I’ve been coaching church planters for over twenty years now. Church planters are a unique breed, often presenting distinctive challenges to their coaches. I know this because I’ve also been—and currently am—a church planter. I know firsthand how challenging we can be, and I also know what we need from our coaches.

Our international qualitative research project shows the outcomes of what good coaching accomplishes. We have isolated the competencies and microskills a coach needs to accomplish those outcomes. But one question I’m often asked is this: To coach a church planter effectively, what else is needed besides the basics of being a good coach?
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[The articles I post on ChurchCentral are drawn from recent issues of Christian Coaching Magazine and represent a wide array of leaders and coaches as the authors. Thanks for reading! -Jerome]

Ask Profound Questions…Get…
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Women often find themselves hiding. Ever since Eve chose to eat the apple, mankind has been covering themselves up with the fig leafs. There are a lot of reasons. We mask our shame, fear, insecurity, loneliness, and low self worth. We cover up our true heart desires, convincing ourselves we are silly to want to accomplish something more. We live in a world of make believe instead of the real one we were destined by God to help create.
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An alarming trend: “Over the past 20 years there has been an increasing number of people leaving the mission field for reasons that could have been potentially prevented or avoided!”

What are these “potentially…
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Church planters that are coming from a different culture or nationality must always begin with the end in mind; that they are not going to be the long-term pastor of the church. The goal is…
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An important principle in pioneer church planting is reproducibility. Missionaries coming in may bring with them methods, techniques, resources, or equipment that can facilitate the starting of a new church. However if the local culture…
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Brian Rhen, pastor at Peninsula Covenant Church near San Franciso, is patiently working with his church to become a coaching culture by adding coaching to the overall people development process – that is, training both staff and volunteers in coaching skills and then encouraging them and holding them accountable in the practice of these new skills.
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Because church planters have to pay attention to all aspects of the church planting effort, it is easy to get distracted into activities that are tangential to the church plant itself. Interests or opportunities that…
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What an awesome privilege – to coach church planters who are on the front lines of church extension. Church planting is often a lonely prospect with few who join in the work and few who…
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Eddie Hammett, Senior Coach and Consultant for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina talks about the benefits of churches having a Congregational Coach in Residence and the options churches might consider for working with a certified coach.
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The effectiveness of our organizations, churches, non-profits, governments, and businesses alike is directly related to the quality of the leaders of those organizations. We probably know of few of those that are not in great…
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For a while now I have been using the term “Discipling Leader,” and I firmly believe it describes an idea that could change the church world. The simplest statement of the concept is this:  Christian…
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We now have good research that says that church programming alone does not consistently produce mature disciples. What McNeal is clearly saying is that life coaching offers us a better alternative for discipleship.
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A church leadership expert talks about coaching and discipleship – Reggie McNeal, author of The Present Future, on why coaching should be the spiritual growth methodology of choice instead of just giving folks more head knowledge
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Will the local church accept the coach approach to leading and disciple-making? Friends have heard me rant for several years about “Why aren’t Christian coaches using their coaching skills in their own local churches…
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