Individual Coaching 
for Pastors

Being a pastor usually means being subject to a variety of predictable expectations. As a pastor, you are expected to be "omni-competent" (as author Greg Ogden put it), and when it becomes clear that you are not, you'll most likely hear about from someone who thinks you should be. 

So here's the bad news, and the good news:

• The bad news is that those expectations aren't likely to go away anytime soon

• The good news is that you don't have to try to fulfill them in order to be faithful to your call

Whether pastoring a large church, or a small church...as a solo pastor, or part of a larger staff...your role is one of the most challenging, complex, and potentially lonely vocations I know of--I know this personally from nearly 25 years of experience. It's worth your while for you to get as clear as possible on how you want to faithfully and effectively live out God's call on your life. 

When I work with you as your coach, I don't tell you what to do and how to do it. You're the expert on your own life, and--though it may not always feel like it--the one most capable of discerning solutions to the challenges you face.  

Won't it be refreshing to have someone in your corner who'll be able to help you think out loud, reflect theologically on your particular call, process your experience, get clear on the ways you want to move forward, and actually help you create realistic, achievable steps to do that?


(References from pastors available upon request. See also the feedback page.)

Schedule a free consultation today

Vision Discernment and Implementation 

Let's face it...helping your church discern a compelling vision for the future is something most churches wish they could do effectively, yet struggle with tangibly.

With my consulting partner, Dr. Corey Schlosser-Hall, we help churches discern vision through a customized, effective, and highly encouraging process, combining Appreciative Inquiry with Solution-Focused Processing.

To learn more about Corey, click HERE.

What will change for your church if you are clear about the vision you believe God has for you? We'd love to help you discern what that future might be...and then put that vision into action.

Building Trustworthiness and Effectiveness in Leadership Teams

This is a confusing and unnerving time in history to many in the church, and congregational anxiety levels can rise dramatically as the things that always seemed to work so well in the past simply fall flat. When anxiety levels rise, so does emotional reactivity, in-fighting, blame displacement, tunnel vision, and a "quick fix" mentality. Needless to say, all of this has tendency to cripple the church's witness to the world, rather than enhance it, and ultimately doesn't solve a thing.

The leadership of the church faces a number of challenges--not the least of which is to manage its own anxiety and temptation to join in the congregation's reactivity. Will the congregation's anxiety impact the leadership team, or will the leadership team's non-anxious presence positively impact congregational anxiety?

We work with church leadership teams like yours--in workshops, retreats, and ongoing coaching and consulting--to help you learn how to radically maximize your collaboration during these "interesting" times. Through the use of the Core Values Index (a simple and powerful tool that will forever change the way you approach leadership and teamwork), you'll discover how to bring out the highest and best contributions in each other, and model healthy, non-anxious relationships for the rest of the church.

Your church will be best served by a leadership team that embodies your vision. Through tailored consulting with your team, we will help you both develop and sustain that focus.

"Tom's time with our staff was a gift. His presentation gave us language and tools to deal with some of the recurring challenges in our staff dynamics. We are now able to face some of the dynamics that were tripping us up with more quantitative data, understanding, and effectiveness."
Doug Bunnell - Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
Bellingham, Washington