“Help me understand,” is a great phrase to use in many situations when you want to open the door to meaningful conversations. When you use that phrase, it indicates that you’ve not made a definitive conclusion, but you’re open to learning more. Sometimes this...
I have one client who I very often ask, “Who can help you with this?” He’ll usually respond, “That’s a good question,” and then he proceeds to come up with more people who can help him. We’d had about eight appointments and I had probably asked him that...
My book Coaching 101 lays out the basic structure of a coaching relationship. It assumes a formalized coaching relationship with a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, you can also use coaching in your ministry in less formal ways– just as a way of relating...
One challenge we face in coaching is to learn how to ask open-ended questions. From an early age we are exposed to closed questions. Parents, for example, usually ask closed questions: Did you do that? Are you ready to…? In school we are given true/false or multiple...
I conducted an experiment for one year (although with humans, not guinea pigs). The goal was to not answer people’s questions directly, but to first ask, “What do you think?” I would listen, summarize without evaluating or interpreting. Then I’d invite them to...
Are certain sins or struggles in your life strongholds? Or are they stronghabits? A stronghold has a spiritual component to it. There is more spiritual warfare involved and we need to pray (and receive prayer) for deliverance. Some other areas of our lives may...
