Video Transcript: Life Coach Minister Characteristics
Hello, my name is Steve Elzinga. And I want to talk about coaching characteristics. The top 10 characteristics is probably many more. But if you have these characteristics, they will bode well for you. In your coaching experience. The first and probably most important characteristic of a coach, you're trying to help people, you're trying to help people make decisions about their lives, help people figure out what to do with some of the problems, places in their lives, where they're struggling, or perhaps areas in their lives where they just want to improve, or they want to expand or they want to take something to the next level. The most important characteristic of a, a commissioned coaching minister, which is sort of unique to Christian leaders Institute, is that you're a god Walker, that what I mean by a god Walker is someone that is walking with daily walking daily with God, John 15:5, Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me, you can do nothing. Okay, so you're trying to help someone, but without Jesus as part of your life, you can do nothing, and this is true for the coach. But it's also true for the person that you're coaching. If Jesus isn't a part of their life, then ultimately, they're not going to be successful. So it's very important that both coach and the person being coached, are walking with God, Matthew 15:14, if the blind lead, the blind, both will fall into the pit. If you're not walking with God, or if the person you're trying to help, is not walking with God, then we have two blind people trying to help each other. That doesn't work very well. Number two, patient characteristic of a coach is someone who is very patient, Proverbs 19:11, a person's wisdom yields patience, it is to one's glory to overlook an offence. Now, you're not necessarily overlooking an offence when you coach someone, but but you'll find when you're coaching someone and you're trying to help a client, figure out what they want to do, or, or there's a problem and you're trying to help the client figure out the problem, the tendency is to is to see what their you know, your client maybe comes up with a possible solution, that's not a very good one. And you want to say that you want to jump in and say, well, that's not a very good one, let's think of something else. But then you're taking over, you want the client to be able to figure things out. And so you have to trust you have to be patient with the process that the client will actually get to where he or she needs to be. So sometimes you have to overlook, you know, kind of a poor solution that your client comes up with, you have to let that sit there and keep asking questions. Keep asking the client to think about the problem. Is there another solution? Are there other solutions? Let's look at some other possibilities. Because, you know, the best solution may be yet forthcoming. So you're not telling them that the solution they came up with is a bad one is just saying, let's explore more. Let's try to put as many solutions or possible solutions as we can down and then we can pick the best. And who knows, maybe we haven't figured out the best one yet. So you have to be patient to do that. Proverbs 25:15, through patience, a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone. All this verse is saying is that patience is very powerful. If you're patient with your client, eventually your client may get to the best solution. So you have to hold back you have to hold back on trying to save them. Give them the answer. We had a little coaching thing yesterday and you know, the tendency to want to give the answer is very strong for a coach, but you have to be patient trusting that the process will eventually yield the best solution. Ecclesiastes 7:8, the end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride. I Timothy 1:16, But for that very reason I was shown mercy. This is Paul talking, I was shown mercy so that in me The worst of sinners Christ Jesus might display his immense patience. As an example for those who would, who would believe in Him and receive eternal life. Paul's talking about how God was patient, Paul was an enemy of the cross, he was the enemy of Christianity. But But God was patient with Paul, Paul learned all kinds of things. And in the end, God used those things that Paul learned for His kingdom, and for His glory. So as as, as coaches, we need to have that same kind of patience, the same kind of patience that God has with each one of us. God is patient with us, He's given us gifts and abilities, but we don't always apply those gifts and abilities very well. And it's over a long period of time, God being patient with us. And finally, God uses us to the extent that he wants to. Alright. Humility, humility, Philippians 2:5-11, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God, something to be used to his advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Okay, so Jesus, in a way is showing us how to lead, He humbled Himself, He could have, you know, claimed his status, he could have gone in there and said, You know, I'm the son of God, this is the way it is. But that's not what he did. And so as a coach too you could come in and say, I've had a lot of experience. Let me solve your problems for you. Let me show you and tell you exactly what you need and fix your problems. And you can send them on their way. But you're not taking all the knowledge that you have, and just downloading it on your client. You're holding it back. You're doing like what Jesus did he, he held it back. He didn't take it, as far as he could take it. But notice also, it says, Therefore, so Jesus humbled himself. But what did God do? Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, Jesus humbled himself, but what happened? God exalted him. And that's what happens in coaching. If you humble yourself, and you don't download everything, you know, and solve all the problems for your client, but you through questions and patience, allow your client to figure out some things for themselves. In the end, you as the coach will be exalted. Because when your client figures out things for himself, he'll Thank you, he'll thanks the process that you brought them through, you will get the credit you will get exalted in the end. But you will only be exalted if you go through the humility, part, withholding everything, you know, not being the answer, man, not being the expert on everything, but allowing your client to, to struggle through the problem and figure things out for themselves. But notice also, it says here in Philippians 2, therefore, God exalted him Christ, to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So Jesus humbles himself, but God, the Father, exalts him. And that's, that's really how it goes. In coaching. you humble yourself, you're not the answer, man. You're not the one with all the solutions. You're not the smart one, with all your experience and all the stories and everything that you've experienced and sort of downloading on your client all these things and sending him on his way. And then you know, then probably lifting up your hands going, I've helped another person. No, you come and you exalt yourself, you have patience. You you let the client figure out some of his own problems. You ask enough questions, and you're patient and you take the time to understand what's going on. And you help the client understand his own situation, so that he comes up with his own solution, you exalt Your clients. But what happens if you do that? Your client exalts you, your client, when, when you will, when the process of coaching allows him to figure out what he needs to do. And then he finally does it. And he's more willing to do it, because he's the one who thought about it. And he's more willing more likely to be successful. He comes back and thanks you. He lifts you up. That's how real leadership works. That's how it works in the church. You know, when I preach on Sunday morning, if someone comes up afterwards, and they tell me, Oh, that was awesome. That was a great sermon. You know, they're putting me on a pedestal. And then the next week I preach and they don't come up and say anything. So then I wonder was this one not very good. See, when when, when people come to you and exalt you, and they put you on a pedestal, then it's kind of scary on the pedestal, and you worry about falling off the high pedestal. But when someone comes up to me after a service and says, you know, that sermon really helped me, it lifted me up. Now, where am I? I'm under them. I'm not above them. I'm not exalted. I'm all below them lifting, I'm exalting them. And that, it feels a lot better. I'm not put on a pedestal. You know, that's real servant. Leadership. And that's really what coaching is. Okay, number four, a fourth characteristic of being a good coach, you have to be a listener, a good listener, James 1:18-20, he chose us to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be, we might be kind of firstfruits of all he created. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this, everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak. That is that that is the verse you should write down and have it get a little card, made up and sitting on your desk, if you're going to do coaching, be quick to listen, slow to speak. In the coaching process, your client should be doing most of the speaking, if you're doing most of the speaking, then you're robbing your client of his ability in his job of trying to figure out things for himself or for herself. You have to be a questioner, that's another characteristic of a coach, you listen, and you ask questions. And part of what makes you a good listener is being a good? Questioner. You ask a question. And now, your client has to answer that question. John 1:38, turning around Jesus saw them following and asked, What do you want? Jesus, some 100, and some questions that Jesus asked. In the Bible, Jesus was good at asking people who do men say that I am? A lot of questions. So you got to be a questioner. Here's the basic questions that a coach asks this is like the three things that coaches do. Number one, what do you want to do? What problem area? Or what opportunity? Or what place? You know, what area? Do you want to go to the next level in? But ultimately, what do you want to do? That's a question that you keep coming back to. The client might be talking about a bad relationship, and they want to explain and you, you know, you're ruminating about, you know, what they're going through, but ultimately, you keep coming back to you, okay? But what do you want to do? A lot of people want to keep wallowing in their problems, they want to talk about it, and they need to talk about it. But after a while, you finally have to get to so what do you want to do about it? We can talk about it, we can feel bad about it. But ultimately, what do you want to do about it? Number two? How do you want to do it want to do what you want to do? What's the plan, there might be three or four different ways of tackling this issue. So which way do you want to go with it? And finally, how's it going? So when you meet them again, how's it going? Did it work? Did you do what you said you're going to do? So that's more on the management side. But all of these are questions. These are just questions that you give to the client and now they have to respond. Number six, a characteristic of being a good coach is being a cheerleader. You're the encourager, you're the one saying you can do that. You're the one saying Good job. You're the one saying, you know, so proud of you, John 14:12-14, Very truly I tell you, Jesus said, Whoever believes in me will do the work I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these I mean, this is Jesus speaking to His disciples, you will do greater things than I'm doing. Now that's encouragement that saying, I believe in you. And that's, that's a characteristic that a coach has to have, you have to believe that the client has to have this sense that you believe in them, that they can do it, or they won't do it. And that's why it's important that you don't download all kinds of information. If you download all kinds of information on them, they will get the impression that you are the smart one, and they are not. And if they have that sense, then they won't dare say anything, they won't dare try to figure out their own problems, because they're in the presence of an incredibly smart counselor type person. So that's why you have to refrain you have to have that patience again, and cheerlead them when they you know, in the beginning, maybe they're they're a little timid, maybe their solutions aren't that good. You can think of three or four or five better solutions than what they've thought you don't, but you have to resist downloading those things on them. Because you're trying to build up their sense of who they are. And that takes some time, maybe, maybe in the beginning, their solutions out there aren't that good, but you encourage them, encourage them every step along the way, that you encourage them, when things don't go well you encourage them when things do go well. And over time, they learn how to be better at this. Ultimately, you're trying to work yourself out of a job. Philippians 1:3- 6, I thank my God every time I remember you. Okay, Paul is being incredibly encouraging. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy. When I think about you, Joy comes to mind, because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day until now Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you, God who began a good work, and you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. If you can see a beginning, if you can see that God has started something good, you can be confident that God will complete what he has started. So you see that in your client, you may bring up this verse in him. Because people get discouraged that they come up with a plan. They're really excited. And they go off and do it and it falls flat. It doesn't go the way they expected. That's often the case in life, and they come back to you and they're all discouraged. My plans are no good. What I come up with is no good. Nothing worked. You know what? What worked a little bit? Was there anything positive in this experience. And if there is, see, that is God beginning a good work in you and God will complete it. we can have confidence that God will complete this thing in you. It might take a while. It might be a process. It may be an up and down thing, but God will complete it. Have confidence. You're the cheerleader number seven, your persistant. You keep at it. Because you know when you're trying to help someone who has not been able to help themselves, and that's why they come to you. They've experienced a lot of failure. And they may experience some more failure, even with your help. But if you persist Philippians 3:10-14, I want to know Christ. Yes. I want to know the power of his resurrection, and their participation in his sufferings. They don't go as always that well. There's suffering, there's setbacks, becoming like him in his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead, not that I've already attained all this, or ever arrived at my goal. See that's, you want your client to have this attitude? I haven't yet figured it out. I haven't yet. You know, made it happen. But I press on. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Again, God began something in you and he will complete it. Brothers and sisters I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of this is the apostle Paul talking. So if your client feels this way, well, he's in good company. But one thing I do Forgetting what is behind Okay, yeah, it hasn't worked out in your past. You've tried many times and you failed. Okay. That was the past Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on? That has to be sort of the motto of your relationship with your your client, we press on it we hit obstacles, but we keep going we we press on toward the goal to win the prize for which Christ has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Number, number eight, you have to be in the curious explorer. Okay, many of us as pastors, counselors and so on, we're so used to giving advice. We have a lot of experience with people, we've seen a lot of things, we know how things go. And we want to, we want to dump all kinds of advice on people. And we've earned it, you know, we've lived so much of life that we just want to share, we've been there. And so we want to, we want to tell people about it. What I'm saying is in coaching that can get in the way, you become the star and not, not the client. So what you need to do is, is replace that desire to give advice, with a curious mind, a desire to explore, I just want to understand you, I want to know more about what you're talking about. So when your client is talking about, you know, wanting to improve his marriage, okay, tell me about your marriage. I'm curious about your marriage. I want to know everything about it, I want to know how it goes. I want to know how you feel about it. I want to know what you what you want out of it. I want to know how you met, I want to know, I'm curious. I want to explore your life, I want to know more. See, you can become an expert in this, instead of giving advice. You're helping your clients, look at the thing that he wants to change. You're helping him look at every angle. And the only way he's going to look at every angle is if you're genuinely curious about it, I want to know, please tell me more. And that process of him telling you all these things, because you want to know these things. It helps him finally think about it for himself. And put everything on the table. And you help them arrange things and you help them you know, sort of focus on what he needs to focus on. You're listening for emotion words, you're you're listening for when he says something that that sparks your interest? And then you bring it up? Hey, that's really interesting. Can you tell me more about that? Hey, that's really interesting. Can you tell me more about that? That solution? I've never heard that before? Can you elaborate on that? You have to be a curious explorer. Number nine, characteristic of being a good coach, a learner, you're always in the learning space. Matthew 28, Jesus said these words to His disciples before He ascended into heaven. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, Coach, in some ways, all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then these words and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. I've taught you things. Now, I want you to teach them things, you know, the only way that the disciples could do that is if they learned it themselves. And notice that it says, teaching them to obey, that we tend to think of teaching as like just downloading all kinds of information. But teaching someone to obey is more of an example, when you teach your kids how to obey. It's more your example to them that that teaches them what they ought to do, than the words that you speak. But in order to help someone, you need to be a learner yourself. And this is especially true of the specialization badges that we that we're going to talk about. Coaching is mainly trying to help someone figure out what they want to do about some problem or some area that they want to go to the next level in. But there is a time where you take off your coaching hat, and you may put on the pre marriage counseling hat. Or you may have put on the parenting hat, where you actually have to teach some people things. That's what our specialization courses are all about, about helping you at least know something about. So if I was going to do pre marriage counseling, there's things that I need to teach the couple. And then I can do the coaching thing with them. But what do you want to do with all these things that I've now taught you about pre marriage, the pre marriage situation, there's things on communication sometimes that you have to teach someone. There's things on, you know, time management that that often you have to teach someone. Let me give you the basics of time management, and then we'll talk about well what you want to do with it. And then I go put the coaching hat back on again. But in order to be able to do that you have to be the learner. You have to learn these things yourself. And finally, number 10. If you're going to be a good coach, you need to be people smart, what is people smart people smart is just being smart about dealing with people, when to say things, when not to say things, when to be encouraging, when to be silent, when to talk, those kinds of things. Philemon, I think is an incredible book on this people smart thing. In fact, I wrote a whole book about this. Paul has a problem with Philemon. Philemon had a slave named Onesimus and he escaped and ran away. And through God's providence, Onesimus ended up getting to know the apostle Paul in Rome who was in prison, and became very helpful to Paul. And eventually Paul finds out the story, that he was a runaway slave from someone that Paul knows, or people that were connected to people that Paul knew. So Paul sends the slave back to his master. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter that we call Philemon. And Paul has this tricky situation. How's he going to handle this? And so I made a study of this. Paul was very people smart. And so I just quickly read it. And you'll see some of the things that Paul did. He starts out I always thank, My God, as I remember you in my prayers. So what is Paul doing? Paul is saying, Philemon, you're one of the people that I care about. You know, Paul has to bring up a difficult situation. But he starts with common ground. And they're their positive connection. Because I hear about your love for all his holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus, I've heard some really great things about you, you're a great guy. I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share, for the sake of Christ. Okay, so he's continuing this positive rapport thing. Your love has given me great joy, and encouragement, because you brother have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people, you've, you've helped others. And because you've helped others, you've helped me, you've made a difference in my life. Therefore, although in Christ, I could be bold in order for you to do what you ought to do. Okay, now he's getting to the problem. We got this problem with this slave situation, and I can order you to do something. But I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. Okay, well, how can how can Philemon refuse this? Again, going on, it is none other than Paul. So he's saying, who is an old man, now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, that I appeal to you for my son, Onesimus, who has become my son while I was in chains. So this slave of yours who ran away, that maybe you want to punish is becoming an incredible help to me. Formerly, he was useless to you. Again, now Paul is playing on the name Onesimus. Onesimus means useful. So formerly, he was useless to you. He wasn't a very good slave, he ended up running away. But now he has become useful both to you and me. Okay, I'm sending him who was my very heart, I have a connection with this guy back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. So Paul's saying, you know, you have some skin in the game here to you know, this is a worldwide ministry, and you should be helping me and maybe you are through this slave of yours, and I would like to keep him but he says, but I did not want to do anything without your consent. See how tactful Paul's being so that any so that any favor you would do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. I'm not going to force you to do what I think you should do. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while, perhaps the reason, you know, in God's providence while your your slave ran away and you've gone through all this trouble was that you might have him back forever. No longer as a slave but better than a slave as a dear brother. Now Paul is sort of pushing towards you know, let me say this is not just a slave anymore, he's a brother in Christ. So what are you going to do with it? He is very dear to me but even dearer to you. Both as a fellow man as and as our brother in the Lord. You see how subtle , Paul is being. so if you consider me a partner, if we're in this together, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me, I Paul am writing this with my own hand, I will pay it back not to mention that you owe me your very self you know, I'm willing to pay but you know you owe me your very life. I'm the one that you know through me Christianity, and the salvation of your soul has come to you. I do not wish brother, that I may have some benefit. I do wish brother that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ, Confident of your obedience I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I ask. So he's being positive. I'm sure that we're going to be able to work this whole thing out. And one more thing prepare a guest room for me because I hope to be restored to you in in answer to your prayers. Epaphras my fellow prisoner in Christ. That's it. Okay, so what am I saying? I'm saying people smart Paul was very people smart, he had this problem, and he dealt with it in a very tactful way. If you're going to be a counselor, if you're going to be a coach, you need to be able to deal with people in a tactful way. There'll be things that come up, there'll be problems, maybe your client wants to do something that will hurt himself or others and then you have to be very tactful. Without you know, you know, coming down as the authority, you have to be able to tactfully move your client towards things and that's what it takes to be a good coach. So these are just 10 characteristics is probably many more. But as you go forward, you might want to just review these things once in a while. This is what it takes to be a be a great coach.