NEW LIFE COACHING PROGRAM LAUNCHED

"Oklahoma City, a place known for its wind-swept plains, red dirt and horrendous tornadoes, now has a new distinction. It is home to one of the fewer than fifty universities in the nation that offers an accredited, graduate level degree in Life Coaching. Southwestern Christian University Graduate School began offering a Master's Degree in Life Coaching in the spring of 2008. Since its inception, the program has seen over 70 people who have either attended a coaching class or gone through a certification module.

The degree is a two year modular program that is regionally accredited, and is composed of thirty-six credit hours. The students also receive their coaching certification through Lifeforming Leadership Coaching as part of their degree requirements.

John Chasteen Sr., the assistant dean of the graduate school, is the director of SCU's Life Coaching program. Chasteen says his passion for coaching stems from several "divine connections" that God initiated in his life over the past several years. He shares, "I somehow intuitively knew that God was leading me into the arena of life coaching and immediately began to take steps to prepare myself to become a leader in the industry." Chasteen is a certified life coach and trainer with Lifeforming Leadership Coaching.

Chasteen believes that leaders world-wide are embracing this ancient/modern principle of life coaching. He deems that a silent undercurrent of preparation is now evolving that will release an army of coaches into the body of Christ worldwide. He also shares that many organizations including businesses, churches, and denominations are scrambling to catch up with the coaching wave and that the relevancy of coaching, reaches from the board room to the break room.

Coach John also shares his fervor for the life coaching movement through a monthly column with Ministry Today called Hey Coach John. He also has a popular blog with numerous resources and personal articles on the topic; it can be accessed at www.heycoachjohn.com.

Need more information on life coaching? You may contact the Southwestern Christian University Graduate School, or Coach John, at 405-789-7661 ext, 3447. His email address is: john.chasteen@swcu.edu.

SCU also offers certification training for those interested in coaching, but do not need the college degree side of the program.

Prophet Guilds

According to several Old Testament experts, the pattern for prophets in Ancient Israel included gathering into several groups. There were independent prophets who went about, there were prophets attached to temples, civic-economic centers, or palaces (as seen with Huldah, Anna, and Deborah), and there were those who united into guilds. These last were similar to monks as they moved into together, trained, prayed, and communed with God apart from others. These often opened schools were they taught others and trained upcoming prophets in understanding and using their gift of communication and discernment. Some excellent sources include: Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Fortress, 1962); Israel's Prophetic Tradition ( Cambridge, 1982), Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel ( Fortress, 1952); Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech ( Westminister, 1967).