Resolved

So, what would you like to talk about?…

What do you want to take away from this conversation?…

Are we on track?…

What’s a next step you would like to take?…

Who can keep you accountable to do that?…

Some simple questions in a half hour conversation that is held in confidentiality and care.  Some open ended questions to invite some deeper personal reflection.  A listening ear.  There you have it – the essence of what some might call a simple “coaching conversation.”

Last fall I started a training program on becoming a coach with other United Church of Christ clergy.  I stumbled into this opportunity at our General Synod for the UCC last summer when I met Felix Villanueva, Conference Minister for Southern California-Nevada Conference.  He told me about a training he was offering for clergy in his conference to be coaches for other clergy.  I asked if I could attend as well and signed up.

The thing that keeps brining me back into ministry and the gift of pastoring is conversation.  There is nothing more that I value than conversations that probe beneath the surface of “fine thank you” and make space to consider some of the important matters of our hearts and discernment.  It has been a gift beyond measure to walk with so many in the many joys and trials, challenges and change that are life.

This practice of “coaching” has been a great tool in my toolkit as a listener.  As therapy can focus on processing what in our past keeps us stuck, coaching is a conversation about stepping forth into the future.  While I know for myself the need at times to just spin in my own lostness or sadness, I am also gifted by those who open up for me the possibility that there could be some meaning in all this, or in other words, that despite the spin of the familiar, that this in fact is all going somewhere.  That I am going somewhere from lost to found (or often into deeper lostness!) and that this is the way to find my way through.

Which brings me to New Years.  By now I have stepped into my annual joy of naming new resolutions in my life and by this second week of January already have forgotten many of them, neglected most of them, and held onto the vague hope that yes, this year, I will, despite my false starts, make a path forward in ways that are life-giving.  I’ve learned that I can’t take those steps as effectively alone.   At my best, I remember that!

So I’d invite you to join me and practice some informal coaching in your own life this new year.  Do you have a resolution for what you’d like to be about this coming year?  How might you articulate that as a specific, measurable, time-specific commitment?  And is there someone in your life you could ask to help keep you accountable to do that?  Maybe you would agree to tell them each week by phone or email or to meet in person and check in on how you did.  A partner like that can be a great way to hold you to what you want to do as well as a good reminder and expression of grace when you don’t.  With support like that you can get up and try again.

This is a time of tumultuous change in our world and in many of our personal lives.  And this is a time that would be an especially great time for some of us to commit to making some changes in our lives that lead to those very things we talked about at Christmas – deeper hope, peace, love, joy.  More life.  More taking in Christ-among-us in all the ways Christ is known in and between us.

Happy New Year – and Happy Stepping Forward into where Life Abundant is calling you to go!