Learning Together to Preach: How to Become an Effective Preaching Coach

By John S. McClure

Preaching is best learned and improved when preachers receive excellent, supportive reflection on their lived experiences and sermons. For nearly ten years at Vanderbilt Divinity School a group of scholars and practicing preachers joined together to develop and hone several models of peer-group and individual coaching. In this book, they describe the key dimensions of "collaborative coaching," a learner-centered approach to coaching that emphasizes covenant-building, deep spiritual curiosity, care-filled listening, ethical awareness, attention to bodies and places, parallel learning, careful sermon analysis, and the art of asking excellent questions. In the final section of the book, practitioners provide examples of this kind of coaching in practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666743838

Book preview

Introduction

John S. McClure

The writers of this book agree that preachers seldom experience on-going mentoring or coaching after their seminary years. Large conferences can introduce new ideas about the nature of preaching, increase theological or theoretical awareness, and initiate new challenges regarding biblical and cultural interpretation. Lectionary study groups help preachers pull together expository sermons on a weekly or monthly basis. Ad hoc sermon feedback groups sometimes provide gentle nudging toward general, commonly accepted norms for sermon delivery, style, or content. However, for those who want to move more deeply into issues of homiletical formation and ways to respond to difficult congregational and public issues, resources are more meager. There are few situations where preachers can reflect on their lives and practices as preachers with one another in groups that are well-coached with an eye toward vocational formation, renewal, change, and accountability. For this reason, extended, carefully guided, interactive peer-learning groups are now on the increase, along with a new interest in individual coaching focused on helping preachers establish and achieve specific learning objectives.

As noted in the Preface, in 2013 The Lilly Endowment established the Initiative to Strengthen the Quality of Preaching, which endowed various forms of peer-group learning at eighteen ATS-accredited theological institutions. The David G. Buttrick Certificate Program in Homiletic Peer-Coaching at Vanderbilt Divinity School, under the leadership of myself and my then-colleague Dale Andrews was one of these programs. The uniqueness of our program was its emphasis on homiletical pedagogy and the training of peer-coaches to engage in a new, non-directive form of coaching we called collaborative homiletical peer-coaching.

Dale Andrews died an untimely death in June of 2017, but many of his ideas were at the heart of the program at Vanderbilt. Perhaps most important of all those ideas was discernment. Andrews lamented one of the great potential losses that the rise of seminary education imposed on the Black preacher: the loss of the apprenticeship tradition of learning through which a mentor learned the apprentice and assisted the apprentice in discerning their own unique way of encountering and re-encountering God in both sermon preparation and delivery.¹ This process is in many ways similar to theologian Nel Morton’s idea of hearing one another into speech,² the care-filled, reflective listening that helps a pastor discover their own unique and best way forward as a preacher. One of the goals of peer-learning or peer-coaching groups, therefore, is the development of a collaborative mentoring environment through which groups of preachers enter into a process of discernment with one another, learning each other and mentoring one another in the process of learning to preach, hearing one another into ever deeper forms of preaching.

What Is Collaborative Homiletical Peer-Coaching?

Coaching is an ambiguous term and can mean anything from highly directive forms of Do it this way only coaching (such as one might find in some sports contexts) or more guidance-oriented forms of life-coaching. The body of literature on coaching runs deep and wide and this is not the place to organize and parse all its aspects. The model of coaching that was implemented at Vanderbilt is one that we call collaborative peer-coaching. In broadest terms, collaborative peer-coaching is built out of a partner relationship rather than a unilateral relationship. Peers listen carefully to one another, learning each other, and co-labor (collaborate) in 1) discovering and prioritizing each preacher’s core spiritual and homiletical values, 2) creating meaningful and relevant strategies for action, 3) building confidence for engaging in such action, and 4) helping one another become accountable in achieving key goals embedded within those strategies. A great deal more will be said about each of these aspects of collaborative coaching in the following chapters.

Key Terminology

The reader of this book will learn several new terms. One of the key areas of confusion relates directly to the term peer-coach. We ministers are almost all preachers, living and working in differing contexts, bringing with us our own questions and concerns about our preaching. In this sense, then, with respect to preaching, we are all peers. Once we join a peer group, however, or engage in individual coaching, different roles must be filled for the group to function. To complicate matters further for the reader of this book, the peer groups referenced in these pages are also dedicated to the task of training peer-coaches to lead peer groups, adding yet another layer of possible role confusion. To clarify these roles, in our program at Vanderbilt we developed the habit of using the following terms as consistently as possible:

1.Peer-coaches (or peers). This term applies to every group member, each of whom are considered coaches to one another and must learn basic aspects involved in listening, asking good questions, and remaining curious and responsive as group participants.

