Forward Steps Coaching

Today I was out cleaning around my mom's fish pond that has a great need of refreshment from overgrowth. Pulling w**ds, picking up dead leaves, etc was going really well until pulling another w**d out of the bank I distrubed the yellow jacket nest. Now I didn't get stung, thanks for asking, but it did put a damper in the progress. Everythinig right now is sitting out side and I'm inside! So it is with forward movement. We are pulling up the w**ds that stall us, even shaped our path and then something bigger and meaner comes at us. What will you do? That's were coaching comes in! I'm here to help.
Message me for a free 15 minute conversation. Let's see what the next step might be.

Your Vision Will Give You Your Map. Tell me your dream and I’ll tell you your future. There’s nothing like a dream to give you a map to follow.

Having recently retired from full time ministry one can really be challenged to 'what's next?' Your next doesn't have to be what you are most familiar with, experienced in the past, or even think you are locked into something. But you'll never know unless you take the time to develop a road map.

It doesn't need to be for 5 years, 5 months, 5 days. But you need a decision on the question, "what's next?"

Memorial Day is a time to reflect on the cost of freedom in human lives. The men and women who have served the public by fighting in our wars for the hopes and dreams that you and I have. On the day after Memorial Day is a time to own up to what you dream. Will you? Can you? I believe you have the will and the "can" but sometimes you need a boost. That's where I can help.

Mark Twain once wrote, "Never allow someone to be your priority, while allowing yourself to be their option."

As you consider this statement how do people become your priority? What can you do to balance their needs, their emergency, their panic from becoming your need to fix, control or erase a panic? Have you ever experienced this? Where someone else has become your priority and you know you are being used?

What steps keep a balance in relationships?

What are you wrestling? name it. be sure to drill down to it.
How did you come up with that name for it?
What does that name tell you as to your next forward steps?

There once was a man; he was a preacher, of all things. But he was also a passionate amateur musician. He prayed regularly to God that he could become a better guitar player. He would pray earnestly, fervently: “Lord, please give me a portion of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s spirit!”

But what happened, over the course of long, slow years of living was that he came, slowly, to realize that he just wasn’t a Stevie Ray Vaughan kind of guitar player or, for that matter, a Stevie Ray Vaughan kind of guy — not the Stevie Ray Vaughan before recovery, or the Stevie Ray Vaughan after recovery. He was no classy, funky, rocked–out bluesman; he was a preacher, for heaven’s sake! Preachers aren’t cool! (Okay, well, maybe some of them are, but not many. This guy wasn’t — as much as he wanted to be.) No,
he was pretty much a straightforward, straight–ahead, white–bread, folky pop singer. That was the gift he had, and he learned over the years to honor that gift and to use it as best he could to be who he really was: a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, using such means as he had at his disposal to bring that Gospel into people’s lives.

And so he came to understand that God had answered his prayer after all — or perhaps he just realized that his answer was always there, right in front of him, in the form of God’s gift of life to him. Whatever the case, the realization came slowly, over the years. The answer was not what he expected or thought that he wanted. God’s answer was to gently demand that he accept himself for who he was, identify his own gifts — however small and paltry they seemed in comparison to the gifts of others, and use those gifts to carry out God's plan for his life and for the greater life of the church and the world.

What are your gifts?
If you were to measure your frustration level what is it?
What steps could you take to relive the frustration?
How can you accept 'you?'

Conversations are hard to go deep in especially when we are polar opposites in our views. That's why having a diagram of a pathway for a solution can be helpful. I present this for your support in doing so. I encourage you when you are in the midst of disagreement or you see that the conversation isn't headed to a solution that is agreeable to both parties then practice this for the next time. Start small and share this, so both of you are knowledgable.

Lately as a pastor of a church I've been working with our bank to get loan to help pay our employees. It's tough. Not knowing what the future will bring. Will we be open? Will we continue doing good work? Will we need to change?

When you face your situation these questions and others help go deep and going deep help in making a decision, a course of action, a forward step.

Ask good questions, then take a step. Follow the trail. Then ask again. The future is yours to take.

Walking, running, hopping we all get there. Need someone to walk, run or hop with you. Let me know.

From the book of Psalms 37:35,36 "I have seen a violent, wicked man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. Then he passed away, an lo, he was no more."

I look to see a problem like the coronavirus as this violent, wicked man spreading out like it owns the place. And while difficult to manage and we adapt to it eventually this too shall pass.

That is what coaching is - learning to adapt, press on, be faithful to the goals we have. Hope all is well with you and yours.

One of the most famous Methodist evangelists in American history was George R. Stuart. During the height of Spanish Flu in October 1918, Stuart wrote, "We have had the strange experience of a churchless Sabbath. What has it taught us? The pandemic should convince "Intelligent Christians" to trust science rather than seeking to "tempt God to perform a miracle in the preservation of our health... Christians do not discount their faith in the omnipotence of their God by keeping their bodies and homes and streets clean and nongerm producing; by using care in traffic and travel, accepting vaccination, sprays and disinfectants and keeping God's own laws of health and life. Any other course is the fruit of ignorance and false teaching."