Henry - We want to welcome you back to this ministry coaching foundations class, and today we're going to talk about the ministry coaching model, that triangle of truth, grace and action. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay, so let's get right to it. Objectives. Understand the biblical triangle of transformation. Explore the three coaching pillars, truth, grace and action and three. Learn to balance all three in the Spirit led conversations. So this is going to be I remember years ago, maybe we've talked somewhere at CLI about this metaphor that we would talk about. I remember you took me on a boat, all right, actually, a sailboat in British Columbia. And I remember the first time hearing about like so much transformation is it's almost like in sailing, explain that whole sailing go back and forth. Yeah, I'll work again. 

Steve - Well, in life, lot of times the direction you want to go is, let's say up river, or, you know, up the sound this way. Want to make some changes, but, but the wind is coming straight at you, so you can't go straight into the wind, but you can veer off to the side because of the keel. There's a keel, okay? That allows you to sort of slide off to the side. And you make progress in this direction, but if you keep going, you'll hit the rocks, right? So you have to tack. They call they go on tack, they call it. And now all of a sudden you go in the other way. And if you keep going, you're going to hit the shore or hit the rocks as well. But so you keep tacking back and forth on the side angle, and you can actually make progress against the wind and get 

Henry - so the metaphor goes like this, we all understand there are problems. Yes, and people have problems. They want to come to the Minister, the Minister coach. They want some help. They feel like they're going against the wind. So a model or a methodology that sort of helps them tack between those issues becomes very, very 

Steve - important. For example, some people may have, they have no discipline in their life, right? So, so their life, life is total chaos. So all of a sudden now you're helping them get some discipline. But if you keep becoming so disciplined and everyone around you, you're forcing everyone to follow all your laws, and you're going to hit the shore. And so all of a sudden someone goes, Yeah, well, aren't we, isn't it grace? Yeah. Aren't we supposed to love each other even though we don't follow all the rules? Yeah, you're right. And so now you tack on that side, but if you keep going to grace, then you're going to end up with the chaos again. And so it seems like people kind of tack back and forth. 

Henry - And the apostle Paul in Romans, do we sin that grace may about he's saying, Don't tack so far there that you hit the rocks, right? But in the other hand, he would have said, is by grace alone, like through faith. And this is not of our self, but a gift of God, right? So let's dive right in. So first of all, 

Steve, why a model? Yeah, model. So, I swear. Okay, put that back on, you know, models? Yeah. 

Steve - Well, I guess we really should answer, what is even a model? Yeah. What is a model? Why am I? Well, you know, when you're when I was a kid, we used to make, you know, model we had model cars, right? We would assemble them. And it's not the real thing, but it lets you see what things or how things work. And when you look at, we have a globe here, it's sort of a model. It's not the real thing, but it gives us a sense of it. So now we can relate to the real thing. And so when we come up with models, we're sort of giving you a picture of something. It's not complete, it's not perfect. It's like a metaphor, right? But we can grasp something that's some that's we make it more simple so we can grasp it. 

Henry - So without a framework or a model, coaching can become, and this is where we're that sailboat image. It can become too soft, right? Grace only, or in maybe you can say it's too client centered, where anything could go, or it's too harsh, and all of a sudden now you're becoming the Answer Man, or you're actually misrepresenting the truth. Notice, there's various layers of this tacking, continuing to go on, or too chaotic, action without purpose, right? The sailboat just goes anywhere at once, and finally, it goes with the wind and crashes, 

Steve - right? So that's the problem a little bit with the secular coaching. It can be kind of chaotic, because I'm just helping you do what you want, but maybe you're kind of ADD of what you want, right? You're like, one day you want this, and the next day you want that, and the next day you want something else, and you never finish anything. And as a coach, I'm just helping you do that, right, right? So at least with with the more ministry coaching, there's a keel, right? The reason a sailboat can go against the wind, you know, going to the side, going to the side, tacking is because there's a keel underneath that. You don't see, something that holds it, holds it from having the wind blow you back. If you took the keel away, you wouldn't be able to slide forward with the wind. The wind would just blow your back heel. 

