Coaching success is not what most people think it is. There are caring mothers, diligent factory workers and guys who coach little league on Saturdays who will be more greatly acclaimed in the Kingdom of heaven than some of our most famous authors, preachers, and missionaries, because they were more faithful to steward everything they’d been given for Christ than those who had been given much more.
That idea of true success may seem implausible given our western star system, but it was very real to Jesus. When he saw a poor widow drop two little pennies into the offering (Mt 21:1-4), he remarked that she had contributed more than all of the big donors put together. The reason? They had so much they could give a flashy gift out of their surplus and never miss it, but she gave everything she had to live on. In other words, God isn’t looking at who can give the largestquantity, but the largestpercentage. Judging success by quantity is about competition; judging by proportion is about stewardship. Some Christian workers who are first in talent and recognition now are going to be last in the Kingdom, because they’ve squandered much of their enormous talent, or they wasted what they’d been given on creating their own empires. Others who seem at the bottom of the ministry totem pole now may end up the most celebrated in heaven.
What that idea of coaching success means is that no matter who you are working with,your client has the potential for ultimate greatness in the Kingdom of 
God.Today, in your next appointment, you could be coaching one of the standouts in heaven. What a God-sized perspective we can take on as Christian coaches, and what an advantage we have in radically believing in people! It doesn’t matter if you are coaching top executives or assembly-line workers, mega-church pastors or lay people, senior leaders or teenagers from the youth ministry: your client can live today as one of the great ones in the Kingdom of heaven. Andthat’s worth coaching your heart out for!
Tony Stoltzfus is a master coach, author and coach trainer and director of the Leadership Metaformation Institute. A presentation of a thorough, practical toolkit for coaching Christian leaders to discover their identity can be found in his book the Christian Life Coaching Handbook.
