Some of this article uses parts of my MA dissertation on Life Coaching, Spiritual Direction and Culture. It seeks to reflect on ministerial formation in office and to suggest that some life coaching insights could usefully inform our thinking and ministerial development.
Introduction
There have been increasing numbers of books published in the last few years with coach', 'coaching' or 'life coach' in the title, mostly of the self-help variety. I have seen at least one television series which regularly featured a life coach and I am aware of several television and radio programmes that have featured it in some way. It is clearly at least fashionable, perhaps more than that. It is also treated by some with a degree of wariness because it might just be yet another transatlantic fad which will go the way of most such fads; into the recycling bin of cultural history.I write this because I think that it is more important than that and can offer to the church much of value. First let's review the difficulties with investigating it. Life coaching (“LC”) has no commonly agreed corpus of knowledge, it is a relatively new 'profession' which has not yet produced an extensive academically rigorous literature or research. There are few books dealing with it that are not self-help or for training coaches in the perspectives and methods of particular coaching approaches. Therefore I have used various web sites for coaches and coaching organizations to document life coaching.
These sites give us a direct access to coaches' own definitions of what they believe they are offering and doing in Life Coaching and while they are doing so for the commercial purpose of recruiting clients, this bias can relatively easily be allowed for. In order to understand what we might learn from life coaching it seems wise to offer an orientation to help unfamiliar readers to grasp what it is and how it operates. Beyond that orientation we will need to look at why and how we might relate to it theologically and also to identify ways in which it may inform ministry and mission.
I am an Anglican Priest living in England. My connection with life coaching came as I became aware of it in about 2001. I became intrigued and on investigation found something that seemed familiar but somehow different to things I already knew. Since then I have taken course in Life Skills coaching and been involved in a coaching course run by Staff development at a University as well as offering life coaching to the staff of the University as part of my ministry. Some of this article is adapted from my MA dissertation on 'Life Coaching, Spiritual Direction and Culture'.
Orientation to Life Coaching
Life coaching ['LC'] in most respects is a relatively recent phenomenon. However it is probably true to say that much of what it involves is not particularly recent or new. The components of life coaching are mostly older, it is their coming together in the environment that is called life coaching that is new. David Rock1 identifies the skills used in parenting and business leadership at their best as life coaching skills. He even sees life coaching themes in some mythological stories especially those dealing with heroic journeys.Thomas Leonard identifies Socratic dialogue and Buddhist teaching as precursors of coaching methods and Werner Erhard as first using the term during the 1970's in a way recognizable by life coaches today2. Many websites also refer to NLP [Neuro-Linguistic Programming] and the work of Anthony Robbins as an influence on the practice of coaching and there are certainly a good many coaches and coaching practices today that are either NLP practices or for whom NLP is one of the 'styles' of coaching on offer.
David Rock3 sees the precursors to LC mostly originating in the 1950's and afterwards and briefly explores a number of them including personal development, emotional intelligence, adult learning theory, sports psychology, mentoring, NLP, management development, training and creativity. Thomas Leonard himself began as a financial planner whose approach began to develop in a way that would now be recognized as coaching by broadening some of the kinds of things he would do in financial planning to other areas of life as a result of client demand [op cit]. This client demand itself seemed to be, in part at least, a result of patterns of work and life among executives and the trend within the business world to restructure in such a way as to place workers in need of new skills and perspectives to cope with a more fluid and transitional working environments4.
Most sources seem to agree implicitly or explicitly with the proposition that LC, as such, began in the mid to late 1980's in the USA5 and that the term appears to come, unsurprisingly, from sports coaching6. The latter probably reflecting, in some way, the importance that the "Inner Game" approach to sports coaching which Timothy Gallwey discovered and popularized in his book The Inner Game of Tennis, and applied to organisations by Sir John Whitmore and others. Then there is the contribution of a cultural trend we might label 'self-help': "Ten years ago we saw a boom in the self-help industry. As time has gone by it's become much more socially acceptable to access self-help initiatives such as executive or personal coaching. There is clearly a growing trend for individuals and organizations to employ professional coaches to help them reach their personal and work-related goals."7.