Henry - You're not, you're not going perfectly forward. You're going in the forward direction, 

Steve - yes, but without the keel, if you got rid of the keel, it would just blow you backwards. Yeah, wow. So amazing. 

Henry - The biblical foundation, Jesus Himself, John 1:17, we hear that he came within grace and 

Steve - truth, right? And I, you know, we keep hearing these two things, there's grace and there's truth, and somehow we need to, we need a model that incorporates both of those, right? And it we live right now in a modern era where people are trying to say, especially us Christians, you Christians, should just be love and grace, right? And then when we speak with truth, they think, Well, how come you're not being loving, right? But, but Christianity is always the biblical. Christianity has always had those two things, those tacking between those two things. And sometimes we give our kids the truth, but sometimes we, you know, let them off. We say, you know, I'm not going to punish you this time. I think you've suffered enough. So we kind of tack back and forth. If we hold on to both, if you love your 

Henry - children, you understand it's a tack. Yes, in Are we really that surprised that God sees us that way? Yeah, that he wants us to love truth, but he also allows us to live in His grace, correct? So, I mean, there is pretty incredible, 

Steve - yeah, truth would condemn us too much, right? We'd have no way out of that. Grace gives us another chance at trying stuff and learning and growing. 

Henry - So let's talk then about the corners. Corner one truths. Corner one truth, what is real and revealed, biblical truth, self awareness. God puts truth on our heart, consciences on this reflection. We have thinking minds. So we have all of that going on. So now the ministry coach helps client face reality with clarity. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. 

Steve - So you know, Coach isn't just there to make people feel good, right? I'm depressed. Okay, so now my goal is to make you feel good. Our goal is, you know, I do want you to feel good. I do want you to experience some grace, but we need to figure out what's going on in your life, why? Where's this misery coming from? And it might be your fault. It might be somebody else's fault. It might be nobody's fault, but we need to explore the reality of your situation in order to prove it. When people face their stuff, generally, you can help them overcome some of these things 

Henry - well. And you know, in there are great tools that we teach at Christian leaders Institute, like Genograms. Really, that's what Genograms do. It's not accusing anybody, but you're getting the truth of your situation. 

Steve - What's a genogram? 

Henry - Well, a genogram is where you okay? You get a whiteboard out, and you write down who is your Father, who is your mother, okay? Then there's various questions, did you have a happy childhood? Yes or no. Did you move a lot? Where were you in the birther? First Born, last born, middle child, so you lay all this out, and this could be something that I know that here at CLI, those are the type of tools we will develop in the future for coaches and stuff to just help see that corner of truth, 

Steve - right? So people get a bigger picture of their own situation and how they got there, and what's involved. 

Henry - So the first corner is truth, right. Corner two, 

Steve - what is the tone of God's heart, 

Henry - Grace? Corner to his grace. What is the tone of God's heart? Come? Compassion, forgiveness, affirmation, safety comes or creates safety and spiritual warmth, neither do I commend you. Jesus said to to the woman caught in adultery, right? 

Steve - So he gave her first though he gave her some truth, yes, right? But then he moved on to grace. Yeah, that's that story is a good example of both of those things. Actually, he gave her grace first by right, by 

Henry - defending her. So the the ship is going to the grace, yeah, yes. And then 

Steve - coming back to the truth, yes. And I think a lot of times that is often the order that I can't handle the truth until I feel like I'm in a safe place that I love. Am I loved in spite of the truth that you want me to face, or are you going to judge me and condemn me, and then you want me to face something that you're going to condemn me with, 

Henry - right, correct. That's so so powerful. Corner three, action, what is the spirit led? Next step? So now comes questions like obedience, repentance, restoration. Move from insights to transformation. Be doers of the word, and not only hearers. James 1:22 right? 

Steve - So you know, we find we get some grace, we now have the courage to face the truth. What do you want to do about it? Right? What? What? Your father never encouraged you, and so you have poor self esteem, and you're not encouraging your own children and Okay, so we've looked at that, we've talked about it, and how do we feel about it, and the hurtful things that happened, the hurtful things that you've done. Okay, now, what do we want to do about this? Right? Right, Right Action. Because, you know, just on this in the counseling world, often we just wallow in the why. Why am I this way? Right? What happened? Was it my father? Was it my father's grandfather? Was my father's great, great grandfather? Was it my first teacher? And you explore, explore, explore, explore, explore, and you never get done exploring. It's if that's the whole goal is just to understand all the contributing factors that have made you the broken person that you are. You know, we'll never get to the end of that the you know, your whole life, your it does go back generation upon generation. The Bible even says that, right? But you don't have to understand all of that to be able to go, Okay, can we do something about this? Now, right? What do you want to do? 

