Seriously, have you ever actually considered coach training?

It's one thing to hear about the discipleship and growth concepts in coaching, but another to experience and know them.

OUR SUMMER COHORT IS FORMING NOW!

Maybe summer is your best time to lean in? Maybe it's time to invest in yourself and your kingdom impact?

Learn more here. Click the "Save your seat" button to connect with this summer's cohort facilitator Sarah!

(Registration closes May 31 - cohort starts June 5th)

How many workshops or conferences have you gone to?

What do you remember as life-changing? 

I've been to quite a few and honestly what I remember is building relationships with the team I went with, or chewing on an idea one of us got from a teaching.

Here are SIX reasons Bridges Coach training could be your best next for growth!

#1 Understanding Coaching Culture is usually life-changing! (When was the last time you said that about a conference or workshop?) 

Coaching, in essence, is the Biblical framework for discipleship. Once I started studying it, I saw it everywhere. My Bible is chock full of green highlighter, the color I chose just for coaching principles.

Jesus said, "His yoke was easy and His burden was light." When coaching principles are used conversationally, I can help people choose God's way for them without feeling the weight of their choice, or the cost of pushing out the timing of their resolution.

My interactions with others, at work and at home, are...

What is Coaching? 

I get asked that a lot.

Maybe you've asked that as well, or you get asked that. 

In the Coaching Culture certification course, we actually have a project where trainees have to give an elevator speech with their version of the answer. (An elevator speech is having an answer you can share with someone in the time it takes for an elevator ride.)

The ICC, International Coaching Community, website puts it succinctly like this: 

Coaching has been defined in many ways. The essence of coaching is:

• To help a person change in the way they wish and help them go in the direction they want to go.
• Coaching supports a person at every level in becoming who they want to be.
• Coaching builds awareness empowers choice and leads to change.

There are plenty of other leadership or caregiving models that are not coaching - like teaching, mentoring, consulting, and counseling. And they each have their place in a person's life.

Christian coaching uses a Biblical model of...

SMART goals

Everything starts with an idea, but some of the best ideas never grow to become real. Having ideas is a great and important first step. Making quality goals changes outcomes and ultimately transforms lives.

It has been said that if you aren’t sure where you are going you will surely get there (nowhere) or if you fail to aim you aim to fail!

In order to have a step-by-step plan or leading from God you need to have steps. You can always change them as He leads, but having them keeps in in motion. It is always easier to turn a moving ship, car, bike, skateboard... whatever.

To quote American philanthropist Elbert Hubbard, 

"Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage, but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal."

Dreams are unrefined hope and cost-free aspirations that we might do someday. Converting a dream to a goal is a decision to take tangible steps to pursue it. Goals are specific future...

What's your this?

Each new year is a gift! 

But unlike a gift you receive from someone else, each new year is a gift God gives us and what's inside of it pretty much depends on us! 

What will this year hold for you? 

• Will you finally start that ____________?
• Or finish that ______________?
• Ready to put ___________ behind you?

Traction can walk you through each step you need to take!

Or a good coach can help you define and achieve your goals!

The biggest question is: What is going to make this year different than last year? 

Hundreds of people have used the Coaching Culture practices to move forward themselves as well as learning how to best ask empowering questions, help people make SMART goals and walk them down the Bridges Coaching ROAD to nexts they would not have accomplished! 

Or maybe you aren't even sure what your "this" is? Our Destiny by Design course helps decode the cipher! Your unique...

[Book Review]

In his book The Coaching Habit,  Michael Bungay Stanier promotes a path to "Say Less, Ask More and Change the way you lead forever" in 10 minutes with 7 questions!

Pretty bold offer! Let's dig in, but first a couple of important definitions.

Coaching = getting from one place to another.

• solving problems
• reaching goals
• resolving interpersonal issues

A Coaching conversation, therefore, finds a way to get from here to there.

True coaching is not:

• Consulting – giving you my expert advice
• Mentoring – showing you what works for me
• Counseling – diagnosing what is wrong and prescribing what is right

Instead, coaching draws from the other person what is within them. It asks questions and creates confident forward-moving problem-solvers rather than dependent, stuck, blame shifters.

Sound good?

No more: “Just tell me what to do?” or “If only… then…” rather it is a partnering, releasing, cheering-on way of...

When thinking about a decision it can be helpful to weigh the pros and cons. Personally, I like to write them out and then take them to an "altar" in prayer and talk to God.

I say something like, "Here we go God, this is what I can see, but you know it all. Help me choose wisely and guide me with Your Spirit!"

Sometimes, I think He gives me the choice myself and encourages me to just decide, and sometimes I feel a certain sense of what I should do. Occasionally, He drops something in my mind or heart that is new information that helps guide me toward the wise choice.

Then, I ask myself this question: What's holding you back?

If the honest answer is fear of any kind: fear of the unknown, fear of how I will perform, or fear of first (I've never done anything like this before), then I calm my soul and ask God for the courage to say "yes". 

I can not let fear guide my life choices.

As promised, there are two ways you can use this empowering question. 

1) You can use this...

As I sat down to write this blog many times, I ended up getting interrupted by one of my 4 girls, my phone reminding me of the demands of life… or the laundry buzzer cutting through any ounce of concentration. 

Here I am though at 12:08 am determined to blog away. It’s finally quiet and time to introduce myself.

I could tell you about my really awesome husband, our girls that keep life exciting, the different jobs I work from home or the other important things (well, I sure think they are important) that I do. 

But, really, if there is one thing I want people to hear about, it’s how God poured His love into my heart at a young age, won my affection for life and silenced all wondering in my seeking teenage girl’s heart. He laid a solid foundation of acceptance that has stood strong through many storms.

Because I have experienced such security, I can’t help but want to see others enjoy that freedom as well. What a privilege it is to be loved...

"I tell you the truth, whoever believes in me will do the same things that I do. Those who believe will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." John 14:12

I always assumed that the "greater things" in this verse were physical miracles, and maybe they are, but what if....

What if the transformation of hearts and minds is the bigger, better, goal Jesus was talking about?

Is this why He was always telling people not to talk about the miracles they had experienced? Perhaps He valued the kingdom principles he was revealing to the world even more than the physical relief.

Really isn't that the longer play?

All of the people Jesus healed on earth are now gone, but the lives transformed live on forever! 

In Matthew 7:22-23, Jesus says, "On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’  But I will reply,...

Saboteurs whisper to us all, they sound like friends, they seem wise, but they infiltrate our minds like a poison that tastes sweet.

Discipleship saboteurs say things like,

• if you don't tell them what to do, they will mess things up, it's just the responsible thing to do
• it will take too long for them to move forward with coaching, they would be better off if you just tell them what to do
• it's wrong for you to withhold your story if you went through whatever they are going through, they should learn from your mistakes and do it just like you

The best poison is only a small percent deadly, but if you take it in you will eventually die...

Using coaching as the Biblical way of discipleship helps people build their own relationship with God. 

Coaching builds disciples not dependents.

Coach training can teach you how!

Saboteurs whisper their hopelessness on the other side of coaching as well. Coaches have helped me discern many of the following as limiting...