It is probably true, then, to say that LC came into being in the 1980's from the coming together of a number of strands from business, education and psychology driven by a particular set of cultural circumstances. Most of the techniques and skills it calls upon are not exclusive and all of them are older, some considerably, than the label 'life coaching'. Life coaching presents itself as a profession, though it is to be doubted that at present it merits that description; Dr Anthony Grant in a helpful guide to the issues facing the coaching industry 8 stated that, strictly speaking, coaching should not yet be called a profession since it lacks key defining characteristics of a profession: having significant barriers to entry; a shared body of knowledge; university-level qualifications and regulatory standards or disciplinary bodies. At present LC has none of these things. He calls for a model of coaches as scientist-practitioners, who may or may not do research but are nevertheless equipped to be "informed consumers of it". He points out that the proprietary nature of coaching schools in relation to their training and materials is a significant barrier to a professional body having or gaining a common body of knowledge.
Towards a definition.
A survey of books and websites will produce a number of definitions: "Coaching is the art of bringing out the greatness in people in a way that honours the integrity of the human spirit. It is both an innate human capacity and a teachable skill which has now become a profession and an industry”9 or "A commonly used definition of coaching is Coaching is the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another. ... Development is about personal growth and greater self awareness."10 or a simple "It involves clarifying and then planning to achieve goals".11There are, of course, a number of things that are relatively common to the various definitions offered. The words 'goal' or 'goals' are used in most referring to what the client wants to achieve, either with their life or in a particular part of their life. Although more poetic language may be used as in, "enable and support people to achieve their dreams"12. it is clear that the individual is to decide for themselves what goals they should make their own. The lack of specification of goals is precisely because LC is predicated on the autonomy of the individual and therefore the necessity for the individual to decide for themselves what goals are desirable.
LC is distinguished from other activities such as counselling and consultancy and the distinctions made are also illuminating of what LC is. "Coaching is different to consultancy in that it sees the solution lying with the client "13. This emerges from the commonly-held view in LC that "The client is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole." [Whitworth et al. p.3], so the answers must come from the client since to allow otherwise would be to disempower the client and disable their learning and progress. In keeping with the valuing of client autonomy, non-directive approaches are preferred. The distinction between LC and either counselling or [psycho]therapy is a theme that emerges quite often in the texts.
Downey sees counseling as "remedial": helping the client towards wholeness and social integration14 whereas LC has more orientation to tasks and work engaged in15. Other sources distinguish between a past orientation in counseling and a future/ goals orientation in LC16. Others would note that counseling deals with people who are in some way not well-functioning and suffering emotional disturbance whereas LC is dealing largely with well-functioning people who are not dealing with symptoms of emotional distress17.
However some view the connection with counseling as closer. Downey states "The core skills involved in counselling and coaching and even mentoring, are very similar, if not actually the same. These are principally the skills of listening and of asking questions. They are the skills towards the non-directive end of the spectrum of coaching skills. ... For this reason, coaching and counseling are difficult to differentiate."18 and while he goes on to provide some differentiation, he does so in a context of acknowledging many similarities. And Thomas Leonard even speaks of LC in these terms: "We are watching the birth of a new breed of counselor who will help people get more out of life."19 and in so doing affirms both similarity and difference.
The author of the wikipedia entry on LC describes LC in terms of it being a form of counseling20. And one website aims to recruit therapists as life coaches "because they already have the requisite skills for effective coaching (such as listening, building rapport, encouraging, facilitating change, empathy and objectivity) that they can easily translate into coaching"21.
In short; LC is a profession-in-the-making which aims to facilitate clients' progress towards fulfilling goals in such a way as to respect their autonomy and honour their innate abilities and resources. Its chief tools in this mission are counselling skills such as listening, reflecting, creating empathy and questioning and a commitment to the client's agenda.
