Here are four steps for pursuing your interest in becoming a coach.

As a Christian, you likely want to pray through all aspects of the process and make your decisions about how to proceed based on your sense of God’s direction.  The following provides a basic structure and context for you to customize based on your unique circumstances and goals.

You are invited to post questions here, asking for further assistance and clarification.

Step one.  Learn all you can about the profession and ministry of coaching.

• Read and do internet research.  Much of what you want and need to know is right here at this site.
• Interview coaches who are successfully doing what you want to do.
• Hire a coach to learn what it’s like to be coached and how coaching works.*

Step two.  Before comitting time, money and resources to a career change or coach training, take time to make sure coaching will fulfill the vision you are pursuing.

• Learn how coaching is similar to other helping professions, but distinctly different.
• Make sure becoming a coach fulfills the unique goals you are pursuing.
• Work with a coach to help clarify your vision and make a good plan.*

Step three.  Choose training that moves you toward your vision.

• Research Christian coach training programs, including those professionally accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF).
• Find other ICF professionally accredited schcools listed at www.coachfederation.org.
• Use The Complete Guide to Christian Coach Training for further information on thirteen Christian coach training programs and consideration of eleven coach training decision making factors.  Yes, I’m the author of this ebook.  There is nothing else like it available.

Step four.  Activate your training and establish yourself as a coach.

• Be encouraged in most training programs to practice coaching while learning.
• Receive from most training programs information and support for establishing a coaching business or ministry.
• Work with a mentor coach - one who has successfully established a practice or ministry similar to your vision.*
• Pursue professional coach certification to the extent that it supports your unique vision and goals.
• Participate in continuing education to expand your business skills and advance your coaching expertise.
• Find encouragement and enlightment by intentionally connection with other Christian coaches. 

*If you do not have a coach and know that you will benefit by working with an experienced mentor to prospective and new Christian coaches, I would love to be your coach.  Please contact me to inquire about individual coaching, groups, classes and special rates available to visitors and members of this site.

So I’m at Starbucks, mug in hand, sitting across the table from Judy Santos, founder and director of the Christian Coaches Network.  Wouldn’t that be fun? 

Last time I was in the Seattle area, we did enjoy time together over coffee.  But today I’m in Minnesota and she is in Washington.  So here is a brief “interview” via email exchange.

Linda:  Judy, you’ve been the director of the Christian Coaches Network since you founded it in 1998.  How many prospective new coaches have contacted you for information since then?

Judy:  Oh gosh - I have no idea?  Maybe 1,500?  It’s one of the most FAQs and of course the frequency increased when the word was out that coach training was available from a Christian perspective. 

Linda:  How has your advice to prospective new coaches changed over the years?

Judy:  It really has.  While the basics remain intact, there are a lot of people who want to become a coach but never get their businesses off the ground.  So I suggest it is helpful to have an entrepreneurial gene or two and a desire to run a small business.  People are drawn to coaching because they want to coach, but unless a person is working for somebody else who signs a paycheck, you also have to look at it as a small business that includes organizing, policy setting, marketing, administration, bookkepping, etc.

Linda:  What makes a Christian coach successful?

Judy:  Excellent coaching skills, credibility that builds a good reputation, well-defined branding and continuous marketing.  (see Judy’s article, Qualities of Successful Christian Coaches, at “The Christian Coaching Center”).

Linda:  I know you as someone who relies on God’s word for authority and direction.  What passage of scripture has God most recently drawn you to as it applies to Christian coaches and the field of Christian coaching?

Judy:  “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”  James 1:5-6

Judy:  This is a good reminder to ask and remain prayerful, knowing God will answer.

*I first posted this article at The Christian Coaching Center (May 2009).