Courageous Conversations

Courageous Conversations Coaching

Why Coaching?

Counselor evokes images of compassion, neutrality, objectivity, and emotional distance. Consultant speaks of a wise unattached person. Coach signals challenge, commitment, passion, and an effort of intense partnership.

My competitive experience as an Olympic level and international athlete under some of the finest coaches in the world provides me a unique experiential understanding of coaching and of being coached. I know the power of the person in the background, the person in our peripheral vision in whose shadow we serve. I trained for several years to be a coach but changed directions when I became a Christian. Coaching is a major paradigm for my approach to teaching and ministry. As a coach, I genuinely care about the persons I serve. And, I have traveled (and am willing to continue traveling) every path I encourage them to pursue. I coach churches and servant leaders, and I make commitments to the people I serve.

Compassionate care and convicting challenge are not usually offered by the same person. Yet, a mixture is needed to help a church or leader into deep effectiveness. Emotional investment and non-interference are often difficult to find in the same person. A coach, however, trains someone else for the very moment when it is time for the coach to step aside. Coaching has the potential for "care-full" challenges and emotionally invested non-interference components desperately needed in today's churches.

Coaching Applications

Online Mentorships

I enter mentoring relationships with Christians that are designed to push the edge or your growth specifically in your real life context. We have an initial interview about a mentorship agreement which (if we agree to the mentorship) becomes part of the mentorship itself. You can email a request for information about the mentorships by clicking here.

Gap Negotiations

What if you could tell people what they needed to hear in a way that was truly an extension of constructive grace? What if speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) really could work? Gap Negotiations is an approach to helping people receive truths they need to hear but tend to resist. I coach leaders as individuals or as groups toward a more accurate alignment between leader and follower experiences. We work together to close the gap between the leaders' self-perceptions and the church's experience of the leadership.

I use a 360-degree instrument called The Leadership Circle Profile, the Reflected Best Self exercise, and/or coaching sessions to create cutting edge conversations that produce greater effectiveness. I provide a relational context of support, counsel, and comfort in order to meet the challenge of engaging the most profitable questions blocking a leaders' improvement.

Fighting for Peaceful Fighting

Fighting for Peaceful Fighting is the short title for my doctoral project thesis. My thesis was started at a church where I was fired as the minister, re-hired, and stayed 2 years after completing the thesis. We left on our own and were heart broken to leave people we loved. Therefore, my understanding of managing church conflict is both academic and experiential. I have lived, worked, and helped others through several scenarios where little to no hope existed. A common heartache is to believe we are the only ones going through "anything as difficult as this!" My multiple experiences of new life from lost hope give me the healed scars to enter the troubles of conflict with empathy, accuracy, unyielding hope, and realistic optimism.

Possibilities for service in this area include workshops/seminars, conflict intervention/mediation, or providing referrals. My objective is to convert destructive conflict energy into raw energy that can be used positively for deepened hope and growth. In some cases, I would use the CDP (Conflict Dynamics Profile) from the Leadership Development Institute at Eckerd College.

Termination Negotiations

Are you in danger of being fired? Have you already been fired? Are you thinking of firing your minister? Call me before you make your next move that could makes things even worse. I provide this service as an outside negotiator who cares, understands, and is not taken in by reactive people behaving at their worst. I can save a church money, time, members, and deep emotional pain by assisting in an exit negotiation that is fair and graceful to as many people as possible. I provide coaching support, care, and challenge for the minister through the transition. I continue the support with entry coaching for the minister when he moves to a new ministry context. We seek to provide opportunities for a genuinely new beginning for the minister, the church he exited, the church he is entering, and the new minister entering the church he is exiting.

Interim Ministry

One of the most strategic times in a church's life is often one of the most squandered opportunities. The transition of a church between ministers is both fragile and filled with opportunities. I argue, along with other consultants, that the interim minister should never be considered for the pulpit position. I would add that if the interim minister is not desired as the pulpit minister he is probably not doing adequate interim work. However, a temporary minister who understands underlying transition, grief, decision-making processes, and other congregational dynamics is in a position to bless the exiting minister, the church, and the incoming minister in ways that capitalize upon the opportunities of the transition. My training with the Center for Congregational Health mixed with my own experience of church ministry prepares me to offer this service to churches and exiting/entering ministers for healthy new beginnings.