Affirming and critiquing Life Coaching
As we review the outline of LC as presented above, no doubt a number of resonances and connections have been made. In the spirit of both discerning the good and rejecting the ill I would like to make some positive evaluation and some negative. I will deal with topics in such a way as to discuss their compatibilities and also their difficulties for Christian ministry because some of the affirmations re-frame the difficulties and vice versa.Affirmations and reservations
As a result of the prominence of 'goals' and the client's agenda, it would be easy to dismiss LC for merely opening up a way of pandering to selfish or venial forces in human personalities. However, LC in practice is not usually about helping people to achieve fairly arbitrary goals or fulfilling relatively shallow ambitions. "A life-coach gets you absolutely clear about what it is you really want out of life."22 which implicitly acknowledges that there may be a difference between what a person may have been socialized into desiring for themselves, or superficially to crave, and what is more central to them and probably more deeply desired. "In most cases the coaching will quickly progress to a deeper definition of fulfillment. It's not about having more -it's not about what fills the client's pockets or closets -it's about what fills the client's heart and soul."23 Later on the same authors state: "One of the main reasons people come to to coaching is a search for answers about fulfillment."24.In this view, then, it is important to work with clients' deeper motivations and aspirations. In fact when dealing with matters that touch so vitally on motivation, ephemeral desires and superficial wants simply do not give sufficient personal commitment and energy to effect the lasting changes that LC seeks to facilitate.
The intense focus on the client's agenda and the refusal to offer advice in favour of using questioning to draw out the client's resourcefulness can be consonant with fundamental Christian commitments. As Christians we can surely affirm both the aim of serving the client and also the desire to give them the dignity implied of recognising their capability, indeed some Christians would want to strongly affirm the recognition of personal responsibility and dignity implied in LC's stance. We serve, in fact love, the client in the paying of close attention to what they say and what they speak with their body and also what they do not say.
Such intense and close listening requires discipline and indeed is part of what training is about. It is intended that close attention, empathy, affirmation, feedback and questioning should convey an unconditional regard which forms the bedrock for an emotionally safe space to explore issues that are important. In writing this, I could be describing counselling, and indeed the skills needed are fundamentally the same, it seems to me. As we noted above, it is the focus which is different. What we need to recognise here is the attitude of love, expressed primarily as service and respect that lies at the heart both of the endeavour of LC and of Christian ministry.
Furthermore, the attitude that the client already has the perspectives, resources or abilities that they need, mirrors Christian beliefs about the image of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. One of the retrievals made by the charismatic movement was of the idea that every believer is gifted by the Holy Spirit and that the task, therefore, of the church is to enable to expression of that giftedness. LC offers ways to help that expression to take place. It helps firstly at the level of discovery or recognition of vocation, secondly at the level of identifying ability and gifts and thirdly at the level of fostering confidence and faith that those abilities and gifts can be used.
In writing about those three levels of help, I am aware that there are possible skeptical responses. One such response might be that it is all very well talking about giftedness as spiritual gifts among Christians but the normal LC context is dealing with natural gifts among many who are not Christians; the gifts are natural gifts. There are a number of responses that could be made to such skepticism. One is to question whether we really want to make such a sharp distinction between natural and 'supernatural' gifts since both ultimately trace their source to God either in creation, as a common grace gift, or in redemption as a 'spiritual' gift. The more important issue is the use of such gifts for the glory and purposes of God and the welfare of what and who God loves.
Another sceptical response might be that the fallenness of humanity renders all such confidence as LC seems to possess in the abilities of people to help themselves, somewhat suspect. In other words, LC seems over-optimistic about human potential. I think that this is quite likely a knee-jerk reaction on our part as Christians and needs careful exploration. It needs care because it may reveal to us an adherence to a misguided interpretation of fallenness and also because as a critique it may actually be too broad.
To take the latter point first: it seems to me that it is hard not to apply the same argument to education in general or to working for justice or for better social and economic conditions. All such endeavours are likely to be undermined by the human capacity to allow greed, or apathy or pride into the driving seat. However, we do not cease to educate people because we think that this will only make them cleverer in evil-doing (which it does) because we are educating people because it produces good things directly for those educated and less directly for the societies in which educated people live and work notwithstanding the potential for misuse of learning. Similarly, on the whole we do not decry efforts to create greater justice or to make opportunity for people to improve their conditions because we think this implies an optimistic view of human nature.
