Section outline

  • Life Coach Ministry Life Coaching Ministry (3 credits)

    Instructor: Abby Dominiak

    Content Provider: Rev. Steve Elzinga

    CLA Volunteer Teacher Assistant: Della Cash (lifecoachingsupport@christianleaders.net)

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    Overview: This course teaches you how to do life coaching ministry. After graduating from Calvin Seminary, Rev Steve Elzinga pastored in a church in Michigan and then planted a church that grew to over 500 people in British Columbia in 1988. Elzinga pursued life coaching in the movement's early days before various Life Coaching certifications became popular around the year 2000 and beyond. 

    Master Life Coach, Founder of Amway Rich DeVos, mentored Rev. Elzinga in being a life coach, and this class also reflects that training. 

    Christian Leaders College is privileged to offer not only this Life Coaching Ministry class but also a minister ordination program, life coaching certification, and many specializations. This program is different from the traditional "life coaching certification" programs which certify you in the general principles and practices of life coaching. The traditional approach certifies you as a "life coach" who may or not be a minister. This approach certifies "ministers" to be life coach ministers.

    Advantages of this approach:

    1. Your parishioner or client expects your ministry perspective to be grounded in Biblical expectations. Typical life coaching techniques do not clearly define the role of someone's walk with God in the life coach/client/congregant relationship. In this approach, these issues are laid out in front. 
    2. You will still utilize the techniques and advances in the life coaching field and learn how these life coaching techniques and practices will assist you in ministry. 
    3. Because this class comes at this from a ministry perspective, you will be able to pursue many Life Coach Minister ordination roles.


    Course Outcomes:

    1. Learn the principles of the exciting field of life coaching.
    2. Learn how ministry connects to life coaching.
    3. Learn life coaching skills and how they differ from pastoral care or counseling. 
    4. Develop skills in life coaching that will allow you to minister more effectively in a local church or local life coaching ministry. 
    5. If interested, get certified by the Christian Leaders Alliance and ordained as a Life Coach minister. (Fees do apply for certification and ordination). 


    Resources: This course includes written materials and lectures selected and presented by professor Steve Elzinga and others.  


    Assignments: View all online lectures and read all the articles on each topic. CLI computer tracks whether you do this. After viewing all lectures and readings for the unit, take the quiz based on the materials (100% of grade). Each quiz is to be created with 20 questions.  Our usual formula is 1/3 true and false, 2/3 multiple choice.


    Accessibility: All the videos' slides are available in this course.


    Grading Scale:

    A 95-100%   A- 90-94%   B+ 87-89%   B 83-86%   B- 80-82%   C+ 77-79%   C 73-76%   C- 70-72%    D+ 67-69%   D 63-66%   D- 60-62%   F 0-59%

    Your average for the course must be at least 60%. Otherwise, you will fail the class and will receive no credit.


    Course Forum: Each course forum is at the beginning of the course, right before the first-course content section, and has comments and questions from other students in the class. The forum is a great way to post a question or comment for other students who are currently enrolled in the course to see. Additionally, you can search the forum to see if anyone in the past has addressed or discussed the issue, question, or comment you wanted to post about.


    Deadline: You have 180 days to finish the course. Complete all assignments before the final deadline, or you will be automatically unenrolled, and all coursework will be removed. You will have to start over and take the class again to receive credit.