Coaching can help leaders clarify vision, get unstuck, and live more fully into their God-given potential in all areas of life. Coaching focuses on the principles of accompaniment to empower individuals to discover their own potential and to take ownership of living into this vision.
Level One Basic Skills Coach Training will give you 20 hours of coach-specific training (continuing education hours recognized by the International Coaching Federation and usable toward a professional credential with the ICF), as well as a beginning set of skills to use in coaching others in the work of ministry, leadership development, and life transformation.
What You’ll Gain
- Methods – like powerful questioning and affirming language – that empower and equip the people you’re coaching
- Skills for helping people clearly identify where they are, where God is calling them, and the steps they will need to take to get there
- Real-life coaching practice within your cohort
SHIFT MINISTRY MODELS
This course will help you equip and empower others. You will gain skills to use in coaching others in the work of ministry, leadership development, and life transformation.
What to Expect
Join us on these dates from 1-3 PM Central:
- Sessions 1-4:
An Introduction, Some New Skills, and What Coaching Can Look Like
Your first four weeks of Level 1 Basic Skills Coach Training will be an intense deep dive that helps you properly define coaching, learn the initial skills required to empower your clients, and allow you to see the pieces come together within helpful demonstrations. Everything that follows in the next four sessions will be built on the knowledge you gain here.
- Sessions 5-8:
Practice Means Progress – and Developing More New Skills
In this last month of training, you’ll be given numerous opportunities to practice the skills you’ve been learning – from how active listening changes the direction of hard conversations to the role honest questions plays in your client’s growth. New skills will also be developed during this time, as you envision what the practice of coaching will look like for you and the people around you.
Please note: attendance is mandatory for sessions 5 and 8.
- Post-Work
Final Coaching Triad
This third practice triad is scheduled with the other members of your triad and the evaluator. It is completed ideally within 2 weeks (and no more than 4 weeks) of the final class.
Meet the Trainers
Rev. Dr. Don Eisenhauer
Don Eisenhauer is a Master Certified Coach, accredited by the International Coach Federation. He is the founder and president of Coaching at End of Life, LLC (coachingatendoflife.com), providing life and end of life training, resources, and coach certification. In addition to doing life and end of life coaching, Don served for 19 years as a Hospice Chaplain and Bereavement Coordinator for two hospices in Pennsylvania.
Rev. Dr. Dawn Alitz
The Rev. Dawn Alitz, Ph.D., serves as Director of Communities and Coaching at Luther Seminary. Dr. Alitz’s expertise is in the area of adult faith formation, coaching, and program coordination. Before joining the Luther staff in 2016, she had over twenty years of experience in congregational leadership in both mission-start and established congregations. She has her ACC credentialing with the International Coaching Federation, trained with the Global Team Coaching Institute, and is well-known within ELCA and ecumenical circles for her work with adaptive leadership, developing online learning opportunities, and collaborating with various networks of educational and synodical professionals. Dr. Alitz’s role at Luther places her in a unique position to equip leaders to engage the Gospel in the 21st century by designing, piloting, and building out new business models for theological education and congregational leadership.
Rev. Dr. Johan Bergh
After serving as a rostered minister (ordained pastor) in the ELCA for 39+ years, Johan recently retired and is excited now to devote more time to his passion for coaching! With 15 years of experience, he is skilled at helping leaders and teams move ahead personally and professionally to where they see and feel they need to be. Married, with adult children and two grandchildren, Johan enjoys biking, spinning, golf, fitness training, birding, reading, and writing.
How it Works
Join your trainers and an engaged learning cohort of faith leaders live and online!
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Participate in eight two-hour webcast sessions
Join us every Wednesday in January and February (from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM CST) as we work through the complexities of coaching together and in groups.
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Complete your training with a final triad practice session
Meet with a trainer and your triad for a final practice session.
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Practice your coaching skills in a safe environment
In sessions 5 and 8, you will have the opportunity to break out into triads facilitated by an experienced coaching evaluator to experience coaching and being coached as you practice your new skills.
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Develop Meaningful Connections
Coaching can be heavy work sometimes. That’s why it’s important to have people to turn to who understand the issues you’re facing. This course will allow you to build those relationships.