A few weeks ago I taught Veritas in Denver. A record 146 people showed up.

But what was really special for me is that Valerie was there.

Valerie is a significant person in my life. She is a good friend and a devoted follower of Christ. For seven years she served as my preaching coach. And even though it has been a few years since working together, the lessons Valerie taught me about communication are still with me.

Every week, Valerie would look over my message and then we would have a conversation, usually over breakfast at La Peeps, sometimes over the phone. She provided valuable feedback about clarity and flow of thought, paragraph placement, sentence structure, transitional statements, tone of voice, new illustrations and applications. And she warned me never to mix metaphors.

When Sunday came around, I could stand and deliver a sermon with confidence because I knew Valerie had helped me. Her ministry made me a more effective preacher.

When I graduated from Denver Seminary in 1989, I was presented the Senior Preaching Award under Haddon Robinson. I wanted to keep on learning and God was gracious to provide a personal preaching coach. Honestly, I felt like I was the luckiest pastor alive because I had someone like Valerie. I can not emphasize enough how meaningful her ministry was to me and to the congregation I served.

So when I talked about the importance of coaching at Veritas, I could hardly keep it together when I introduced Valerie.

My dream is for other pastors to benefit from coaching as well.

CGE recently signed a strategic partnership agreement with a coaching ministry called Ministry Advantage. We have negotiated an incredible price for pastors to receive a weekly, one hour phone conversation with a proven coach for 12 to 18 months. We’ve already uploaded instructions on how to sign up for coaching on this blog. (My 14 year old son tells me I sound like an infomercial for this program… operators are standing by now!)

This is not a preaching coach like Valerie was for me, but a coach who will help a pastor think through and implement organizational leadership behaviors. These are the skills that complement the spiritual leadership training that pastors receive in Seminary. When I was leading the revitalization of First Covenant Portland, I would have loved to have had an organizational leadership coach.

The work of CGE is not to advance the gospel, but to provide advantages for you pastors on the front lines to advance the gospel. I am so excited to offer this advantage to ECC pastors, to take that next step in becoming a healthy missional pastor. Because it takes a healthy missional pastor to lead a healthy missional church.