In this Episode:

• Advance Global Coaching started in 2007 and has a team of coaches living in various countries.
• A life coach is more like a stagecoach than a sports coach. A life coach helps you get from where you are to where you want to be.
• For missionaries there is often a gap between pre-field training and a “ditch” (or crisis) where there is little personalized support.
• Missionaries are often hesitant to share their challenges with anyone connected to their finances or future with an organization. Missionaries also face a lot of unique challenges and stresses.
• Life coaching provides a safe, authentic place in a confidential relationship.
• The best coaching for missionaries is from a third party source.
• Coaching can provide feedback, encouragement, challenge to grow, objective input, and accountability to take action steps towards personal goals.
• Coaching also helps clients be more intentional, manage time better, and handle conflict better. Coaching helps increase the effectiveness of missionaries in discipleship and evangelism. Coaching can help prevent problems and difficulties..
• Counselling normally has a backwards look, while coaching has a forward look. Counselling is more about pain, while coaching is more about passion. In a counselling situation, the counsellor is an expert. In a coaching situation, the client is the expert.  
• Coaching is for emotionally stable people who are healthy enough to move forward with life goals. Coaches are trained to determine when a client is stuck and unable to move forward and may recommend counselling.
• Coaching is less concerned about problem-solving and more concerned about helping people reach their potential.
• Advance Global Coaching has provided coaching services for North Point Community Church in Atlanta, Georgia for about 9 years.
• Some agencies encourage their missionaries to participate in life coaching and create a line item on the budget for ongoing personal development.
• Coaching normally takes place during a particular season,  but it depends on what the client wants.
• Some organizations use coaching for marriage enrichment, fundraising, debriefing, and preventing burnout.
• Sherri recommends the book and website  “Returning Well” by Melissa Chaplin which provides opportunity and webinars to equip churches to help returning missionaries adjust.
• Sherri recommends a coach approach to fundraising called Tailored Fundraising and the books “Mind the Gaps” by David J. Wilson and “Parents of Missionaries” by Cheryl Savageau and Diane Stortz.
• To reach out to Sherri or learn more, visit the Advance Global Coaching website or email Sherri at sherri@advanceglobalcoaching.com.
• Advance Global Coaching also provides coaching for pastors and missions pastors to help them create a missions strategy that uniquely fits their church.