By Bob Zomermaand
(First appeared in the August 27, 2007 issue of the Christian Courier.)
“Gentlemen, this is a football. ” So began the first practice at training camp for the Green Bay Packers every year that Vince Lombardi was the coach. Even when his teams had won the Super Bowl the prior season, he took them back to the very basic ideas of the game of football as they began to prepare for the season ahead. The legendary coach knew something that most of us forget. One has to go back to the basics again and again if one is to excel in anything. Coach Lombardi would annually teach his world class athletes the fundamentals of the game. The learning was never done for his teams. And they excelled for years.
If you and I were to name off as many great sports names as we can: Sidney Crosby, Alex Rodriguez, Steve Nash, Tiger Woods, or many, many more, we would discover that every one of these people have something in common. They all have a coach. Even people who have reached the pinnacle of their sport have coaches. They see the need for having someone who can help them work on their game so that they are just that much better. Natural talent only goes so far. After that, a great deal of coaching and training is required.
What I find so disconcerting is that churches do not see the need for their pastors to have coaches with whom they work. I doubt that there is any church in all of North America that does not have at least one parent among the parishioners who is working with someone to coach them in a sport. It is a fact of life that we readily accept. A young athlete?s performance is greatly improved with the help of a good coach. In fact, if it were true that coaching makes no difference, we would not see so many coaches fired at the end of a disappointing season. Why do we think that pastors, men and women who have natural skills and some carefully developed ones, have no need of a coach to assist their personal and professional growth?
Let me give you an example. I was chatting with a young woman who is working on her PhD in sport psychology. She is studying the theory and practice of great coaching in the sports field. She herself was a finely tuned athlete in high school and college. She now, alongside her studies, coaches kids in soccer. We came to the subject of her church and she said, “I wish I could coach my pastor in his presentation skills! ” “How would you do that? ” was my response. She replied, “Well, it is not his content that needs work. It is how he presents it. He takes great material and makes it dull by how he presents it. I would coach him in understanding audience dynamics, in how to keep their attention, and how to take his gift for articulation to a much greater level! ” When asked why she did not approach him to do just that, she got a strained look on her face and said, “But he would be so offended if anyone were to offer to coach him, wouldn?t he? ”
It is unfortunate that she did not take the opportunity to do that, for now two years later, her pastor has been forced to resign from the church where she had been attending.
The problem? His presentation skills in worship were lacking to the point where the church could no longer tolerate his style.
I am concerned that we are going to keep losing pastors to the problems that arise, not from lack of spiritual vitality or moral failure, but from a lack of coaching toward the highly polished skills that are demanded by churches in North America today. In addition, we are going to be losing a large number of pastors to retirement as the boomers turn 55, 60, and 65. I believe that we could do the church a great blessing by recognizing both those truths.
I suggest that these older men and women who are reaching retirement be hired as coaches for younger members of the clergy. It would make for a far more effective pastoral corps and a better utilized group of retirees whose coaching skills would be a blessing to the next generation of pastors. The difference from a mentoring relationship is that the coach is paid for the work while a mentor is rarely compensated.
In my own experience of over thirty years as a pastor, I have personally sought out coaching for myself. At the 8-10 year mark of my ministry, I spent one day a week for two academic years going to a seminary for an advanced degree that focused on coaching in the skills of ministry. For about a six-year stretch I was a part of a group of 12-15 pastors who got together with a coach who taught us how to handle pastoral issues. Another two-year stretch was spent going to a monthly coaching gathering to work on personal and professional skills in our lives. This included a private, monthly two-hour coaching meeting that helped me to personally apply the skills.
I believe that if we are going to sustain pastoral excellence, we need to make a church culture shift toward personal and skill coaching for our pastors. This shift will require several major modifications in how we think as a church culture. The first and obvious one is a reversal of thinking at the congregational level that this is too costly. The second is the need for the congregation to learn that a pastor will be less offended by the offer of a coach than a request to resign. The third is a change in the mental attitude of those pastors who do take offense if someone says they need coaching.
It amazes me that we take for granted the work of personal coaches in athletics, but take offense at the suggestion that pastors also need a coach. Is it really true that churches would rather pay six to twelve months of severance to their former pastor and deal with the aftermath than pay someone the equivalent of a one-month salary each year to coach their pastor?
What advantages are there to having a “Retired Pastor-Coach” (RPC), assist some of our current pastors? I think the following are immediately apparent:
- The RPC knows how tough the job is and does not come to the pastor and say, “You?ve got it easy working only one day a week. ”
- The RPC is not a member of the local congregation and isn?t going to fire the pastor for not measuring up to expectations.
- The RPC can coach six or seven others and still have plenty of time to enjoy retirement.
- The RPC can give an objective opinion on how a pastor has handled a difficult council decision or on how one could improve bedside manners.
- The RPC can return repeatedly to the basics and remind the pastor, “The important thing is how you handle the Word of God.”
I challenge each of you who read this to consider how to assist your pastor to get coaching so that your church will be blessed.