2.Lead coach (or the coach). This peer-coach is the one responsible, at minimum, for conducting and managing group and individual coaching sessions. Lead coaches are the specific peer-coaches our program at Vanderbilt was designed to train. Our assumption is that lead-coaches will usually be the ones involved in creating and organizing peer-coaching groups or programs, planning and preparing for coaching events, developing curriculum and didactics (seminars) as needed, orchestrating covenant-building, maintaining communication with participants, and advertising coaching opportunities and events.

3.Presenting preacher (or the presenter and sometimes simply the preacher or learning-preacher). The presenting preacher is someone in the peer-group who shares something (a story, a sermon, etc.) which becomes the focal point of the peer group’s reflection and questions.

4.The Group (or peer group and sometimes peers or group members). This collection of terms is applied to all the peer-coaches other than the lead coach and the presenting preacher.

The Two Overlapping Audiences for This Book

We anticipate two overlapping readerships for this book, roughly divided by the two main parts of this book. First, we anticipate a cluster of readers who are keenly interested in homiletical pedagogy, who are asking: How is preaching best learned? This audience might include seminary educators, continuing education directors, denominational leaders, doctoral students, preaching coaches and mentors. In the first part of the book, therefore, we invite this readership to join us in a paradigm shift away from more directive models of pedagogy toward a more inductive and wholistic approach by exploring several dimensions of collaborative peer-coaching.

Second, we anticipate an overlapping group of readers who want to know what peer-coaching looks like and feels like in practice. These readers are asking: Would this work for me, in my situation? In the second part of the book, therefore, several certified graduates from our program describe their real-world experiences of adjusting what they learned in the Vanderbilt program to meet the needs of their coaching practice.

Part One: Key dimensions of Homiletic Peer-Coaching

Part One of this book invites the reader into our experience at Vanderbilt as we learned together how to coach preaching in a genuinely collaborative way. At the heart of this process was a shift in core pedagogical values away from directive, teacher-centered, and top-down models of teaching toward models that brought preachers as peers into processes of actively listening each other into new and better ways of preaching.

It is crucial when formulating any training program to decide on the core values that will guide the program. Before beginning our program at Vanderbilt, program leaders met for a weekend retreat and decided on a set of values that would guide the development of our coaching models, and the curriculum that we would offer our students. All these core values translated into what we called didactics or learning seminars led by program leaders. These seminars were grounded in required readings, and included practical exercises, discussions, and the development of group commitments that could inform our learning together. The material discussed in these didactics became central dimensions of the overall training of our peer-coaches. In the first part of this book, leaders of these didactics and our field supervisors distill what they taught in our program into key dimensions of collaborative peer-coaching. Although we also held didactics on Theology and Preaching and The Bible and Preaching, we decided to include in this book only eight dimensions that are most central to the distinct nature of collaborative peer-coaching. I will summarize these eight dimensions briefly here for the reader to provide an overview and pathway through the first part of the book.

The Formation Dimension: Three Coaching Models

The list of core values of the Vanderbilt program begins by stating that collaborative coaching should focus on 1) the formation of preachers in their contexts and situations, 2) the formation of sermons in relation to those contexts and situations, and 3) the formation of individual preaching goals and accountability. With these three types of formation in mind, we set out to develop our coaching models. During nine years of exploring and honing models of homiletic peer-coaching, the writers of this book developed and carefully tested three models of peer-coaching. In Preacher Formation peer-coaching, coaches lead peer groups in the exploration of narrative case studies regarding what it means to be a formed as a preacher in particular situations. In these sessions, a presenting preacher shares a story from their life or preaching practice that is the center of group reflection. In Sermon Formation peer-coaching, coaches lead peers in the exploration of actual sermons. In these sessions, a presenting preacher shares a sermon that becomes the center of group reflection. In Individual peer-coaching the lead coach and preacher meet to reflect on a sermon and/or narrative. The coach and preacher brainstorm new homiletical directions, make decisions for real change, and develop a clear structure of accountability. Chapter 1 provides an overview of these models and summarizes elements that must be built into a robust covenant-building process that will support their implementation.

The Spiritual Dimension

A second core value of the Vanderbilt program states that preachers involved in peer-coaching should regularly engage the question: ‘What is faithful preaching for me, in this place now?’ Embracing this value meant addressing the spiritual dimension of homiletic peer-coaching. This dimension focuses on discerning carefully what God is doing in the preaching ministry of each preacher. In their work together, our coaches-in-training learned the importance of attending to the unique individual spiritual lives of preachers and to the spiritual dynamics at work within peer groups involved in listening one another into fully embodied and lived homiletical speech. Three key questions tend to guide this dimension of homiletical peer-coaching. First, how can peer-coaches and peer groups best attend to the key spiritual issues at work within a preacher’s vocation, preaching situation, preaching process, and preaching practice? Fear? Loss of hope? Brokenness? Trauma? Lack of vision? Weariness? A sense of dread or insecurity? Second, how can peer-coaches and peer groups best identify the key spiritual values to which each preacher aspires in their preaching? Love? Hope? Mercy? Ethical demands or a sense of obligation? Sacramentality? Liberation? Third, what processes are best to address these issues and to help each preacher approach and approximate the spiritual values that are most central to their homiletical growth and aspirations? Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm will say more about this spiritual dimension of peer-coaching in Chapter 2.

The Communication Dimension

A third core value for the Vanderbilt program invites students to attend carefully to the interactive aspects of coaching. Communication is not a passive act of receiving a message transferred from a speaking coach to a listening preacher: the transference of meaning from one consciousness to another. It is important for peer-coaches to learn that communication is a meaning-making process in a contextual and relational situation in which the participants are important for the interpretation of the content.

Over the years, each of us develops patterns of interpersonal and group communication. Some of these patterns (reflective listening, open-ended questioning, empathic responding, etc.) are helpful and can be reinforced and enhanced in the work of peer-coaches. Other patterns (advising, fixing, controlling, closed and rhetorical questioning, etc.) are inappropriate and require self-awareness and modification. Most peer learning groups also require the development of covenants or communication-contracts that can guide the group’s interactive expectations. There are also group communication dynamics that sometimes require intervention by peer-coaches. Marianne Gaarden, who has worked in the Danish Church to create a peer-coaching program like the one at Vanderbilt, has done a good deal of work thinking through these dynamics. She explores many of these in Chapter 3.

The Parallel-Learning Dimension

A fourth core value for the Vanderbilt stated that the program should be designed experientially as a parallel-learning program. Parallel-learning is learning that occurs in a multi-layered way, as participants change roles in the learning process. In the Vanderbilt program, coaches-in-training experienced themselves shifting in and out of three parallel roles: 1) as those being coached (presenting preachers or presenters), 2) as peer group participants or peer-coaches, and 3) as peer-group leaders or lead coaches." As participants shift between these three roles, they experience three parallel levels of learning.

On the first level, preachers are coached as presenters of narratives and sermons. They get to know what being coached feels like from the inside-out. At this level they experience learner-vulnerability, discover the difference one’s level of commitment to the process makes, learn how to sort through feedback, and confront first-hand the value of a good learning covenant. Level one highlights practices that make for good preaching: spiritual discipline, communication and performance skills, exegetical competence, pastoral listening, theological self-awareness, etc. and suggests areas where remediation may be necessary.

On the second level, peer group members are coached as peer-coaches. They receive feedback on their group work as peer-coaches, the ways in which they engage in active listening and the kinds of questions they generate for those who are presenting.

On level three, preachers are supervised as lead coaches. Simultaneous to levels one and two, participants receive feedback on their leadership of peer-coaching groups and individual coaching sessions. In the Vanderbilt Program, this took place in two distinct situations. The first occurred on campus as each peer-coach took turns as lead coach, trying their hand running the Preacher Formation and Sermon Formation models (see Chapter One). These sessions took place in a fishbowl with the faculty in an outer circle. At the completion of each session, faculty members offered supervision to the lead coach-in-training while the peer group listened and observed. As they were supervised and listened to the supervision of other coaches, participants parallel-learned about areas of strength and weakness in their own homiletical and coaching practice. Each lead coach-in-training also received private supervision on at least one individual coaching session during their time on campus.

The second place where supervision by faculty took place in the Vanderbilt training program was during field work. Each coach-in-training was responsible for leading at least one peer group over the course of a year. A field supervisor would review videos of group sessions and individual sessions with each lead coach-in-training. This feedback was individual and private in nature and generated much in the way of parallel-learning between each lead coach and their field supervisor. (see Chapter 5). Whether on-site or in the field, level three helps lead coaches gain confidence and competence as peer-coaches and mentors of others. They learn what it takes to organize and guide effective peer-coaching groups and individual collaborative coaching sessions.

It is important that preachers involved in peer-coaching training learn to shift back and forth between these levels of learning and identify when and how these shifts are occurring. Noel Schoonmaker explores some of the dynamics of parallel-learning in Chapter 4, along with the kinds of learnings that tend to accompany each level.

The Supervisory Dimension

A fifth core value stated that, because Vanderbilt’s program was established as a certificate program to train coaches, certain standards of performance are required. Because of this, students’ work had to be closely monitored and supervised. Such supervision sometimes has a more directive quality than coaching, and it assumes that lead coaches desire to receive sometimes difficult-to-hear feedback on their coaching efforts so that they might become better in their work. Supervision should not stop after a coach has received initial training. It is important, from time to time, to receive supervision on one’s coaching. This can often be provided by someone who has also gone through training. Getting more eyes and ears on one’s work as a coach can be especially helpful when a coach is having trouble with a client or a group. Ann Deibert, one of the field supervisors in our program, discusses some of the elements of this supervisory dimension of peer-coaching in Chapter 5.

The Embodied Dimension

A sixth core value for the Vanderbilt program states that preachers and peer-coaches will wrap embodied personhood and preaching together. This value was addressed in didactics regarding the embodied dimension of preaching and peer-coaching. At a baseline level, all learning is embodied and experiential. Not only is preaching a lived body experience, but coaching is as well. It is important, therefore, to attend to preaching as a profoundly embodied and performed event. It is also important to attend to bodies in the act of coaching.

On the one hand, preachers are concerned about bodily sensation, presentation, or reactions to their bodily performance of preaching. Discussions of clothing, facial expression, voice and vocalization, posture, movement, or gesture are often more common in peer groups than discussion of homiletical content. How should these conversations be guided? What issues exist that should guide reflection on the human body in preaching? On the other hand, during peer-coaching sessions, bodies are at work: pointing, retreating, closing posture, opening posture, drooping, engaging, disengaging, and so on. Bodies have histories and respond during preaching and coaching out of histories that may involve care, respect, and confidence, or, in some instances shame, invisibility, and trauma. Bodies in peer-coaching groups are always making meaning from the perspective of different backgrounds and past bodily experiences. Leading peer groups or coaching individuals requires careful attention to body language and the ways that bodies talk and generate meaning. Bodies also exist and either flourish or are stifled in particular spaces. Both preaching and coaching are done best when attention is paid to the spaces in which they occur. Finally, bodies bear witness to our feelings and attitudes. In both preaching and coaching, it is crucial to observe and reflect on these affective and emotional elements—what is felt and expressed. Lisa Thompson will discuss this dimension of peer-coaching in more depth in Chapter 6.

The Moral Dimension

A seventh core value of the Vanderbilt program states that our preachers and coaches-in-training should engage contexts for preaching today with ethical ends of justice, peace, and reconciliation in mind. In Chapter 7, Amy Steele discusses this key dimension of peer-coaching as the moral dimension. Beyond conversations regarding professional ethics (boundaries, confidentiality, awareness of power differentials, etc.), in several didactics our students explored their own commitments regarding multiple intersecting and mutually reinforcing ethical issues: racism, sexism, idolatrous forms of nationalism, anti-Judaism, etc. It is important for peer groups to engage in frank discussions about these moral dimensions of coaching, establishing within their covenant of work together clear moral guidelines and aspirations. They also need to learn that homiletical peer-coaches must have a keen eye for ethical issues in sermons and in their work together.

The Analytic Dimension

An eighth core value of the Vanderbilt program states that coaches should learn to honor the hard work done by each preacher by paying deep attention to their sermons. By deep attention we meant that peer-coaches must learn how to observe not only the embodied aspects of preaching, and the ways that moral frameworks shape what is (and is not) preached, but also the detailed ways in which theology, scripture, culture, and meaning-making are manifest in the language of sermons. If preachers spend hours crafting the words they use in sermons, coaches need to avoid haphazard approaches to sermon-listening and sermon-reading and learn ways to dig into sermons that honor the work that preachers have done. We wanted this to be accomplished, however, in ways that are non-obtrusive, and that could remain in the background of coaching work, only to be used when necessary. Analytical tools can easily overwhelm the collaborative process if they are managed poorly. On the other hand, they can be extremely useful when coaches know the most appropriate ways to make use of them. In Chapter 8, I outline two key analytical tools taught in our didactics at Vanderbilt and provide some guidelines for their usage in coaching.

Part TWO: Homiletic Peer-Coaching in Action

In the second part of this book, we turn from the key dimensions involved in training peer-coaches to providing examples of peer-coaching in action across multiple contexts and situations. Homiletic peer-coaching groups and individual homiletic peer-coaching have multiple uses. Although graduates of Vanderbilt’s program seem endlessly creative in making use of their certification, several key uses bear description and reflection in this book. For this reason, several graduates of the program were invited to write chapters in which their experiences become case studies for further thinking and conversation about specific situations or dynamics that are likely to have an impact on homiletic peer-coaching.

Seminary MDiv Education

One situation where peer-coaching often occurs is in the seminary classroom. In most seminaries, small groups gather