CEP 09: CLAIRE PEDRICK - COACHING AS A DISCIPLESHIP MODEL?

Jul 12

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

Welcome to Episode: 09 of the Church Explained Podcast. A conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We will talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.

In this episode, we chat with Claire Pedrick, author and master coach, on coaching as a discipleship model. Claire shares some challenging and helpful insights on how we as leaders can be better disciple-makers by learning to listen more and allowing people to take ownership of their journey. This episode is packed with insights that you can begin to add straight away to help you become a better leader.

PLEASE NOTE - We apologise that we had a few internet issues on this one. However, we still wanted to put this out, so if you can ignore the few dropouts, it is worth it to get to the gold.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

David Mckeown 0:00

Hey welcome to the Church explained podcast a conversation to develop your leadership and grow your Church. Or Colin This podcast is to share inspirational insights and ideas with resource leaders churches on pains through a conversation with key players IKON Church and other guests. Today we're joined by Claire Padraig, and we're going to look at this idea of coaching as a discipleship model.

David Mckeown 0:33

Hi, I'm Dave Mckeown,

Nathan Benger 0:35

and I'm Nathan Benger, and we are your hosts on the Church explained podcast. Today

David Mckeown 0:39

we're joined by Claire Padraig the managing partner of 3d coaching, and whose mission is delivering and developing deep and simple coaching across the world. She's also the author of the book, simplifying coaching. It's a brilliant book, this one, and highly recommended. I welcome Claire to the show. Great to have you with us. We'd love just to find out a little bit about yourself and your role within the coaching world of that. Okay.

Claire Pedrick 1:05

Oh, that's quite a question, Dave. It's very good to be here. Thank you for having me. So I've been a coach, my whole career since the 1980s. So I started off as a teacher and I was a mission partner at a rural secondary school in Kenya for two and a half years, where I learned a lot about power that was given to you that you didn't deserve and all sorts of interesting things about the dynamics between people. So the school that I was working in was in the Kikuyu area of Kenya. And of course, they were very badly impacted through independence. And the story of independence depends on which side you're standing, whether you're standing on the British side, or whether you're standing on the cuckoo side. So that was a really interesting place to work. I then came back to the UK, and got a job doing what was called then information and counselling, really listening to and coaching and mentoring people who wanted themselves to work overseas, in mission in aid or in development. So I spent eight years doing that, and never thought it was counselling, never felt up to with the counselling word, but it was the only word there was. And then I read an article about coaching in. So I got some, I got some training, there wasn't much around then. But the amazing thing is that that's led me to be one of the earliest coach coaches in the world, I guess. Because I've been doing it for pretty much my whole career. And so strange things that have happened to us what I would, what I'll say to you now is not what I'd have said to you even a year ago. So now I develop coaches across the world, to become really excellent at the way they have conversations with people. And I have colleagues who now work for three Ching, who do a huge amount of work in the Church, supporting people to have even better conversations using a kind of coaching style

David Mckeown 3:26

coaching all over the place, really, as you say, because of lockdown. And that's given you probably a great tagline, engaging all over the place on your website. That's free of charge. That was a good. Yeah. So so as you say, so you've been coaching for a long time now lots of experience. You've done work with different different people really as well, different organisations. Do you want to share a little bit about that and the different organisations you work with? Yes.

Claire Pedrick 3:53

So we work across organisations, which is a really interesting journey for somebody who started out pretty much in the parish Church world. We then got a piece of work in 2003, I think it was in the National Health Service. And we now do a huge amount of work in the NHS. We also work in business and corporates, but that's not my personal preference. I have colleagues who who do that, that for me, personally, there's something about values and working with people who have common values. And my colleagues do some great work in corporates as well. So we work everywhere, as you say everywhere with everyone,

Nathan Benger 4:41

everywhere. It's the new strap line. You mentioned that like the coaching language. Obviously, counselling was the language but yeah, that felt uncomfortable. The coaching language is fairly new language, but I guess there are quite a lot of different models. Coaching out there now, how would you define coaching?

Claire Pedrick 5:04

There are so many to their Nathan, it's scary. And because it's coaching is a business, so there's a lot of stuff out there that is out there to generate money. So you, you create your coaching model, and then you sell it globally. And I have some real ethical issues with that, actually. So she has written a book that's gone global. But for me, all it is, is a conversation between two people about one of us, where the person it's about feels heard, and gets new insights into their own stuff that moves them forward. So for me, the difference between coaching and counselling, for example, is that although they might look the same, in coaching, there's a future focus thing, which is about what's happening and what you're going to do next. Whereas in counselling, there's often some attention that needs to be paid to something in the past, that needs a bit of work in order for somebody to move forward. So future focused, optimistic, which of course really fits with, with faith. And of course, if you look at the way Jesus had conversations with people, people felt heard and got new insights into their own stuff without him saying very much in what we read in the Gospels. I mean, of course, we don't know what we don't read what what isn't in the Gospels. But But I think that Jesus had a real coaching style.

