Charity Goodwin on Coaching Where Faith and Feelings Meet

Could every pastor have a second calling as a coach? And how could coaching around emotional intelligence help pastors and other leaders to live and lead more like Jesus in a church and culture that is rapidly changing? We’ll talk about that in this episode of the More Than a Pastor show.

Links for Today's Show

• Find Charity Goodwin Online: www.charitygoodwin.com
• Free 30-Day Trial of Platform Launchers: www.morethanapastor.com/platform
• Join our private Facebook community: https://www.morethanapastor.com/facebook
• Get the Free PDF: How to Know if Starting a Business is Right for You
• Read My Last Post: 5 Ways Pastors and Churches can Profit from the Creator Economy

Coaching Where Faith and Feelings Meet

Charity Goodwin is an elder in the United Methodist Church. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri and currently serves as the pastor of spiritual formation and groups at The Gathering, a UMC church in St. Louis. She has had experience as a site pastor and a lead pastor.

In addition to her pastoral role in the church, she coaches other pastors and teams or boards/councils in leadership development, vision casting, ministry start-ups, and especially loves to coach around emotional intelligence, to help people take a more holistic view of transformation, change, and transition.

And she's just launched new new podcast, Where Faith and Feelings Meet.

I met Charity through an online community we’re both members of called Platform Launchers, hosted by our friend John Stange. If you’ve been dreaming of starting your own message-based business or online platform, `I’d encourage you to give Platform Launchers a try. You can get a free 30 day trial, join in on the weekly live calls, dive into the massive online learning library, and find your pathway to building and growing your own online business by going to morethanapastor.com/platform.

Highlights from the Full Interview

Coaching - Charity felt like she received a second calling as a coach. She's always had a coach and enjoyed being coached, but she never thought she'd be a coach. But one day she found herself in coach training, and during one of the breaks in the training, she went outside for some fresh air and a walk, and felt God saying to her, "This is for you." And she was like, well, I've never seen myself as being a coach. Then when she got back to her seat, she received a text from someone asking her to coach him. And right there, while she was in coaching training, she received her first paying coaching client.  

Entrepreneurship - "Being an entrepreneur is the most visible thing you'll ever do." - putting your thoughts and ideas out there for everyone else to see.

Pastors as Entrepreneurs - "The pastor is the premier content creator." As pastors we have so much content from our sermons, lessons, devotionals, notes, etc. There are many ways we can repurpose those things and create income as a result. (I talked about this in my last episode on the 5 Ways Pastors and Churches Can Profit from the Creator Economy). Another benefit of pastors being in business is that it helps get us outside the walls of the church. It gives us skills we can use in ministry, and it also taps into the skills we're already using in ministry, and uses them in a new way. 

Knowing Your Value - I asked Charity if there had been any unexpected surprises or blessings for her as she developed her coaching practice alongside her pastoral ministry. She shared that she had a friend who ran an organization, and she wanted to hire Charity to do some EQ work. As Charity worked on a proposal, her friend told her to use real numbers, not "discount pastor numbers." There's power in knowing your value, and being willing to charge what you're worth. Sometimes others need to help us see that. At the end of the day, If you're in business, you can't help people if you're not making money.

What the Church Thinks About Her Coaching - The church has been very supportive, as many of her paid coaching clients have been with other pastors and leaders in her denomination and conference. She feels like her work as a pastor and as a coach go pretty well hand-in-hand. 

Making Room for Others - Charity mentioned that she's often in contexts where she's the only woman or person of color, and she talked about the importance of making room for others. As you look around your leadership table or circle, is anyone missing? Are you tapping into the richness of the diversity that you have in your congregation or community - women, men, people from different ethnic backgrounds, older younger, people with different life experiences? Making room for others isn’t about being politically correct, it’s about reflecting God’s heart and his kingdom.

EQ or Emotional Intelligence - Charity said she's really passionate about helping people become more like Jesus. And that's so important for us as leaders too, because as we consistently become more like Jesus, our leadership reflects him in how we lead. It's important for leaders to become more self-aware, more authentic, more centered on Christ, and more holistic in how we live and lead, especially in times of massive change and transition.

Charity's New Podcast and Taking Risks - This year Charity is taking a risk by launching a new podcast, Where Faith and Feelings Meet. To start, she is releasing daily episodes during Lent, and reading a chapter a day from her book, Get Up: Unearthing Your Passion and Taking Brave Action in 50 Days. She explained that she hadn't wanted to do a podcast, but her coach recommended it to her as her best next step, and she decided to submit to that wisdom and go for it.

If you want to get in touch with Charity and learn more about her coaching, you can find her online at charitygoodwin.com.