Churches of Christ often have an approach to hiring ministers that relies heavily upon advertising and/or pre-existing networks. The advertising method tends to produce results that are similar to what would happen if we married based upon how a date dressed for the first couple of dates! The pre-existing networks are sometimes very helpful but they can also ensure that a church will make in-breeding hires that lock in complicated conflicts because of competing interests. Additional benefits of a good interim minister include helping you to utilize advertising while diminishing its dangers, utilize pre-existing networks without being held hostage by them, and expand the pool of ministerial candidates by virtue of people the interim knows are not yet on the market but are planning to transition to a different ministry.

Congregational Diagnostics

An occasional systematic check-up for a church is as valuable to the church as an occasional visit to the doctor for an individual. Yet, we sometimes resist the church check-up even more than the individual doctor visit. We can save a lot of pain by going through an occasional assessment, and we can capitalize upon what might otherwise be lost opportunities. The Handbook for Congregational Studies by Carroll, Dudley, and McKinney lists a number of values for systematic congregational assessment.

First, we can provide a sense of balance and proportion. The church is not understood by hearing the loudest critics or the loudest cheerleaders. If the church is going to be accurately understood, someone must hear through the noise. An external ear is more likely to be positioned to do this than someone who will be directly impacted by what they hear. Additionally, I have noticed that churches tend to think they are the only ones with particular problems. It can be empowering to realize that not only have others faced challenges that stump a particular group but that resources exist for overcoming them. Second, seemingly unrelated and random combinations of issues and situations can often be identified as different expressions of a common element. Third, possible ways the church unintentionally limits itself may be identified. For example, a family-centered church that values unity might make decisions in a way that threatens unity. In other words, the congregation could be creating the very problem they are working so hard to "fix." A systematic assessment of identity and process issues can reveal this sort of problem. Finally, people in a church can hear a message from the church as a whole in a way that allows them to save face. And, as more people are involved in the process of assessment, the stage is set for bringing about needed changes suggested by the study.

I see my role in diagnostics as one of providing awareness. I help churches understand how the identity to which they cling is preventing them from taking hold of the identity they seek. This task is similar to taking a book with no punctuation, chapters, paragraphs, or any other organization of the letters on the page and reading it in a way that is comprehensible. I read churches and my job is to help you hear your story in a way that you say, "exactly!"

Leadership Development, Strategy, & Problem Solving

Co-thinking as you walk though various scenarios, strategies, and possibilities can help you to clarify your own thinking, anticipate obstacles to overcome in whatever course you pursue, and extend your own thinking by supplemental resources from someone who spends his life serving churches.

Cost

My typical fee is $1,250 per trip or $600 per day away from home plus expenses (whichever is higher). Mentoring services are $50 per weekly visit if we have a 12 week or longer covenant. Telephone coaching and conference calls are available for $80 per hour. Prices should be considered negotiable depending upon the capacities of the church or leader(s) and the expectations placed upon me. Prices may be higher or lower than what are mentioned here. I am willing to cover expenses for motivated people without the resources to pay. Motivation, more so than money, is the determining factor in anyone receiving my services.

Click here to make a coaching payment.

Scheduling

Peter Drucker described the five most effective leaders he had known in his lifetime. He said they knew the need to say no so that their yes would be a commitment. I am highly motivated to be helpful. Yet, motivated people expect and deserve commitment. Therefore, I deliberately avoid working with people who are not serious about growth in order to invest more deeply into people who are serious about growth. I'm always seeking new people and ways to expand God's Kingdom in mutual partnerships. If this sounds good to you, then you are the kind of person for whom I want my yes to be a commitment.

If I cannot be helpful to you I am more than happy to refer you to other extremely qualified individuals depending upon your need and desire. If you want to schedule a visit, you can click here to send a message or call (501) 279-4614. Send correspondence to Randy Willingham, Harding University, Bible Department, HU Box 12280, Searcy, AR 72149-0001.

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