For additional information or questions, please contact

Melissa Clodfelter

Director of Vocational Formation
and Pathways Coordinator
336.758.3519
clodfem@wfu.edu

Leadership Coaching

The Building Capacities Project begins with two focal points:  individual and group coaching opportunities. Through this work and after some careful listening, continuing education events will be structured to help our alumni become better ministerial leaders. The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation Grant funds work with alumni around leadership development.

Coaching is partnering with alumni in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires maximization of personal and professional potential. Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives. Coaches are trained to listen, to observe, and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach's job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has. (Taken from the International Coach Federation Website, August, 2008)

Alumni are invited to participate in one of the two beginning stages of this project.  Please join us in the virtual classroom for the first conversation Contact Melissa Clodfelter for details

Alumni can participate in the start of this new project by beginning a coaching relationship.  Coaching happens by phone, two times a month, and one hour each call.  The Building Capacities Project provides significant scholarship monies for coaching. Participants cost is $25.00 per month for the first year. 

As a recently ordained clergywoman, life coaching has been critical to my vocational and ministerial development. I have worked with Melissa Clodfelter, a certified Life Coach, for more than 5 years now. The past two years of coaching occurred while I served as the Director of Membership and Missions for a vibrant and diverse Baptist church in downtown Washington, DC.  Specifically, life coaching enabled me to effectively navigate the continuously changing world of congregational life and urban ministry in a church setting. It also provided the structure and resources I needed to establish my ministerial identity. In general, coaching provides the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about the places in your life sometimes left unattended such as your hopes, dreams, fears, and challenges. Coaching conversations allow you to hear yourself and where you are in your life’s journey.  At present, I am engaged in the exciting adventure of discerning the next steps in my ministry and my vocational development. I couldn’t imagine taking this step with the support of a life coach.

 Rev. Mary Andreolli, WFU Divinity School Class of 2006

The Coaches:

Jill Y. Crainshaw graduated from Wake Forest University with a bachelor’s degree in religion. She earned a doctor of philosophy degree in homiletics and liturgical theology from Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in 1998. Crainshaw’s research interests include liturgical theology, the theory and practice of preaching, vocational formation for ministry, and feminist perspectives on church leadership. Crainshaw is the author of two books, Wise and Discerning Hearts: An Introduction to a Wisdom Liturgical Theology, published by The Liturgical Press in 2000; and Keep the Call: Leading the Congregation Without Losing Your Soul, published by Abingdon Press in 2007.

Crainshaw was ordained in 1987 and is now a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Prior to joining the School of Divinity faculty, she served for six years as pastor of Neriah Baptist Church in Buena Vista, Virginia, as a hospice chaplain, as interim pastor of Buena Vista Presbyterian Church in Buena Vista, Virginia, and as a chaplain for the Sunnyside Presbyterian Retirement Community in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Monica Rivers received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Vanderbilt University.   She has held administrative positions at Duke University and served as a staff psychologist at the North Carolina State University Counseling Center.   Dr. Rivers currently serves as an assistant professor of psychology at Winston Salem State University and co-taught Leading Change in Congregations at Wake Forest Divinity School.  Dr. Rivers is licensed as a psychologist and health services provider by the state of North Carolina and has received advanced training in leadership assessment, feedback coaching, and congregational consultation.  Her professional interests lie at the intersection of psychology and ministry.  She is particularly interested in the role and significance of psychological functioning on leader performance; identifying effective and appropriate population-based models of church ministry and programming; and training pastoral and congregational care leaders on issues regarding psychological health and well-being and mental illness and treatment.  Dr. Rivers has conducted numerous workshops for religious institutions and community groups.

Melissa Clodfelter received her MA in Christian Education from Southeastern Theological Seminary.  During her ministry she has been a Congregational Minister and Hospice Chaplain and Bereavement Coordinator.  She currently serves as Director of Vocational Formation and the Pathways Program at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and The Coordinator of Coaching for the Center for Congregational Health.  She is a trained Corporate and Life Coach and is certified with the International Coach Federation.

Clodfelter is an ordained Baptist minister and coaches ministers and ministry teams throughout the southeast.