What Christian Life Coaching Is (and Is Not)

What You Will Learn

• Define Christian life coaching in your own words
• Compare coaching, counseling, therapy, mentoring, and discipleship
• Describe the coach's role as a forward-focused helper, not an expert with answers
• Name the situations that mean “pause coaching and refer”

Lesson Notes

What Coaching Is

Christian life coaching is a helping conversation in which a coach listens, asks questions, and supports another person as she clarifies what she wants, seeks God's direction, and takes action. The person being coached (often called the client or coachee) does most of the thinking and deciding. The coach brings structure, encouragement, prayer, and accountability.

Coaching assumes the client is able to move forward. It looks mostly at today and tomorrow: goals, choices, habits, and next steps.

Five Kinds of Helping

• Coaching: forward-focused; the client sets the agenda; the coach asks more than she tells.
• Biblical lay counseling (BLC 241–242): caring, Scripture-centered conversations about life's struggles, within lay limits.
• Professional counseling or therapy: provided by licensed professionals who assess and treat mental-health concerns, trauma, and addiction.
• Mentoring: a more experienced person shares wisdom and example from her own path.
• Discipleship: helping someone follow Jesus and grow in His Word.

A Christian coach may draw on all of her faith, but in a coaching session she wears the coaching hat. She tells the client if she is switching to sharing advice or Scripture teaching.

Coaching Is Not Therapy

Coaches never diagnose, never give advice about medication, and never handle a crisis alone. If any of these surface, pause the coaching and refer:

• Past trauma that the client wants or needs to work through
• Signs of mental-health symptoms (for example, deep hopelessness, confusion, or not sleeping or eating)
• Alcohol or drug use, or cravings
• Any danger: talk of suicide or self-harm, threats, or abuse

Inside the facility, go to staff or the chaplain right away. Outside, call 911 in an emergency, or call or text 988 (the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.). You can return to coaching later when the client is safe and supported.

A Lay Ministry Credential

This certificate prepares you for lay ministry: serving in a church, a re-entry program, or among friends. It is not a clinical license. Rules about professional or paid coaching and coaching credentials vary; if you hope to coach for pay someday, check the requirements where you live and with any organization you work with before you advertise or charge.

Key Terms

In-Class Activities

Which Hat?

Read each short scenario and write whether it calls for coaching, lay counseling, professional help, mentoring, or discipleship. Some may need more than one.

1. Dana wants to finish her GED before release and keeps putting it off.

2. Rochelle says she hasn't slept in a week and feels like giving up.

3. Lisa asks how you learned to study your Bible.

4. Monique wants to know how you handled your first job interview.

5. Kesha is grieving her mother and wants to talk about it.

(All names are composite examples.)

Pause-and-Refer Card

On an index card or the form provided, write the four situations that mean pause and refer, who you would go to inside the facility, and the two numbers to use outside (911 and 988). Keep this card in your workbook.

Assignment: Coaching in My Own Words

Write one page:

• Define Christian life coaching in two or three sentences.
• Explain how coaching differs from counseling, mentoring, and discipleship.
• List the situations where you would pause coaching and whom you would contact.
• Describe one person who helped you move forward by asking good questions rather than giving orders (no names needed).

Graded with the Module Assignment Rubric.

Reflection Journal

Galatians 6:2 calls us to bear one another's burdens. Some burdens a friend can carry with you; others need someone with more training. How do you feel about the idea that knowing your limits is part of loving someone well?

Prayer focus: Ask God for a servant's heart, wisdom to know your limits, and courage to refer when someone needs more help.

Walking Beside, Not Out Front

Think about the people who helped you most. Some gave good advice. But often the ones who changed something in you were the ones who listened, asked a question you had never considered, and trusted you to find the answer with God's help.

That is the heart of Christian life coaching. A coach walks beside a woman, not out in front of her. The client sets the agenda. The coach brings questions, structure, prayer, and encouragement, and the client does the deciding.

Coaching also has clear limits. It is not therapy. A coach does not diagnose, advise on medication, or handle a crisis alone. When Moses tried to carry every burden himself, his father-in-law Jethro told him, “this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone” (Exodus 18:18). Knowing when to refer is part of loving well.

When Teresa began this course, she thought a good helper had an answer for everything. (Teresa is a composite example.) By the end of the first week, she had written a Pause-and-Refer card and kept it in her Bible. “I don't have to fix everyone,” she said. “I just have to be faithful with my part.”

Think About It

1. Who helped you most by asking rather than telling? ______________________
2. Which limit of coaching feels most important to you? ______________________
3. How does knowing your limits free you to serve? ______________________

Daily Devotions for Week 1

Bearing Burdens

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.— Galatians 6:2 (KJV)

Coaching is one way to share another's load: listening, praying, and helping her take her next step.

Reflect: Whose burden is God inviting you to help carry?

Pray: Lord, give me a heart to bear others' burdens.

Do: Listen to someone today without giving advice.

Too Heavy Alone

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.— Exodus 18:18 (KJV)

Even Moses needed others to share the load. Referring someone is not failure; it is wisdom.

Reflect: Where are you trying to carry too much alone?

Pray: Lord, teach me to share the load.

Do: Write down who you would go to if someone you helped were in danger.

The Things of Others

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.— Philippians 2:4 (KJV)

Coaching turns our attention outward, toward the hopes and goals of someone else.

Reflect: What are the hopes of the woman next to you?

Pray: Lord, help me care about others' concerns.

Do: Ask someone what she is hoping for this month.

Swift to Hear

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.— James 1:19 (KJV)

Good coaches listen more than they talk.

Reflect: Are you quicker to speak or to hear?

Pray: Lord, make me swift to hear.

Do: In one conversation today, let the other person speak first and longest.

Weeping and Rejoicing

Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.— Romans 12:15 (KJV)

Coaches celebrate wins and respect sorrow. When sorrow runs deep, they help a friend find more help.

Reflect: Who needs you to rejoice with her? Who needs you to sit with her?

Pray: Lord, give me compassion for others' joys and sorrows.

Do: Celebrate someone's small win today.