When NOT to use coaching!
Coaching isn’t for everyone. There are at least three scenarios, or people groups, where coaching would not be a good fit.
#1) Ignorance or Immaturity
When someone is new to faith or unlearned in their faith walk it could be unkind to ask them questions beyond what they know or to leave them bumbling around when they simply need teaching.
People grow from discipling and teaching. They need help to know what quiet time looks like or how to study the Bible. They need to learn how kingdom ways are upside down from worldly ways. Selflessness does not come naturally to most.
Yet – even in the midst of these scenarios how a person walks out their response is best found in coaching questions.
What a healthy quiet time looks like is different from one person to the next, even how best to read the Bible has multiple quality options. Relating in right ways to others could mean patience or honest confrontation.
Teaching shares good options. Coaching helps people discern...
Saboteurs Whisper To Us All... Can you identify their voices?
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...
What Is Coach Training? Here's How to Make Engaged Disciples
When I got my master’s degree I did these coaching “labs” on the side. Turns out they were optional, but I’m so glad I didn’t know that!
Let me explain.
The coaching “labs” were actually coach training and the education I received through them changed my life!
Coaching does not come naturally to most so when I was going through my coach training I really wanted a few things, so I really got seeped in the paradigm.
- I wanted to be coached, and experience what that felt like. I wanted to see if it really worked.
- I wanted to see others being coached so I could observe it being done well.
- I wanted someone to watch me coach and tell me if I was doing it right or wrong if need be. (To be honest, I was a little nervous about that, but I also wanted the affirmation enough to do it.)
- I wanted to have plenty of time to talk through the concepts with a certified coach and know I was heading in the right direction.
The training I took left me...