Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God

This is without a doubt one of the most helpful books I have ever read on spiritual leadership in the Body of Christ. There are numerous reasons for this:1) It highlights the desperate need of all leaders to be cared for while they are caring for others.2) The Gospel is clearly heralded as the foundation for the healthy Christian life and the solution to all leadership struggles.3) It swings the pendulum from pragmatic, spiritually empty forms of leadership toward a Christ-centered, spiritually attuned method.4) It exposes heart idols that are the root of the vast majority of issues that leaders face. It helped me not only in seeing the heart idols in others, but more importantly in my own life.5) It provides practical examples of what mentoring/coaching conversations should look like. The examples are a bit too "clean cut" and make coaching conversations look easier than they actually are, but nonetheless it gives a vision of what to aim for.6) The concepts are applicable to all levels of spiritual leadership and all arenas of Christian discipleship. The questions and methods utilized could work in one one one mentoring between a pastor and a high level volunteer leader, or even in a group setting.7) It reminds us that our only hope is Jesus, and that he is enough.Now no book is perfect, to be sure. I have seen better diagrams of spiritual growth and the spheres of the Christian life, and though the authors heavily critique pragmatic "life-coaching" methods, they utilize them to an extent in the final section of the book. Nonetheless, these are small gripes and more just matters of opinion on my end.Ultimately, I feel that I could go on for days about how helpful this book is. It completely changed the way I think about my own spiritual life as well as my discipling relationships. It exposed heart idols of mine, and areas that I can grow in leading others to gospel drenched freedom in Jesus. Bottom line, you need to read it. If you are a leader, especially a leader of leaders, your money and time will be well spent on this book.

Here is a book that has shifted my thinking about coaching in general and coaching church planters in particular. I had previously learned a way of coaching that was more passive and was characterized by what this book calls "a nondirective, client-centered therapy (CCT) approach to solving personal problems in which the therapist/coach deliberately avoids directing or instructing the client in a particular way--even if he feels it can help the client" (45).Scott and Wood give another approach to coaching described as "gospel coaching" where the good news of the gospel permeates both the coach and the person being mentored. Instead of "performance-centered living" (63), the person being mentored moves to "gospel-centered living" (69-70) where the roots are found in our being in Christ. This means realizing all that I have in Christ and living on that identity.This does not lead to a passive life style since this "gospel-centered life" has as its goal the worship of God and is empowered by the Holy Spirit (77).The effective coach is a "shepherd-leader" (chapter six) and out of this flows the four qualities of a shepherd: knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting the disciple leader.The coach is also concerned to help those being mentored to avoid the idols of power, approval, comfort, and security (69). The authors state their concern that "ministry leaders often drink a poisonous cocktail of narcissism and isolation" (69). Gospel-centered mentoring deals with the person, spiritual, and mission aspects of the disciple-leader (97).There are six appendices where this type of gospel-centered coaching is worked out in practice.How much I wish I would have had this help when seeking to help other church planters and pastors as well as seeing how this works out in my life. It will certainly make a difference as I help in mentoring church planters in the future.

It's a practical, Gospel centered tool to care holistically for all those serving in the local church. It provides thoughtfulness and care in how to live out a multipliable one another ministry and selling to care for each others burdens and building up where God has specifically gifted each person for the good of the local church, the disciple, the coach all to the glory of God.

This book has both theory and practice all in one. I had a hard time getting through it all because of the different dimensions. The foundation in your life of the Gospel was very important, however I found myself wanting to get on with the "how." My favorite part of the book was the middle portion that discussed what it means to be a coach, I.e. shepherd. I found it very motivational and inspiring. The last portion outlines what a gospel coach meeting would look like...a little drier, but obviously necessary for the intentions of the author. This will be a good manual to have in my library even though it was a difficult book to get through quickly.

I found the book pretty good overall. It attempts to be a standalone book, assuming that many of its readers have not read a book explaining what the gospel is and how it affects our life. Since I read "The Explicit Gospel" and "Creature of the Word" before this book, the first and second sections of the book *seemed* a little redundant (not that the gospel can ever be redundant). However, the practical steps in section 3 were amazing and all the helps and forms at the end of the book are worth the cost of buying both the Kindle version AND the paperback.

Some helpful thoughts about shepherding others. There was nothing new, but that does not mean that there is no value in reading this particular volume.

The book give a great overview of gospel-centrered coaching. It is a must read of all of you who are involve in your church or in leadership position.