The Rev. Lia McIntosh Coaches Clergy Toward an Active Hope

By The Rev. Benjamin Perry

Before seminary, the Rev. Lia McIntosh worked in corporate sales and marketing and was struck by the level of individual support she received. “We had coaches to help us be more effective,” she recalls. “Following that role, I was trained professionally as an ICF Certified Coach, and I’ve gone on to have my own coach training and curriculum certified.”

Now, she brings that knowledge as a United Methodist Endorsing Agency-endorsed life coach to UMC pastors, helping them understand what coaching skills can offer them — and training ministry leaders to serve as coaches themselves.

She often sees ministers who follow their call to serve the church out of a deep love for God and God’s people, but struggle when managing systems.

“Many times as leaders, we have the right heart but struggle when leading through change and conflict,” she says “Coaching skills can help people go beneath the surface to really understand how leaders and congregations can move forward in their ministry.”

Clergy often are great candidates for coaches, McIntosh says. “Coaching competencies are skills like deep listening, asking great questions instead of supplying answers, a foundational ethic of investing in people. I told a pastor the other day, ‘Discipleship is coaching.’”

McIntosh pairs her corporate background with deep knowledge of multiple ecclesial roles. While discerning a path to ministry, she served as an active lay leader in her Kansas City, Missouri, congregation, nurtured by the guidance of the Rev. Emmanuel Cleaver II, senior pastor and longstanding member of the United States House of Representatives.

After seminary, she accepted a two-point charge, shepherding an existing congregation and a new church plant. Later, she served the Missouri Conference as the Associate Director of Congregational Excellence, helping to revitalize ministries and plant new churches.

“The throughline of all my work has been helping people grow and developing systems,” McIntosh says. “I deeply believe in the human potential to connect and to be the change we desire in the world.”

Thinking about ministry through this lens opens newfound insight into elements of pastoral leadership that are often obscured. “I’m one who deeply understands both the pressures and joys of walking with people as their pastor,” McIntosh says. “You’re also serving as the administrative leader of an organization responsible for budget, leadership development, weekly programming. It’s a lot to ask of a person, or even a team of people.”

Reflecting on her time in seminary, McIntosh lets John Wesley’s words help her stay grounded in this call. “‘The world is my parish,’” she says. “It’s a day-to-day practice of being involved in communities, helping folks access the freedom of knowing God’s love for them, and the power they have to create change.”

Particularly on days when it feels like broad, structural injustices can immobilize us, coaching nurtures an active hope. “Rev. Emanuel Cleaver II would say, ‘We are planting trees today under whose shade we will never sit,’” she says. “So we keep planting;  we keep investing in people.”

The Rev. Benjamin Perry is the director of communications at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and is author of Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter.

“I’m one who deeply understands both the pressures and joys of walking with people as their pastor. You’re also serving as the administrative leader of an organization responsible for budget, leadership development, weekly programming. It’s a lot to ask of a person, or even a team of people.”
— The Rev. Lia McIntosh, a UMEA-endorsed life coach