David Mckeown 6:51

Well, let's just pick up on that if we can a little bit because obviously, one of the aspects we want to talk about today is can coaching be used as a model of discipleship, you know, and that's a big thing in the Church demanded discipleship, we really believe it's important to teach people help them grow. So let's try and draw that out. Do we think that you know, we think that's true, can it kind of be used as a model of discipleship coaching?

Claire Pedrick 7:17

Well, I think if we're going to talk about discipleship, I think we need to talk about power. So if a disciple is a follower, actually, I think that means a follower of Jesus. But I think that the models that we've used in the Church over centuries, have have meant that discipleship is often a follower of the person who's forming you. And I think that that can create a dependent relationship where the, the disciple gives power to the leader. And actually, I don't think that discipleship, and that that kind of dependency, sit comfortably sit comfortably, I think is about following it's also about finding our calling, and stepping out and, and, and living the life that were called to live. And that requires risk and, and a level of agency. Where I take responsibility for my journey. Really, interestingly, I went to Church yesterday, in person on Sunday. And in the sermon, the guy was saying that Tony campolo, in the 90s, wrote in a book that many people chose to kind of live a simple life and get to dying without too much from from from living to dying without taking time. You know, I think discipleship is about stepping out, I think it's about it's about being brave and courageous and, and stepping into the not knowing space and doing the things that we've been called to do by God. And I think that coaching encourages us to do that. In a way, that's amazing. But I think that the culture of dependency that often happens in in some churches, actually makes that capacity to take risk and to follow and to fly and to flourish much more difficult.

David Mckeown 9:49

Well, what's the grip grip word you've picked up on? The word flourish? In fact, that's part of our vision statement as a Church, isn't it? Yeah, well, I just mentioned that just Yeah,

Nathan Benger 9:58

yeah. So obviously, as I IKON Church, we have a vision statement, which says human flourishing, which is kind of if we broke it down, it would be the people living their best life. And I guess for us, we want to guide people to live their best life. And we, you know, we've kind of wrote down here that like Jesus asked around 135 questions, which kind of drip drops into this? This, you know, coaching, sorry, coaching model, in terms of he's asking questions to get people to move forward in that life as you were talking about, like taking risks and doing that. And would you see that as the kind of like a role of a coach, you know, that asking those questions that draw people to a greater life and more flourishing life?

Claire Pedrick 10:51

There's so many things I want to respond to that, Nathan, I'm just looking for a little message on my phone, which gives a bit of insight into this that was sent to me the other day by colleague,

Claire Pedrick 11:03

which I'm just going to find if I can,

David Mckeown 11:09

I can't find it.

Claire Pedrick 11:12

I think the thing about Jesus is that if you go through the conversations that Jesus had with other people through the Gospels, almost always, he left responsibility with them to pick it up. So they have the conversation, and then and then, and then he goes, take up your bed and walk. Or he he, he leaves the responsibility at the end with them to decide whether they choose to take it up, or whether they choose not to take it up. And I think that often in churches, we think that in order for people to do that, we need to tell them what to do. And the challenges, you can't make meaning for somebody else, they can only make meaning for themselves. And that's true, that's visible all the way through the gospel. They make meaning for themselves. Jesus said, Who do you think Who? Who do you say that? I am? He doesn't get right. Let me sit down. And let me just tell you some things. Who do you say that I am? So he leaves he leaves the question with them. And there was an amazing little thing that my colleagues sent me the other day, which isn't ours, but it's about an egg. And it says that, that for There are two ways of breaking an egg. One is that you break it from the inside, and and the embryo comes out and flourishes and has life. And that's when it's broken from the inside. When it's broken from the outside it that's the end of the egg really. You can use it to make a cake, but it doesn't flourish and have future life. And I think that's interesting in terms of making meaning. Because I think that certainly in my experience of being brought up as a Christian, and going through different churches through various stages of my life, when I've lived in different places, I think there is a bit of a pressure, or a belief or an assumption that we need to make meaning for others, and then they'll take it. But they need to make meaning for themselves. And that's what Jesus did.

Nathan Benger 13:35

Really good.

