Coaching: A Gift Offered in Discernment

The. Rev. Canon Gail Avery, Coach for 2023-24, Episcopal Church of New Hampshire

Ibelong to a congregation that hands out Epiphany Stars to serve as a guide for the coming year. Each star is beautifully etched with a word uniquely different from another. It is believed that the star actually chooses you. It’s your word to ponder throughout the year, to pray over and discern its meaning for you.

This year, my star word is discern. Though no stranger to discernment and the gifts it brings, I momentarily questioned the efficacy of this year’s word since I actually did not choose my own star. It had been handed to me in an envelope as I hurried into the church just before the opening hymn.

Was it actually my word? Had that particular star chosen me? Do I need to choose another envelope? And then I settled down a bit, recalling that true discernment is never a solitary act. So why wouldn’t choosing a star involve another?

To be effective, discernment is always done in and with community. It requires guidance from others. A witness. A trusted partner. A companion coming alongside to hold a reflective light. There may be times when more focused listeners are needed, such as the Loving the Questions community, who are committed to journeying together. And it may take someone like a coach or spiritual director skilled in listening deeply and asking powerful questions that can lead to a different way of being.

I saw first-hand the benefits of coaching while on diocesan staff. One of my roles as Canon was to help congregations and their clergy to recognize and share their God-given gifts among the communities they served. The coaching process was an effective way for individuals and congregations to step into their full capacity. My role was not as coach but a resource to those wanting to be coached. When an opportunity arose to help facilitate a coaching training, I was all in. What better way to get to know the coaches I would be recommending?

What I didn’t expect was that it would lead to my own discernment in becoming a certified professional coach and offer my coaching services to the Loving the Questions community.

Coaching is different from spiritual direction, which is more of a conversation with a skillful guide who can help others to see where God is working in their lives. While spiritual direction helps us to see and name where God is in the middle of the questions, coaching helps us to live the questions, especially when one might not even be sure where to begin, watching for what emerges along the way.

The coaching process is self-directed and begins with the coachee coming to the session with something they would like to work on. Together, the coachee and coach explore how to move towards what the coachee would like to accomplish, with the coachee discovering for themselves possible next steps, identifying resources and a path forward that holds the coachee accountable.

As with spiritual direction, this process requires deep listening on the part of the coach and asking powerful questions to help the coachee discover for themselves what might be getting in the way— modeling what Heifetz calls, “getting off the dance floor and onto the balcony” in order to see alternative paths along the way.

I’ve witnessed this phenomenon multiple times with an individual I’ve coached through the Loving the Questions discernment program. A new awareness occurred, a simple step taken that moved the individual forward and changed how that individual now approaches life—fully integrated and on the path God chose just for him.

One might say, he’s discovering his own Star. ♦