USMB has offered life and ministry coaching for pastors and ministry leaders for many years and continues to enhance this program. As part of USMB’s LEAD (Leadership Education and Development) initiative, LEAD Coaching is an intentional, ongoing life-on-life relationship with a trained coach that empowers leaders to realize their full potential, living and leading with purpose, confidence, courage and joy.
The coaching process involves exploring the current reality of the life of a leader and then creating a new map of where they desire to be. Coaches are skilled at listening, asking powerful questions, defining goals, helping a person develop relevant action plans and providing the accountability and support for them to succeed. Coaching significantly raises the bar of life and ministry potential.
“Most days I think the strongest upside of LEAD Coaching is the accountability the regular conversation between coach and coachee provides,” says Ed Boschman, lead coach and previous USMB national director. “The partnership is grounded in the fact that the Holy Spirit is in charge of the journey.”
USMB national director Don Morris was instrumental in developing the current LEAD Coaching program through connections with Building Champions, a Christian organization that provides professional life coaching for companies like Chick-fil-A.
“Our LEAD Coaching program is based on Building Champion’s core elements that create effective transformation: a life plan, ministry vision, ministry plan and priority management,” Morris says.
“I recently completed a year of LEAD Coaching and every chapter that I was coached through and every book I read as a part of the coaching experience continues to be fruitful,” says Paul Canaday, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sanger, Calif.
“I wasn’t the only one who benefited from the coach, Canaday says. “My family and the church I serve also have benefited from the priority management chapter, and the time spent clarifying our mission has blessed the church. I’m thankful for the encouragement I received to take this opportunity, and I was blessed to have Ed Boschman as my coach. I recommend that every leader take and make the most of this opportunity.”
The cost for LEAD Coaching has been kept to a minimum, costing far less than typical pastoral coaching. Scholarships are available if the pastor/leader cannot pay for it themselves. Also, many churches see the high value for their pastor to experience coaching and provide for it as part of their pastor’s continuing education and development. The church benefits when the pastor/leader is “running smoothly on all cylinders.”
“My role as coach is to keep asking the right questions—the kind that lead the coachee to insight and subsequently to goals and then the action items to pursue and achieve them,” says Boschman.
“It is absolutely appropriate that we take the first few weeks of our year of the coaching partnership for a full 360 review of current life realities, asking questions about the health of our spiritual lives, our marriage and family, our work/ministry and other personal priorities,” Boschman says. “Sometimes our priorities are pretty messed up and need to be redefined and reordered.”
Being coached has a way of maximizing personal fulfillment and effectiveness. Therefore, USMB encourages many more pastors and ministry leaders to take advantage of this program, asking: In terms of your ministry or your personal life, what’s important to you? What are your dreams? What would it feel like to live at your full potential? Interested? Go to the USMB website (www.usmb.org) to find out more and learn how to get started.