David Mckeown 13:36

Yeah, I think that's, that's pretty powerful. One of the issues we often face in churches is we're trying to solve everyone's problems. So someone may come to you as the leader, and they expect you to have all the solutions where I think actually a better model is to point them towards Jesus. You know, and try and ride the best of them, really, rather than trying to solve their problems. And I think that lends itself more to coaching. And maybe just trying to, you know, distinguish between those two different sides of coaching or mentoring or whatever we want to call it today. As you say, one is more all style where people would go to the leader, and they would look for all the answers. Were saying, actually coaching is a better way to understand that is in the sense of someone coming and they get some insight into their lives, but we don't do the work for them. And I think that's a challenge because a lot of leaders want to do the work for someone they want. We were almost so eager, we want to get them over the line, and that sort of passion to help them but sometimes that's the mistake is not where we try and help somebody get over the line. But actually, we're doing the work for them, rather than them doing the work themselves.

Claire Pedrick 14:57

Yes, and It looks like it's had an impact. But as you're talking, I'm thinking about the parable of the sower. What? You know, there's something isn't there about really wanting things to grow. But actually, people grow when their roots go deep, and their roots go deep, and they made their own meaning. And one of the issues about giving people solutions is that what we're actually saying is because I don't think you can do this yourself. And that is deeply disempowering. And although we might like it. So I said, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do Tell me and you tell me. If it doesn't work, and I go, well, Pastor David.

David Mckeown 15:49

Hey, Pastor Nathan.

Nathan Benger 15:51

Yeah.

David Mckeown 15:56

Yeah, yeah.

Claire Pedrick 15:59

Yeah, so it's a I think it's a real challenge. Because I think in the Church, there is something about performance, which is how do we measure whether we're doing something that we should be doing and and green shoots is is a good measure. But that doesn't mean that that there are people who will grow it, I think people grow and they take responsibility. And I think that's what we need to really learn from the Gospels, do you think that's a challenge for I'm even just thinking of myself,

Nathan Benger 16:32

who when you grow up, grow up, or you become a leader, you become a leader, because many times you solve problems. And, you know, and it's not always people's, you know, problems, but you solve problems. And you you do things and you say, right, let's do this this way. And, you know, you kind of get responsibility because you've solved a problem, or you've been given a responsibility, and you've had to solve problems. Do we do that, then it does that is that one of the challenges for, you know, Church leaders, people in Church with responsibility that actually we think we've got to solve everybody's problems?

Claire Pedrick 17:12

I think that's a huge issue. And the more that happens, the more the power differential between you and everybody else gets bigger. And if this is about a community of followers of Jesus, that actually that as much as we need leaders, we also we need people to be travelling together. So I like the idea of, well, actually, it's in the Bible. If you, if you read that passage about Jesus on the mayor's road, travelling with his friends, they walk together, he doesn't tell him a lot of things, he listens, he helps them to make meaning and they travelled together. And he's with them, kind of next to them as they walk. And I think one of the issues about leaders, about fixing leaders, is you get too far ahead of the people that are travelling with you. And then, and then you become I mean, it's interesting, your churches called IKON to the word that comes to me as you become an icon, you become a guru. And actually, we're following Jesus, we're not following the leader of the Church. And, and so I mean, I think the Church is amazing. And I think also, you know, 2000 years after Jesus died, you know, we've still got communities globally of people, following Jesus who are disciples of Jesus. And it's at that it's just phenomenal. And I think there's always more to learn.

David Mckeown 18:54

Just just picking up on that a little bit closer, I think. I think in one sense, it's good. If people are disciples of Jesus, they're not necessarily our disciples. You know that. And I think that's the difference. There isn't a because if people are our disciples in the sense, then that's where you get the problem with apart differential there. But if they're disciples of Jesus, well, the combi that, you know, on equalness of power, and that sort of sense, because Jesus is who he is. So they're following him. They're relying on him. That's very different than a leader though, isn't it? Yeah. So it's interesting just to pick that up as well. From our point of view.

Claire Pedrick 19:40

Yeah. And I think there's something about the about leadership that says, actually, what's the least that I need to do in order to facilitate the journey of these people with Jesus? And how do you travel with them? So for example, if I come to you and I say, Tell me what I should do about this And you tell me next time, I'm not equipped to make that decision. And I need to come back to you, I need to ask you again. So for example, we moved, as you well know, we moved, we left our house six months ago, and are finally in our new destination. And actually, we needed to work out under God, where we needed to be and what that needed to be like. And actually, what we know is what we believe is that we're called to be in this new place three hours away from where we live before. And we don't know why. We don't know why we're here. And we don't know what it is that we're going to do now we're here, but we're here. Now, that courage, Rick and I'm not, I'm not kind of blowing courage, trumpet, but I'm just thinking that that level of courage has come from learning to be in churches, but also to recognise that it's my art, my journey under God, His my husband's journey under God, our journey under God, and that there's discernment that we need to learn how to discern, we need to learn how to make good decisions, and and we need to learn how to make mistakes. And we need to learn how to fall over and pick ourselves up again. Yeah,

Nathan Benger 21:36

now that's really good. I was just gonna ask, so if I'm, you know, just thinking of people who are listening, how do we how do we help people to do that, you know, how do we help people to be able to discern to be able to, you know, have that courage? How can we kind of coach people to actually living their best life?