I think that it would be unfair to single LC out for believing that humans may have the capacity to better themselves individually and as societies. The more substantial issue is that of how we interpret fallenness in respect of human potential. It is important to understand fallenness to affect every dimension of human being for Christological as well as harmartological reasons. However this is not necessarily to say that every part of every dimension of a human being is evil. To do so runs the risk of seeing evil in a decontextualised way that tends towards manichaeanism; a dualism in which evil has no real relationship to good except oppositional. Whereas, to believe in a world and a humanity that were firstly created good and blessed and that evil consequently is a perversion and parasitic on the Good (to use CS Lewis' evocative and helpful characterisation).
Thus there is a goodness that continues underlying evil, evil does not obliterate the good but inevitably carries at least a trace of the Good. This, taken with an understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit as working within creation and human cultures to bring about ever greater goodness, truth and beauty, lays a foundation for blessing the work of people who work to enable other human beings to flourish. We routinely affirm the work of educationalists, medical workers, those involved in the administration of justice and good government, I want to add to that list (which could be much longer anyway) the work of life coaches.
That is not to say that there may not be coaches who do have extremely optimistic views of human nature that may seem to be unrealistic. However, over-optimism need not be an article of faith for a LC practitioner. It does seem to me that the presentations of some, perhaps most, life coaching at present seems to suggest that people can do anything they want. No doubt some of this is the kind of hype that is necessary to be heard when selling services in a marketplace of personal services like that in the USA, but not only there.
However it also worth noting that the practice is more 'realistic' than the publicity might suggest. The quotation above about 'progress to a deeper definition of fulfillment' and it not being 'about what fills the client's pockets or closets but what fills the client's heart and soul', implies that it is not really about helping people to gain a PhD in Nuclear Physics when they are actually unmathematical, or to run a four-minute mile when they are sixty and left with half a lung after an operation for cancer. Rather it is about helping people to accommodate to and to value both who and what they are and to encourage them also to move beyond self-limiting beliefs which are not the truth about their capacities and capabilities or to challenge 'can't do' attitudes with the real possibilities of what can be done.
This can be seen in a further rhetoric-practice comparison: the stated promotional attitude of many life coaches seems to be that each of us has the resources to do anything, in practice a lot of coaching comes down to helping people recognise how they might acquire resources to do what they have come to believe they can and should do. Thus a session might deal with encouraging a client to identify how they might find out which courses available at a local college might equip them for the next step in their developing career plan, or what the options are for developing the necessary interpersonal skills to handle difficult colleagues. In practice there is a trialogue between capability and resources and something very akin to vocation.
The implicit challenge to Christians is to note and respond appropriately to the cultural trend to see human beings in terms of capability rather than disability. LC also tends to take a holistic approach to human being. As Christians we would want to affirm this recognition of the many aspects of being human and that these aspects are all interrelated in various ways. Also personal growth and greater self-awareness are key to LC and hardly inimical to Christian concerns.
Spoiling the Egyptians
Christians working in and through the churches in our normal and established ministries may learn some important things from LC that could have significant impacts on the shape and content of our ministries. This is not an exhaustive summary but merely an attempt to identify some key possibilities with some insights that may help us to make the best use of those possibilities. As I write I am conscious that there is much in LC that is not new, what is being offered is consequently not revolutionary but simply an approach which brings together a number of insights and disciplines in a way that enables an effective transfer of knowledge and skills and a means of managing a process effectively.Teaching, learning and ministerial formation
LC is very much a learning strategy, or perhaps a cluster of strategies. Part of the ongoing methodology is to reflect on what has happened and to use that reflection as the basis for planning for the next episode which is then carried out and reflected on again in course, and so on around the learning cycle (or pastoral cycle; if that is more familiar a term). The important thing is that the focus is on the client's learning and the strong discouragement of the coach to do anything that gets in the way of the client's learning. This is so strong a principle that some coach training goes as far as to say that there is no place for the coach in their model; it is all about the client and their learning for the coach's role is to 'create an environment in which clients focus entirely on their fulfillment, balance and process'25.In ministerial formation we are surely seeking to co-operate with God so that a person becomes ever more fully the person they are called to be to fulfill the roles and ministries they are called to exercise. If we place this agenda at the heart of what we do with a candidate for ministerial training or even someone in continuing ministerial education, then the coaching disciplines of listening deeply, intuition, curiosity, self management and commitment to learning come into play.