Henry - I'll give you an example. I remember in a ministry relationship where a husband and wife both had triggers, you know, the husband had a very angry father, and the wife had, you know, parents who were really distant, but an abusive uncle that actually sexually abused her at times. So you had this crashing. And I remember, like when we were doing this kind of coaching with them. The reality is, is some of their issues and they were also seeing counseling were very hard to resolve, but when they started a coaching plan with me, a minister, I always brought it back to well, so where are you less triggered? Well, if we both get a good night of sleep, okay? So one action plan, you're gonna, maybe your whole life gonna be dealing with some of this stuff, right, right? But you notice that if you both, you know, get a good night's sleep, then you can even function in some of your true areas, right? But if you don't get a good night of sleep, you get wrecked, right? So here's an example of now, we can keep looking at the truth, right? We can also go down the forgiveness trail in the grace and even see from yourself. Hey, look, you got to be alive. You got to be born by that family. Okay, give them grace. You were grace to even be here. But in the end, an action plan, yeah, is very important. Like, stay away from booze. Booze always complicates things, too. And then, and then, then start. You know, we've talked about the connections, getting them involved in reading the Bible, going to bed early, and how about reading the Bible for a few minutes? What about praying for a few 

Steve - minutes? What about hanging with some other Christians that can support you in that right now you have an action plan, yeah? And all of a sudden, some of those things that triggered you, that dragged you down, some of them just disappeared, you know, they didn't. Yeah, there's another big deal to me. 

Henry - Yeah, occasionally you're exhausted, you're burned out, you know what? All of a sudden you feel this trigger, but not that you have a plan by which you're addressing, and this is not minimizing the truth of what you've gone through, right? We're not saying, Oh, but we're agreeing with you that your life is not over because you were treated poorly, 

Steve - right? Right? A triangle balance. So we have, we talked about three things, I guess that those three things, yeah, they do that triangle, yeah. And now, how do they relate to one another? 

Henry - I guess, well, you know, the ends, truth clarifies, yep. Grace comforts, action that commits, you know, in other words, you're all in on a direction, yeah? Imbalance leads to distortion. Truth without grace equals harshness, judgment. Yeah? Loathing self loathing bitterness. You know, it's a lot of stuff, but grace without truth, yeah, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I'm forgiven. Who cares whatever? Yeah, I don't have to address this. No, I live for you know? Why? Why study this, but action without either confusion? Yes, you're double minded. It's a powerful triangle here, yeah. And, you know, and I know that in these classes later on, you really get more into this in depth. But even in this class, you can start seeing how this model becomes very, very well. 

Steve - You even see it like in the Bible with Elijah. You know Elijah? He goes to Mount Carmel does this big, you know, contest. God shows up in a way that we all wish God would show up in our lives. We're very public and and Everyone now knows that you are God. And the next day, the king wants to kill Elijah. Yeah, so he's depressed, and he runs away, and he doesn't eat, and he's tired, and he's depressed. You know, no one's following you God, I'm the only prophet left. And then he goes to the mountain of God. And, you know, finally, God shows up, but not in fire, not in Thunder, but he shows up in a small voice, and it says to the way you get to the end of that chapter, where it's talking about all this, what does God actually say to Elijah? He doesn't say the angel comfort him gave him grace, yep, told him the truth, you know. But, but at the end, when God finally speaks to Elijah, he says, okay, Elijah, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go back. You got to anoint this guy. You got to, you know, Action Plan. Yeah, you need to do this and do this. And then he said, Oh, and by the way, just to clarify a little truth for you, you're not the only one. There's 7000 prophets that still honor me and call me by my name, and you're not the only one, you know, but all three of those things aren't in that that story, wow. 

Henry - So let's talk about some application even going further. So here's some practical coaching application. I know you're an application guy, yeah, so I know you want this kind of slide, yeah? Ask, right, what is the truth in this situation? 

Steve - So you know, instead of telling them the truth, you're asking them to tell you, what do you think the truth? Yeah, how can, how can I extend grace? 

Henry - So again, it's the application. Is asking this question, yes. Like, where are we on the water of tacking here? 

Steve - Yes, right. Do you feel like you're kind of wallowing in the grace end of the pool? Or you need grace, or you need some truth, or are you what are you beaten beaten down with the truth? 

Henry - Or what action step is the spirit prompting? 

Steve - Yeah? So again, these things are things you ask them, right? Rather that I'm going to tell you the truth, yeah, 

Henry - it's not. I think I see truth here, yeah, I think I see Grace over here, yeah. And here's my action steps for you, right? No, no, these are for your client, for your parishioner, for your friend, for your family, as you're a Volunteer Minister Coach, yep, coach the whole soul, truth, grace and action. So just to kind of it's coaching like Jesus modeled all three. Spoke with clarity, loved unconditionally, called people to follow him. Follow me. This model keeps your coaching grounded and godly. You know, over the years, you've done a lot of coaching, and what's a concluding case study that you think back through your. Years and, and a lot of it, we want to be as even this class continues, continuing to be, you know, giving the application.

Steve - So what's, what's the story? Well, could share, I think, like in my early ministry, there was this girl that came and she needed a lot of help, and, and I remember thinking, huh, she would show up once a month. She just come to our house, just drop in. A lost puppy, a lost soul. Wouldn't come to church, but wanted to talk about her life and and I remember thinking, what you know? Because it was month after month, year after year, and it was like, I'm not 

Henry - You're not making any advances. She's not changing. And you know, you love her. You're praying for 

Steve - those and we would talk about the things her father say that happened, and on and on and on, all the details of her life. 

Henry - You what you exhibited much grace. I know your wife, you know, have her over for dinner, go out 

Steve - all that and then. But then, when I got more of the coaching mentality, it was finally sitting down and okay, we've been seeing you for two years now. Do you think we're making any progress 

Henry - in your life? So you ask a truth question, yeah. 

Steve - And it's, you know, I can say, I could tell you what I think. I don't think we're making any progress at all, right, right, because we keep talking about the same things over and over again. But let me ask you, and what is it you really 

Henry - even want? What back to that like we've been talking about, would you like to Yeah, yeah. 

Steve - So, so then it became, in this particular situation, she was like, she just wanted to keep just doing this. 

Henry - So even just relating to you and talking to you with some validation she was looking for without actually an action 

Steve - Well, but, but what I finally said, you know, came to the thing was, I am, I am not willing to keep doing this. I am here to help you. If you want to go forward with something, if you don't want to go forward with something, then maybe someone else would do a better job. Because I it seems like I'm not helping you at all well, and if you want to just stay with what we're doing, it sounds like you don't want help either, right? So then, why are we doing this, right? So that put it on her plate, rather than continually just, you know, passing the time in some ways, like I'm fulfilling some need. You have to talk to somebody once a month, right? Well, I how many people can I do that? Pastor or the church with all these people, I don't have time to meet with 500 people all the time, because they need a friend, right? You need a real friend, right, right? And I can help you get one right, if, if you want to do that, right? So it really put it on her plate. You know that is 

Henry - so transformational, because then you can spend your time raised to have more coaches who, you know, in some ways, we again, we tack even in our in our leadership, because, on one level, we want to meet with people, individually, talk with people. But on the other hand, that we have to also mobilize leaders so it, you know, so many things in life are this model 

Steve - well, and so many, when you start doing things like this, coaching and leading and counseling and so on, there are so many people who will take that from you in lieu of not having a friend, right? And that is not the purpose of the counseling and the coaching is not to become that person's friend. They need friend friends, right? Your coaching is the system whereby you can help them figure out how to get the friends, yeah, but it shouldn't be the friendship, right, right? That's not its goal. 

Henry - Very powerful stuff. Yep, we'll see you next time. All right

Last modified: Monday, October 13, 2025, 10:03 AM