Coaching and Consulting for Churches and Non-Profit Organizations

We help declining churches turn around and help growing churches consolidate gains and build for continued growth. We have worked with over 300 churches to help them find an even better way forward. We assist with increasing the number of first-time guests, welcoming guests and getting them to return, designing worship, structuring the budget, staff configuration and selection, raising funds, starting new services and locations, ministry options for struggling congregations, and more.

We offer both content-free and content-rich coaching. Content-free means that you bring whatever issues you want to the table. The coach is your thinking partner who listens well, asks probing questions, and helps you make decisions about your next steps. Content-rich means that you want to focus on a particular area such as discipleship, online ministry, etc. and work with someone who brings experience and insight into it to the table. The coach continues to be your thinking partner but also offers ideas and things that have worked in other settings for you to consider.

Have your dreamed of starting a non-profit? Do you have a vision to change the world? We help you turn ideas into start-ups and start-ups into viable businesses. We have worked with many organizations as they were starting out. We can assist with conversations about governance, board structure and roles, financing, partnering with other organizations, developing your public presence, and more.

DNA Coaching offers a wide variety of services including the coaching of leaders, the coaching of churches, working with new church starts, working with judicatories to create healthy church planting systems, working with judicatories to foster transformation among existing churches, coaching new church start projects, performing statistical analysis of the results of a group of churches on the Church Transformation Survey, leading workshops and training events, consulting with churches (individually and/or in clusters), assisting with the formation of selection criteria for leaders, assessing church planters and creating custom training and research materials.
Yes, Don and DNA Coaching work with many Christian denominations. These have included United Methodist, Presbyterian, National Association of Christian Congregational Churches, Southern Baptist, Mennonite, Independent, Lutheran, ARC (Association of Related Churches) and more.
DNA Coaching has a great deal to offer judicatories to support their efforts and bring expertise and insight into their system. These services can include:
  • Creating and strengthening a healthy church planting system
  • Supporting efforts for the transformation of congregations through training coaches, presenting workshops, assisting with the formation of selection criteria, coaching clusters of churches, teaching effective leadership skills and more
  • Providing an objective tool for measuring the vitality of congregations and, in turn, the judicatory. Don has created the Church Transformation Survey – a dynamic new tool called by one United Methodist Bishop “a stroke of genius!”
  • Creating a statistical analysis of the churches within a judicatory based on the Church Transformation Survey and the Church and Leader Information Form, new tools created by Don
  • Assessing church planting candidates
  • Working with ministry selection boards to strengthen the assessment and selection process
  • Working with high-potential pastors to help them set the standard for ministry within the judicatory
  • Working with lower performing pastors to help them learn new skills and action patters so that they can be more successful in ministry.
DNA Coaching can assess the health and vitality of a church in two ways.
  • The Church Transformation Survey – this is an objective tool that can be completed quickly and provides great insight into the dynamics and effectiveness of a church. It scores a church into one of three categories – Dying, Maintaining or Transforming.
  • The Ministry Performance Review – this involves the completion of an in-depth assessment tool as well as the Church Transformation Survey. It will take roughly 2-3 months for the church to complete. The material is returned to Don who will then create a personalized consultation report for the church. Please note that on-site consultation is available with either option.
Yes, DNA Coaching is happy to customize its current material or create custom-designed material to meet your needs.
The investment required will depend on the type and extent of services provided. On-site consultation is available on a per day charge with a discount for multiple consecutive days (plus fees and expenses). Customized material costs depend on the amount of time needed to create them. Consultation reports based on the Ministry Performance Review are provided at a cost of $800 each; a discounted rate is available to judicatories and groups contracting for more than five reports. The assessment of church planters usually involves a base cost for the first assessment and a per person charge for each additional assessment. An assessment report is provided for each person assessed. The Church Transformation Survey and associated material is available for licensing to judicatories, denominations, associations, etc. at a per church cost for a one year use basis.
Cluster coaching is when three or more churches or pastors contract for coaching services. The benefits of cluster coaching are many and include both the reduction of the per person cost and the added richness of the experience gained by interacting with other pastors and/or churches.
Coaching can happen both on-site and via video conference. The contract will detail the schedule for coaching, what information is provided to a judicatory/denomination (if any), and desired outcomes. If a judicatory/denomination has contracted to address specific issues, those will be detailed in the contract as well.
Moving a dream to reality is not easy. There are so many issues to address: incorporation, creating a board, drafting bylaws, enlisting financial support, establishing a website, engaging social media, assembling a budget, and much more. We help each step of the way and can provide support in the background and or facilitate board meetings and important conversations.