Claire Pedrick 22:02

I think you facilitate them thinking. And I think there are lots of ways of doing that. So for example, sometimes people just don't know, do they, they just don't know how to make a decision. So if you said to me, I'm just wondering whether God might be calling me some somewhere else I might say to you, is it useful? If we think about what we know about how God calls people? How do you hope, you know, how is God called you before Nathan? And then I might say, is it useful for you to tap for me to just say a little bit about what happened for us? So this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then to say to you so so in terms of that, what are you learning about discernment? But actually, for me to say to you, I think God's calling you to do this isn't, number one isn't teaching you to discern for yourself. It's number two, it's teaching you to follow me. And number three is a really big risk for everybody. So I might say to you, you know, as I hear you talking, I wonder whether Have you thought about which is a different kind of discernment, which is the same thing, but it sounds different, and it leaves responsibility with other people. But I think I think there are two things that the Church needs to do better. One is, leaders need to talk about the fact their disciples to, and I know that's an assumption, but I don't hear it very often. So leaders need to say, I'm learning I'm falling over, I'm making mistakes. And what I learned this week was this or what I learned this last week was this and I think also we need to travel with people and let them make mistakes and and support them as they build from that.

David Mckeown 24:07

bourland closer to say, less than a couple more questions of we just want to try and draw out. What do you think are the most significant challenges that Church leaders face? We've covered a little bit I think, when it comes to coaching, what you know, like of a leader is coaching and helping others. What are the challenges they faced, you think? Well,

Claire Pedrick 24:30

one challenge is that if you and I are having a conversation, and I really want you to tell me what to do, and you really want to tell me what to do. It's quite difficult to step back from that and to facilitate the other person to process. So I think that's a pressure. I think there's also pressure if that's the way you were formed as a human being as a Christian and as a leader. It takes quite a significant amount of courage to do something slightly different. And I think one of the things that I notice in in ministerial in the training of ministers that I've seen across denominations and in non denominational churches is that often there's a model, a pastoral model that says, people are broken. But actually, there's another theological model that says, you know, we're all sinners and Christ died for us. Absolutely. And we're all made in the image of God. So your thing Nathan about flourishing, you know, where do you sit on that continuum, because if you sit on the pastoral view, is actually we're all sinners, Christ died for us. Absolutely. But what that does is it keeps people quite static. Whereas the other model, you know, Jesus said, I've come that you can have life in all its fullness. And that's what flourishing is, isn't it. And actually, that's about really encouraging people to step out and step up. It's really interesting, because we found ourselves in a Church that's very different from the Church that we left. And one of the things that I really notice is that the Church here is just bonkers about stepping out and doing stuff. As in, people will just do it, and then they'll come and they'll share it on Sunday, I did this and they've been sharing it on zoom, I did this. And I did that, and I did the other. Whereas the Church we've come from was very cautious. And it's interesting to notice, when you move from one culture to another, you know, you notice culture vary a lot, don't you in the first few weeks and months, is how significantly different The, the pastoral, you know, life's difficult for everybody, you know, let's care for each other. A as from me, you know, let's just try some stuff out, see what happens. And that courage is really demonstrated, I think, in different ways in different cultures. And part of that's about control. Yeah.

Nathan Benger 27:25

Now, that's really good. And you picking up on the different kind of cultures and the different ways we lead Church is really important in terms of the way that people respond, or the way that people live out their lives. I think is a is like a key takeaway for somebody who's listening to this. What what are the steps could leaders take? Like, should they wish to become a better coach, better leader? What are some other steps that they could take?