LC is used by many in the secular world to facilitate the development of executives, managers and other workers. It is particularly suitable for work where there is a high degree of personal initiative required and where many varied situations are encountered and in which flexibility and constant learning are at a premium. Such conditions are descriptive of much Christian ministry.
Part of the impetus behind the recognition of the potential value for supervision and appraisal in Christian ministry is a recognition that such learning should be going on. I want to propose that the basic strategies and skills of life coaching provide a far better basis to achieve the aims of ministerial formation than the kinds of supervision currently being explored. To be sure, it would require that we consider the ways that we structure learning and supervision but it would do so in ways that are consonant with the best of our traditions in such things as spiritual direction and episcopē.
One of the important things about it is the emphasis on the client's agenda. We know that for any learning motivation is important and that for adult learning the recognition of prior learning and making connections with that prior learning is most effective. For this to happen, clearly, the more personal the learning programme is, the better. Life coaching is nothing if not an intensely individualised learning enabler. At present much of our training apparently begins with programmatic approaches and curricula. The challenge of LC is to move towards more fully learner-centred approaches. This need not exclude courses and the like but it would place them as servants rather than drivers of learning and the way that they are carried out could be challenged also by a LC approach.
LC used alongside courses might enable students to make sure that they were able to make the best use of the possibilities and content offered to them. The role, therefore, of personal tutors could be considerably enhanced by a LC approach. This begins to sound expensive in proposing individualised learning and the concomitant extra hours it would require to deliver it. However, the point would be to so disseminate the basic skills and approach of LC among those who have supervisory roles, that such learning would become increasingly part and parcel of the way things are done. In fact it could be that the dissemination of basic LC could be an key factor in the making of a learning organisation. Once that kind of coverage is achieved, learning and training probably becomes cheaper as a result of greater effectiveness and clearer focus.
Episcopē
For the purposes of this article, I take it that the point of episcopē is to make sure that ministry is appropriate, responsive, growing, resourced and accountable. Once it is stated in that way it is easy to understand that LC could play a vital role in the effectiveness of episcopē. These concerns are not so different form the concerns of managers in business and public services that their usage of coaching is something that we should ignore. Especially given, as noted above, the compatibility of LC with some fundamental Christian principles relating to ministry.Imagine a ministry of oversight that was focused on listening to the 'overseen' in an encouraging and empathetic way open to intuitions of mind and Spirit so as to enable a deeper listening on the part of the 'overseen' to their circumstances, communities, churches and among all of that to the call of God in it all and to their own vocation. Imagine further a commitment by those exercising oversight to developing the capacity of ministers and congregations to listen and respond and to identify what they next need to do or not do and to hold that agenda with them and sometimes for them.
I believe that LC would help bishops and other diocesan-level staff to do these things. It would make it possible to bring together spiritual discernment and direction with some of the managerial concerns that impinge upon diocesan-level ministry. What LC could do for episcopē is to give shape to ministries that genuinely recognise the giftedness of all and are collegial and collaborative.
The disciplines it calls for of close listening and supportive approach would do a great deal both to create confidence and to enable a genuinely bottom-up dimension to diocesan or parish ministry. The emphasis on personal responsibility coupled with genuine empathy should help develop and maintain mature adult-adult transactions between those exercising episcopē and those benefiting (it is to be hoped) from it. In addition, those exercising oversight gain better and fuller insight into the training and pastoral needs that they need to be most concerned with.
Of course, the restraint it implies on advice-giving and top-down planning may be challenging for some and difficult in some situations. However, the returns in the longer-term of greater learning, enthusiasm and life-givingness are worth striving for.
Spiritual direction
There are quite a few concerns in common, in practice, between LC and spiritual direction. I would like to pick up just a few things that I think that could be usefully and intentionally included in spiritual direction. Of course, many are doing so already. LC emphasises the importance of listening at various levels both to what is said and also to what is not said and to the less tangible and noticeable signs and 'voices'. This much is familiar in spiritual direction, however what I find in LC is a commitment to learning how better to listen at the 'deeper' levels and the training that takes place for that purpose.
My impression is that we don't offer to people who are engaged in such ministry much by way of systematic training, rather we tend to trust to native ability and more haphazard learning. Of course there are exceptions to that, but I would propose that some insights from LC could well be incorporated into courses on spiritual direction, soul friendship, Christian listening and the like.
The holistic approach of LC reminds us that when we deal with a person's prayer we are actually implicating the rest of their life. It is probable that here are few involved in spiritual direction who do not acknowledge this. However LC can help us to see what' holistic' can mean and to draw on all aspects of someone's life and experience for learning about any other aspect and not to fall prey to an idea that, for example, spiritual principles must always inform emotional learning and not really the other way round. Many spiritual directors already know this and act accordingly but it is no bad thing to open us up to a resource that could help some to grow in their service and to others to explore it in a more initial way.
LC is often concerned about self-awareness particularly in relation to issues that might in Christian terms be labelled 'vocational'. Thus the ways that LC goes about the tasks of uncovering personal motivation and listening to the deeper cries of the human heart are of interest to those engaged in the various facets of spiritual direction whether personally and explicitly labelled or simply as part of pastoral ministry and leadership.
Given the confluence of interests and techniques that are common between LC and spiritual direction, I wonder whether LC holds out also the hope of a way round the terminological difficulty many involved in spiritual direction feel about the term 'spiritual director' and '~direction'. They are felt, with good reason, to be far too hierarchical and authoritarian in their connotations to be comfortably used, and yet coming up with something more suitable is hard, in part because of the felt need to keep a label that refers to the history of the ministry. I wonder whether using the term 'coach' and 'coaching' may help: 'spiritual-direction coach' '~ing', or even 'spiritual-life coaching'.
LC and mission
If it is true that our culture is becoming one where we can less and less presuppose that there is any meaningful exposure to and understanding of key Christian narratives and concepts, then we must be prepared to examine carefully our catechesis and evangelistic methods, formed as they have been by hundreds of years of major Christian input into our cultural background and heritage.
If it is true also that religiosity and spirituality are very popular in our culture but largely disconnected from Christian institutions and ideas and if it is true that indivualisation now vitally shapes our social experience (and if that's not an oxymoron), then we need to be finding ways to engage credibly with individuals in their spiritual searching. It may be that the growth of life coaching with its readiness to explore issues of meaning is something that we should take note of not only as a potential resource for Christian formation but as a sign of the times we are working in.
There is reason to think that the growth of spiritual direction is also a sign of the individualisation of spirituality and of the inadequacy of the kind of 'mass delivery' we have hitherto used to meet the needs of Christians, including through such things as Alpha. In a culture increasingly marked by customisation and personal service, it is hard to expect that people are going to be impressed by having their deeper questions and spiritual sensibilities processed through a mass system that has no space for their individuality and uniqueness. In LC we see a valuing of what people bring to the process of being coached, and in education we find a recognition of the importance of learning already attained, so we distinguish the contours of a cultural mood that is impatient with being treated as tabula rasa.
Now this is nothing new, but it should alert us to the importance of developing evangelism which takes seriously the spiritual searching and the insights already gained and to do so personally and individually. In other words at least some of our evangelism should look a lot more like spiritual direction and life coaching. Perhaps 'look' in that last sentence should read 'be'. To explain that further, there should be in our evangelism a deliberate setting aside of effort to listen. Listening first of all to the person before us: what is their history with or without God? What signs do we find of God's work in their life? What are the insights we can affirm? What might need challenging at some point? What about the gospel is likely to resonate most deeply? What images of Christ seem to be most important to present? How do we encourage this person to listen for the call of God and to hear it? What kind of learning style do they have and how does that affect the way that they seek and the way that we accompany them?
Life coaching, in majoring on questioning, valuing the other, listening at several levels, encouraging curiosity, offers tools to help us to do these things well (and tools to enable us to continually improve too). These skills can also be employed in group work though I would recommend that we should gain some proficiency in using them one-to-one first. Clearly too they are tools that can be used for mission in the wider sense too: listening to a community in order to discern its needs,aspirations and to bolster its sense of resourcefulness; engaging with an institution through its members and workers.
Final remarks
The main thrust of what has been written here is to introduce life coaching to those engaged in Christian ministry and mission with the strong suggestion that it has many positives potentially for the exercise of key dimensions of Christian ministry especially in regard to oversight and initial and continuing ministerial formation. Indeed, it could be a valuable tool if key skills and attitudes were sufficiently 'cascaded' to clergy and others in leadership in the development of lay participation and lay-ministerial growth. I would like to encourage the church as a whole to investigate LC and to begin to use it and apply its insights and techniques in mission and ministry, training and development.I am aware that the skills and insights of LC are not really new; what is exciting and helpful about life coaching, however, is the orientation to positive change and the emphasis on existing resourcefulness along with the strong personal support of the coach. This is a combination which enables people to make changes in very empowering ways that build personal capacity. I am also aware, in writing this, that there is little by way of programmatic changes offered. This is because the process, I believe, should be of a piece with the goals; we should implement this change by doing it and in the listening that it requires discover and encourage the next steps forward. I actually hope that doing so will begun to fashion a vocation-shaped church.
Andii Bowsher, (cc)You may reproduce this in part, not for profit, with attribution and permission of the author.
Chicago Citation details:
Bowsher, Andii. "Nouslife: Wisdom is proved right by all her children: Life Coaching, Christian ministry and mission | Ourmedia." Nouslife. http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2005/04/wisdom-is-proved-right-by-all-her.html
APA citation details:
Bowsher, A. (2005, April 9). Nouslife: Wisdom is proved right by all her children: Life Coaching, Christian ministry and mission | Ourmedia. Nouslife. Retrieved May 4, 2013, from http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2005/04/wisdom-is-proved-right-by-all-her.html
Footnotes
2http://www.brilliantissimo.co.uk/coaching/history.htm , accessed: 04/29/04
3Op.cit.
4see
http://www.lifecoachtraining.com/personal.html
accessed: 04/29/04
5http://www.4change.info/life%20coaching.htm, accessed: 04/29/04
6http://www.byregion.net/glossary/lifecoaching.html , Accessed: 04/29/04
7Anthony Grant, http://www.pr.mq.edu.au/macnews/ShowItem.asp?ItemID=146, accessed: 04/29/04
8http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/coach/ICF-USA-Research_Keynote_AMGrant_NOV_2003.pdf , accessed 05/05/04
9 David Rock , op cit
10 p.15. Downey, Myles. Effective Coaching. London, Texere 1999, reprinted 2002
11Christopher
Aune,
http://www.lifeskillspro.com/about.asp?Q=10http://www.lifeskillspro.com/about.asp?Q=10
12Marilyn Comrie, director of communications for national life coaching service Excelerate
13http://www.byregion.net/glossary/lifecoaching.html Accessed: 04/29/04
14p.25 Downey, 1999, reprinted 2002.
15ibid p.26
16http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/features/2004/01/14/life_coach.shtml and http://psychologydoc.com/executive_&_life_coaching.htm Accessed: 04/29/04
17http://psychologydoc.com/executive_&_life_coaching.htm and http://www.lifecoachtraining.com/personal.html Accessed: 04/29/04
18 p.25, Downey,
19http://www.brilliantissimo.co.uk/coaching/history.htm Accessed: 04/29/04
20http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Coaching Accessed: 04/29/04
21 http://www.lifecoachtraining.com/personal.html Accessed: 04/29/04
22http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/insideldn/insideout/lifecoach.shtml Accessed: 04/29/04
23p.7. Whitworth Laura, Kimsey-House Henry , Sandahl Phil: Co-Active Coaching, New Skills for Coaching People Towards Success in Work and Life. Palo Alto, CA, Davies Black Publishing,1998. First Edition 1998.
24Ibid p.115
25p.12 Whitworth et al. Op cit.
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