Frequently Asked Questions

What is Life Coaching?

Life Coaching is becoming a friend to a young person who needs a friend. It requires no specialized skills. Life Coaches simply need only to love God and to love young people. They should have some gift for friendship, good listening skills, empathy and ability to relate well to young people. Life Coaches® commit to a minimum of one year relationship with the child they mentor. As trust and authentic friendship is developed Coaches are able to share who they are and what they are learning about how to be the person God created them to be. Kids often come to a new understanding of themselves, their gifts and their purpose. Our prayer is that they develop a strong commitment to love and serve God and to love and serve others as well.

In short, Life Coaching is believing in someone until they believe in themselves. It is loving someone until they can love themselves. It is walking with Jesus alongside a friend until they can walk with Jesus by themselves. We believe that in the course of these long term friendships (the best relationships often last two to three years), that many of these young people will get to the point in their lives where they will commit to ending that this cycle of father absence. They will commit to finding the right young woman or young man to marry before they themselves have children and they will commit themselves to that spouse and to God to stay in the marriage and to be the kind of parent to their children that God desires.

How does Life Coaches differ from Big Brothers/Big Sisters or other mentoring organizations?

There are a number of helpful mentoring organizations for young people, but Life Coaches exists to address several unique differences:
 
• Life Coaches® is a Christian mentoring ministry. Life Coaches® believes that while traditional community based mentoring can be helpful to kids, that transformation require a holistic approach best embodied in a mentor with a deep commitment to following Jesus Christ as Lord and life leader. Unlike most mentoring organizations, Life Coaches® requires that all mentors be followers of Jesus and display character qualities and a lifestyle consistent with traditional Christian teachings.

• Life Coaches® is an equipping ministry and not a direct provider of mentoring relationships. The actual mentoring is done by church and para-church partners. Our role is to help cast a vision for this ministry and to equip our partners through training and consultative support to become largely self sufficient in leading their Life Coaching ministry on an ongoing basis.

• Life Coaches for Kids® becomes a ministry of the partnering church and is shaped in a way that best meets the needs of the church and community. While Life Coaches® has a few basic guidelines, every attempt is made to work with local partners to design the ministry in a way that best meets the needs of their congregation and communities.

Is Life Coaches® primarily designed for single parent kids in our church, for those in the community or for an outreach to the inner city?

Jesus told the early church that when they begin the work of discipleship they should begin first in Jerusalem and then reach out to other parts of Judea, Samaria and the rest of the world. For most of our partners, beginning in Jerusalem means providing a Life Coach opportunity to every single parent child in their congregation. They then reach out to others in their surrounding communities, perhaps through partnerships with schools or social agencies that serve kids in the neighborhood. Many of our church partners also reach out to kids in the inner city. This is often done in collaboration and partnership with an inner city church or para-church ministry. Life Coaches works with several children of prisoner ministries that are eager to partner with churches.

Is our church the right size for this ministry?

Most successful Life Coach ministries are in churches of one thousand regular attenders or more. Initial classes of prospective Life Coaches usually average fifteen to twenty persons from a church of one thousand members. A good goal for the first year of the ministry is to match ten to twenty adults with a corresponding number of young people in Life Coaching friendships.

Are there any risks?

Any ministry involved with children involves some degree of risk, but Life Coaches has developed a process that incorporates best practices to manage these risks prudently. All prospective Coaches are interviewed; reference checked and receive national background checks. Churches require a minimum of one year regular attender status to ensure that the individuals are known by the church community.

To help ensure that Life Coaches are effective role models for kids and will have an effective influence in helping end the cycle of father absence,  prospective Life Coaches are required to sign a “Character Covenant.”  The Character Covenant stipulates that the mentor is a follower of Jesus, lives free from illegal drugs and will save sex for marriage.

Churches generally find that their current liability insurance is sufficient and that their system of doing background checks on adults working in their youth programs is also sufficient. A national background check covering all fifty states is available at a reasonable cost. To date there have been no known incidents of inappropriate behavior between a Life Coach and a youth.

What’s the next step?

Call Life Coaches® at 763-442-5312 or send an e-mail to Lana Ensrud, Executive Director. We will introduce you to Pastors and Life Coach Directors from churches you admire and respect. Within a few months you could have a Life Coaches® ministry launched. It will energetically engage your adults and will support the most needy of your single parents and young people. You will be addressing one of the most critical social and spiritual issues of our day. You will be stewarding your time and resources with the most effective strategy for life change available. It will not always be easy, but it will be make a difference in kids' lives. It will make a difference in your Life Coaches lives. It will make a difference for your single moms. It will make a difference for the Kingdom.