A Coach Approach to Preaching, Part 1 Gene Wilkes When Let s Worship e-mailed me and asked if I would consider writing a series of articles on a coach approach to preaching, I was more intrigued than confident. I am a degreed, seminary-trained pastor/ preacher, not a certified coach. I, on the other hand, have experienced the power of coaching as I have walked alongside others who came to me for advice or direction related to my writings on servant leadership and a ministry of transition. Before the request, however, I had never thought to put these two ways of leading people together. I have been pastor of Legacy Church for over 20 years, and the public piece of my ministry with members of the church has been my weekly messages. I have built this preaching event on years of formal training and more years of personal development through emulating others, conferences, books, and honing my presentation skills. The sermon is central to a typical local church, so how would a skill like coaching fit into the weekly gathering of God s people to hear God s Word? Is coaching just another tool from the marketplace imposed on the sacred rite of preaching, or are there aspects of coaching that can make the communication of God s Word more effective? My goal is to integrate coaching skills into the practice of preaching through this series of four articles. In this first article I want to address the practices of preaching and coaching and then identify the issues such a combination of skills may bring to the preaching process. I invite you into the adventure and pray our journey will result in changed lives through a living encounter with Christ. 18 Let s worship SPRING 2008
What is preaching? As a preacher, I help people trust Jesus. Preaching, as I practice it, is as a Christ follower who presents the lifechanging message of Jesus Christ to real people in real time and who invites them to trust and live like Jesus. At its center, it is the communication of truth by man to men. 1 Preaching is the intersection of the Word of God with the lives of people orchestrated by the life and learning of the preacher. Biblical preaching nurtures spiritual formation in the life of the listener as it demands a verdict. This verdict distinguishes preaching from teaching. 2 The three foci of the preaching event are the biblical text, the preacher, and the people. The art of preaching handles all three accurately and authentically to connect people with the text so the Holy Spirit can effect life change. Typically, the process of preaching assumes the pastor addresses a need that is in the church or explains the message of a passage of Scripture for those gathered to hear him. The preacher usually states an issue and then proceeds to offer both biblical and practical solutions to the topic for the listeners. Those in the audience usually listen passively until the time of invitation when the preacher calls them to action in response to what they have heard. If this is preaching, 3 what is coaching, and can it impact the role of the preacher and listener in the preaching moment? What is Christian coaching? Coaches have begun to replace consultants in the marketplace. Businesses and individuals lean more on personal coaches who ask questions than corporate consultants who offer prefabricated solutions to every need. What is this shift in problem-solving and decision-making? Gary Collins writes, At its core, coaching is the art and practice of guiding a person or group from where they are toward the greater competence and fulfillment that they desire. 4 Tony Stotzfus describes coaching as helping people learn instead of teaching them. 5 Coaching asks appropriate questions to allow the one coached to answer out of his or her experiences, desires, and education in order to create a customized outcome. The focus has shifted from the consultant s expertise to the gifts, talents, and abilities of the coached to resolve the issues at hand. Gary Collins has identified several assumptions of coaching. Coaching: What is the focus of the preaching event? Is it the message of the biblical text or the needs of the listener? Is it teaching the timeless truth of Scripture or growing the disciple? involves dialogue rather than advice giving, discipline, or therapy. is results-oriented, focused on reaching goals assumes that people are resourceful and able to set goals and reach them. assumes that life is integrated: We can t assume that someone s work, family life, personal history, spirituality, or lifestyle can be put into neat but separate categories. 6 Coaching with a Christian worldview is also part of this shift. Jane Creswell, founder of the IBM Coaches Network, writes, Christ-centered coaching LET S WORSHIP 19
is a customized approach to conversations between two individuals who trust God to be a partner in the conversation. 7 Guiding, helping, and Christcentered conversation are key components to a coach approach to leading others. First, coaching is not counseling, consulting, or mentoring. A coach offers encouragement, challenges, believes in, and provides feedback to the person being coached (PBC); but a coach does not direct the one being coached. The coach moves forward on the assumption that the PBC has enough information, experience, and potential to direct himself or herself toward his desired goals. The coach is a neutral guide who walks alongside an individual on his or her journey of discovery. What is a coach approach to preaching? Why would you even consider such an approach to your preaching? Churchgoers seem to be happy with what you do now, so why change? Those who have grown up in the church and who have been conditioned to sit and listen for 30 to 40 minutes without moving (or thinking?) may accept an active speaker-passive listener paradigm for preaching. But what about those who were not taught to sit and listen without commercial breaks? What about those who want to interact with the preacher s points? What about those who learn visually or kinesthetically? What about children of the postmodern world to whom we are called to tell the good news? Jane Creswell muses that maybe coaching is the missing link to reach the post-christian world around us: Much of what has been written about the postmodern church references the postmodern preference for experiential learning. Perhaps Christcentered coaching is the missing link to further enable the postmodern church to reach the masses of people who need to know Christ and find relationship with him. 8 Postmodern people prefer self-discovery to authoritative answers to find their way in life. Eddie Hammett observes, Coaching offers an opportunity to build relationships not around telling others what the coach believes but asking questions around the client s personal, spiritual, relational, or leadership agenda. 9 The client, not the coach, is the centerpiece of the coaching experience. Can you be both a preacher and a coach? How do preaching and coaching skills complement each other? Is there really such a thing as a coach approach to preaching? Hammett, a senior coach to both businesses and churches, believes there is. He offers these observations. A coach approach to preaching: Creates atmosphere for dialogue. Invites self-discovery and personal reflection. Provides climate for personal goal-setting, life change, and accountability. Generates ideas, challenge, and forward movement in faith formation. Shifts leadership and responsibility for life change from the pulpit to the person in the pew. Creates nonjudgmental atmosphere and relationship. Provides the climate for the Holy Spirit to break through as a convicting, life-transforming force. Creates space and relationship for prayer, openness to God and life change. Calls forth the best in people rather than focusing on the worst in people. Creates an environment of trust of the Spirit s work in the life of each person. Creates forum for the practice of the priesthood of all believers. Uses the asking posture rather than the telling posture because it is more in line with the teachings of Jesus and the needs of the postmodern generation. 10 A coach approach to preaching invites the preacher to ask rather than tell and listeners to participate rather than force them to absorb facts or daydream during a speech prepared by a preacher. A coach 20 Let s worship SPRING 2008
approach to preaching engages the participant at the level of his or her own issues and resources with the clear message of the biblical passage. Rather than the preacher making one-size-fits-all applications, he invites the listeners to customize what they have heard to their particular needs or goals. Such an approach to preaching raises questions: What is the focus of the preaching event? Is it the message of the biblical text or the needs of the listener? Is it teaching the timeless truth of Scripture or growing the disciple? The preacher has wrestled with these questions as long as anyone has stepped up among a group of people and spoken for God. Effective biblical preaching intersects the timeless truths of Scripture with the mundane events of real life. In a coach approach to preaching, the same intersection would occur, but how the message and listener get there would be unique to most sermons preached on Sunday mornings. Changes would come to both the preacher and the listener. These changes are the focus of the remainder of this article and the three to follow. How the pastor/ coach handles the central biblical passage would also change as he would possibly move more toward what Calvin Miller calls narrative preaching 11 rather than an explanation of the passage alone. Coaching asks appropriate questions in order to allow the one coached to answer out of his or her experiences, desires, and education in order to create a customized outcome. What would you change if you chose this approach? Jane Creswell has worked with pastors who take a coach approach to preaching. In a phone interview in preparation for this article, she said the toughest part for a pastor and the congregation when he chooses to switch from giving answers to asking questions about the Word of God is to set clear expectations of both the pastor/coach and the congregation/participants. 12 How do typical churchgoers react when the pastor no longer plays the part of expert but makes room for his listeners to answer well-crafted questions? What can the congregation expect when the preacher turns coach and seems to be more interested in what they will do by when in response to his questions rather than if they liked or did not like the speech he made or the insight he shared? A coach approach to preaching would create a need for change in the preacher, the message, the listener, and his or her response to the questions asked related to the biblical passage. Here are some initial observations of those things you may address if you choose to experiment with a coach approach to preaching. The Messenger If you chose a coach approach to preaching, how would your assumptions about the role of the preacher change? The role of the speaker would move from being the authority in the room to a partner on the journey. You may see yourself less as the one with all the answers to the one who asks effective questions of those who have covenanted together with you to follow Jesus. Your Message How would the content and spirit of your message change? The message may become more dialogical around the text rather than informative about your interpretation of the text. The message may contain fewer, if any, answers or applications and more questions. The message may move away from defining an issue or topic, for which you pull verses from the Bible to address and offer a solution in a 20- to 45-minute speech. The biblical text would remain the focus of the message, but the goal would be an accurate interpretation so that the original message is clear enough for the participant to converse with both the text and the presenter rather than to impart more knowledge about past events and words. The Participants How would those who enter into a coach approach to preaching experience change? No longer could people sit and soak as listeners. In a coach approach those who hear the message (in real time or by podcast) would be required to participate in the preaching event, or they would find no use for the hour. It is easier to evaluate a speech over lunch than join in a conversation with the Word of God. Expectations of both the presenter and listener must clearly be set to create an atmosphere in which those coached will feel the effects of coaching. Their Response A coach approach to preaching will affect the invitation in the worship experience. Preachers often gauge their effectiveness by the number of people visibly responding at the end of their message. In a coach approach, the effectiveness LET S WORSHIP 21
of the coaching conversation would be evaluated by the number of those who tangibly answer the question, What will you do by when in response to what God has said to you in His Word? Pastors/ coaches would delight in the actions they committed to do in response to the preaching conversation rather than puff up when told that was the best sermon I have ever heard or get depressed when he received an e-mail explaining his doctrinal errors or insensitivity toward a group of people or an individual. The response resides in the one coached, not in the one presenting the sermon. It is easier to evaluate a speech over lunch than to join in a conversation with the Word of God. What are some of your first responses to this concept of a coach approach to preaching? How is this approach different from what you are doing now? What are some obstacles you would want to address if you chose to try this approach? Whom could you call to help you accomplish your hopes? This is the first of four articles about this concept of preaching. Here are the topics of the next three: Part 2, The Preacher as Coach In our next installment we will address the changes that may occur if you choose to experiment with this model of preaching. We will hear from preachers who have incorporated a coach approach to their preaching so that we can learn from them. Part 3, The Message Is a Question? Coaching as we have described it finds its power to transform people through question-driven conversation. Typically, biblical preaching is a presentation of precepts, principles, or stories that offer insight into both the Bible and contemporary life with a view to application for living. The text remains important to the message, but it is less dependent on your interpretation of it than the clear message it gives to the listener in a coach approach to preaching. Part 4, Listeners Become Participants Pastor, you did a good job today. You obviously put a lot of time into that message. You may hear this response too often. What would happen if you heard, Pastor, Tuesday afternoon I am taking my wife to the lake for a picnic and then to an early movie. When you asked me what I was going to do in response to what Paul said about loving our wives as Christ loved the church, that s what God said to do. So I m doing it. What would happen if those you coached through preaching became participants in the preaching experience rather than passive listeners? I would like to hear from you as we carve out this concept of a coach approach to preaching. We can talk with one another on a new blog, coachpastors.blogspot. com or e-mail me at gwilkes@legacychurch.org. 1. Philips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching (London: H. R. Allenson, 1877), 5. 2. Robertson McQuilkin, Spiritual Formation Through Preaching, in The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching, edited by Haddin Robinson and Craig Brian Larson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 52. 3. Some of you may argue that this is not an adequate description of preaching, and to you I would agree that this is not all there is to preaching. But allow this to suffice as a beginning description for the purposes of conversing about a coach approach to preaching. 4. Gary Collins, Christian Coaching (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2001), 16. 5. Tony Stotzfus, Leadership Coaching (Charleston, SC: Booksurge, 2005), 8. 6. Collins, Christian Coaching, 62. 7. Jane Creswell, Christ-Centered Coaching (St. Louis: Lake Hickory Resources, 2006), 7. 8. Ibid., 87. 9. Eddie Hammett, Spiritual Leadership (St. Louis: Lake Hickory Resources, 2005), 138. 10. Prepared by Eddie Hammett, Senior Coach Valwood Coaching, www.thecolumbiapartnership.com and www.transformingsolutions.org. 11. Calvin Miller, Narrative Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006), 22. We will address the form and content of the message in Part 3 of this series. 12. April 24, 2007. 22 Let s worship SPRING 2008