The word coach originally referred to a horse drawn carriage from Kocs (pronounced coach), Hungary. Outside the carriage was an elevated seat for the driver, or coachman. The coachman ensured the horses and passengers reached the intended destination. Coaches lead, but it’s not that simple. Sometimes a coach is a coach, but doesn’t coach. Sometimes coaches don’t lead.

Confused? Don’t worry I was too. A few years ago, as I began a year-long journey to become a certified life and leadership coach, I learned a different meaning of the word coach. Long ago a coach was like a tutor, someone who helped a student through an exam. Coaches of this type would help a person move from where they are to where they want to be. Today there are coaches for just about everything, leadership, dating, career, organizing your home, finances, health, etc.

One strand of coaching helps people develop spiritually. This is great! The Church needs more people intentionally investing in others. Since disciple makers also intentionally help others become mature many people think they are the same. They aren’t. Still, I’ve often heard Christian coaching and disciple making used interchangeably. But words matter and just as a sports coach is different from a financial coach, so too are disciple makers different from spiritual coaches.

So what exactly is the difference between coaching and discipleship?* Was Jesus a coach, a disciple maker, or both? Here are four ways coaching and disciple making are different:

1. Coaching is non-directive, but disciple making is directive. One principle of coaching is the coachee is the expert on what’s best for the coachee. So, the person being coached sets his goals. The primary job of a coach is to help the coachee clarify his goals, determine appropriate action steps to reach those goals, and provide accountability for those action steps. A coach accomplishes this support through the use of honed questions. Since the coachee sets the goals, the coach’s role is best characterized as non-directive. The coach doesn’t enter the relationship with a direction or destination in mind for the coachee.

Disciple making however is directive, but don’t mistake directive with inflexible. Disciple makers are experts/models for what it means to follow Jesus. A disciplee is someone who recognizes his need to learn from the discipler. We see this clearly when Jesus said, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” He offered them a specific direction and destination that was different from their current path and goals. They dropped their nets and followed knowing they would learn from Jesus and later addressed him as “Master”(Luke 5:5, 8:25, 9:33, et al) and “Teacher” (Mark 10:45, Luke 6:40)

2. Disciple making requires faithfulness to Jesus, coaching requires faithfulness to a process. Since disciple making is directive, to make a disciple you must be a disciple. Jesus said, “A student is not above his teacher, in fact everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Since the discipler is the model, she will reproduce who she is—now—not who she’s been in the past. Faithfulness to Christ is essential. A discipler can’t develop someone further than she’s developed. She must not only be a maturing disciple, she must also know how to help another become a maturing disciple.