Claire Pedrick 27:57

Listen, like really less Listen, rather than listening to say something. And I think in many churches, what happens is people listen to share the gospel. So you're, so you're with somebody, and you're on your action. So as much as you're listening, you're also listening for the hook of where you can share the gospel. And what that means is you're not listening as deeply as you could be. So I would say, listen, stop talking, and, and facilitate other people to travel their journey as a disciple. And that will take courage for you as a leader. Because there's a bit less control, like that chloramine,

David Mckeown 28:47

one of the phrases that you use, obviously, I've been in some of the coaching. I want to say classes, I don't call them classes are some of the coaching training with yourself. And one of the key things that you often say is when we're with people, they observe, and don't diagnose. And I think that's a key thing as well just come on back that idea of listening, because so often we can be with people on we're trying to diagnose what the issue is. Or we're trying to give them the solution rather than truly listening. And letting them ask the right questions and getting to the right insights themselves. And I think that's key really, as well. Maybe it's something that leaders could take awareness of they're listening to this or watching this. Yeah, they could think okay, well, maybe I'm just gonna listen and observe. Rather than diagnose, you want to say anything?

Claire Pedrick 29:41

I think it's about saying what you see. So I had a conversation with a friend last week, a week before, and she said, I don't know what to do. So she was talking about a difficult work decision, and she said, I don't know what to do. And I said, to her, I haven't seen you for weeks. And when we met by the fountain to go for our socially distance walk, you didn't say hello. You just told me how stressed and unhappy you were. And I wonder whether that's telling you something. So that's a really good example of notice that you're not diagnosing. Because she's that's not her nature, how nature is to go, hello, how are you? And she just went. So to tell her that, and she went, Did I not say hello. And I went, well, that's not criticism. It's just an you know, it's an observation of how full up you are with this decision. And then I said, Have you already decided? And she went, yeah, I have. Whereas actually, often we go do, what I say you should do is I think you should give it another week. And then I think you should do this. And then I think you should talk to a line manager, and I think you should do the other. But that, that doesn't give credit to what people have done already. That's the kind of taking over, it's saying, guess Get out of the way, I'm going to tell you what to do. We need to be more in partnership. You know, in the Bible, it talks about partnership in the Gospel. Partnership is about people travelling together, not one person telling the other person what to do. And I know that is not the intention of Church leaders. But I also know that that's often how it is experienced by others.

David Mckeown 31:46

So I think that's a great it's controversial, but it's good, because I think the bottom line is if leaders hear this, and they take a different approach in the sense of listening, and observing rather than diagnosing actually, they'll save themselves a lot of hassle, won't they going in the future? Where rather than people coming in and saying, well, Pastor Nathan, I'm picking on Nathan, I, you You told me to do this. And that didn't work out. It's your fault. That's really what they're thinking deep dive about. The other model is actually, we listened. We went along together, but you made the decision. And I think that's much more freeing for the leader and for the leaders health, I think, yeah,

Nathan Benger 32:31

yeah, definitely. And and also, like, even you just said, like, know, a little bit controversial, it helps us as leaders to think Yeah, because many times we just get in the doing. Yeah. And we're just in the flow of what we've always done. But you know, the great thing is to then take stock and to think about how am I lead? And how am I doing this? And, you know, because we're not doing anything out of a place of, you know, a bad place, but actually, it's good at times just to look back and go, okay, is this my tendency? Or is this my tendency? And can I do this better? To improve myself? So yeah,

David Mckeown 33:13

wonderful, Clara. And any final words to any one listening today? What its face, I mean, obviously, a mix of leaders who have probably listened to this podcast, all sorts of people from all over the world, probably listening, what advice would you give to them. And your last final thing,

Claire Pedrick 33:29

when you say less, and listen more, you notice God in the conversation, much more.

Claire Pedrick 33:47

line of my book says, Take off your shoe, surely, if you want to, if you're getting people to do less of the work, but what I notice in it with with people of faith, is that they start off by going this is a real business model. I don't like it. And then at the end, they go, my goodness, it's much easier to discern when people are saying less. And it's also much easier to notice God in the moment in the room speaking, when you say to somebody, did something just happen there? Which is a question rather than I think God's telling you that. Because it's exactly the same. It's it's, it's observing the same thing. But it's doing it in a slightly different way. So my final advice is Take off your shoes, the place you're standing is holy ground, and it's the place you're standing together. So how do we have that real deep respect with people where we demonstrate a belief that they're robust enough to deal with their own stuff because Jesus did That

Nathan Benger 35:01

went great. Great. Well, that's it for this episode. I want to thank Claire for being with us today. And it's been so good to have Claire talking around this idea of coaching, and discipleship as well. And if you want to find more about what Claire does, then you can check out the company website at 3d coaching.com. And I went on earlier, and there's some great stuff on there. So, again, thank you, Claire. And for anyone who's watching, please check out IKON dot Church forward slash open, got loads of resources on there. And wherever you're consuming this content, please like subscribe, rate it, share it with people who would really benefit and we look forward to seeing you next time on the Church explained podcast. We'll see you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai