching. When I was preparing to apply for my current credential, however, I knew I wanted a clergywoman as my mentor coach. I searched for a while until I found the right person. Janice Lee Fitzgerald listened to my coaching sessions (recorded with coachees’ permission!), helping me hear where I had done things well instinctively and where I had missed opportunities. She pushed me to reflect on how I could - though not necessarily should - approach situations differently. Most of all, she encouraged me to keep plugging along in the credentialing process when I wondered if I was ready to level up. Janice is still my coach, though her role shifted from mentor coach to supervising coach when I was awarded my PCC credential.

Earlier this year I was asked by Coach Approach Ministries to serve as a mentor coach myself for a cohort of emerging coaches. Having grown so much because of Janice’s mentoring, I eagerly agreed. When Janice heard that I had been offered this chance, she enthusiastically supported me and emailed me information on the mentor coach training she’d found so beneficial. (This is often how God speaks to me: through the voices of people I trust and respect inviting me to explore new possibilities.)

I started the Certified Mentor Coach program in March and completed it in late May. It was a fantastic experience, with lots of learning by observing and doing. I mentored, I was mentored, and I was coached by two trainers and four gifted coaches from India, Belgium, China, Spain, and the United States. I was sad when the class was over, and I was more excited than ever about serving as a mentor coach. I had so much fun listening to good coaching and encouraging good coaches.

I am excited to bring this new love of mentor coaching - of supporting and cheering on emerging coaches - to a wider audience. We are in a cultural moment, in the church and around the world, that demands us to make courageous shifts in our being and doing. Coaches can help leaders transition with intentionality and integrity. Mentor coaches provide feedback and reflection space for those coaches so that they can serve their coachees ever more effectively.

If you are interested in learning more about how I approach mentor coaching, you can find more information here. I would love to accompany you on your coaching journey.

I know. You're Zoomed out, and you have been for a while. And yet, most of these meetings have probably been with rotating groups of people or with fixed groups (such as your staff) for whom you've felt like you've had to show up as your best self. That's exhausting.

I want to offer something different - an ongoing small group with set participants in which you can bring your full self and real concerns and tap more deeply into your innovation and resourcefulness. These cohorts are intended to energize and empower you to lead and live well in our current reality. They will be:

Flexible in focus. The cohort will be geared toward the needs of the participants. (You can note some of those initial needs on the interest form.)

Facilitated to draw out and share your wisdom and strengths. The cohort is designed help you create the actions that will work for you and your context, on which you are the expert.

Intentionally ecumenical. Denominations can be small worlds, making it hard to know how much you can safely share. The cohort will be ecumenical so that you can feel free to be honest and so that you can learn how other denominations approach issues.

Mutually supportive. This cohort will not be a space to compete or call out but a place to encourage, get curious with, and gently challenge one another.

Cohorts will meet twice per month for an hour mid-June through mid-September (6 sessions), with the option to continue after those six sessions. There will be 4-5 participants per cohort, and the total cost will be $150 per participant ($125 for former/current coachees). We will gather by Zoom or Google Meet.

You can indicate your interest on this form, which will be open through June 8. I will then assemble the cohorts and contact participants to schedule meetings at times convenient for them. Once the cohort’s first gathering is set, I will send group information and a PayPal invoice.

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions!

In one of my contract ministry roles, I help clergy put together peer groups for mutual learning and encouragement. Some of these groups convene around a common focus, such as digging into the Enneagram or working for racial justice or balancing parenthood and pastoring. Other groups, however, understand the importance of a colleague group for combatting isolation and burnout in ministry but aren’t sure what topics to discuss when they gather.

If you have a peer group that is eager to get together and engage in professional development but isn’t sure what that might look like, consider a workshop. Here are some of the learning opportunities I offer:

• Creating and using your personal purpose statement

• Living into your pastoral potential

• Building trust at multiple levels

• Fending off overfunctioning

• Strategizing for self-care

• Creating helpful feedback loops

• Searching for a new call

• Leaving and starting calls well

Most of these workshops can all be completed in 1-1.5 hours, including a high degree of interaction. They are conducted via Zoom, which means they would work for clergy groups that are accustomed to gathering in person or those that are geographically scattered. The online format makes the workshops very schedule-friendly, customizable, and affordable. The material presented could provide the springboard for deeper conversation over multiple gatherings.

If you would like to learn more about a particular workshop and/or discuss options for putting one on the calendar, I invite you to contact me.

I recently celebrated five years as a coach. I have felt more creative, productive, and impactful doing this work than at any other time in my ministry. I love what I do, and I want to get better at it every day. That’s why I follow a five-pronged approach to my professional development:

I learn about coaching. Each month I attend – at minimum – two hours of continuing education online in the form of learning labs and webinars. I listen to a coaching podcast weekly, and I read books about coaching. Once or twice per year I take a 16-hour training around a particular aspect of coaching. These learning opportunities help me expand my understanding of coaching.

I watch coaching. A couple of the organizations I’m affiliated with occasionally offer live demonstrations by master coaches. I tune in to see how those who have been in the field longer than me facilitate new awareness in their clients. These demos give me a picture of excellence in coaching to strive toward.

I coach. I can’t grow in my ministry – and what would be the point? – if I don’t actually coach! And so I do, happily, four days per week. After each session, I sit and reflect for a few minutes on what went well and in what areas I’d like to improve. These coaching sessions and post-call analyses allow me to inhabit the role of a coach better.

I seek feedback about my coaching. At the end of every first session, I ask new coachees what about my approach was helpful and what I can do on the next call to be more helpful. I emphasize that feedback is welcome throughout the coaching relationship, since my goal is to support coachees in reaching their hoped-for results. I have also created a form for those whose coaching packages have concluded to evaluate the process, my competence, and my adaptability. This feedback gives me other perspectives on my coaching, pointing me to areas that need additional attention.

I get coached. I believe in the coaching process, which necessarily means that I pursue coaching for myself. I meet several times per year with a mentor coach who helps me work through challenges in my role as a coach and as the sole proprietor of a coaching practice. Being coached helps me put myself in the shoes of my coachees and remember what it’s like to be the one bringing the agenda, with all the excitement and hesitancy that entails.

I strive to be the best possible coach so that I can fulfill my call faithfully and serve my coachees well. I pursue professional development eagerly so that I can meet both of these goals and thereby promote well-being in clergy and the congregations they lead.