P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™
for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders in an
Ever-Changing World

What is the P.A.C.E. Approach?

A practical coaching framework that helps ministers and spiritual leaders:

• Listen beyond the presenting concern
• Ask questions that create awareness and ownership
• Support people in discovering their own meaningful next steps
• Lead conversations with greater presence and less emotional drain

Different conversations. Deeper impact.

The P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™ is a dynamic continuing education platform for personal and professional development tailored for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders who wish to develop, refine, sharpen, and/or advance their coaching skills. The Institute provides a holistic pathway for growth, offering a range of workshops from beginner to advanced levels. Participants engage in personal development, interactive activities, peer learning, professional enhancement and mentorship, all designed to deepen coaching competencies with a focus on enhancing self-awareness and effectiveness in supporting congregation members’ personal and spiritual growth.

Through these workshops, Ministers and Spiritual Leaders not only develop coaching skills but also gain insights into themselves and their roles within their communities. The Institute creates a space for ongoing training, workshop seminars addressing interactive learning, guided coaching practice, peer reflection, and progressive skill development for meaningful ministry conversations, and emerging trends in spiritual leadership.

Dr. Holder initially explored coaching skills development for healthcare physicians, educators, and researchers working in high-stressed and high-pressured environments. In these fast-paced settings, where problem-solving and crisis management are the norm, Dr. Holder recognized the need for a shift in perspective—which was to see each of these situations as an opportunity for growth, not just another task to complete or a problem to be solved, although each has its place in the healthcare professionals’ repertoire of skills. In 2018, Dr. Holder designed a coaching workshop, now given annually for selected Duke University Medical Center faculty, that encouraged healthcare professionals to focus on understanding their approach, asking open-ended questions and the P.A.C.E. approach, using coaching skills to model and create mutually win-win situations as leaders in their work spheres of influence.

After seven years of successfully facilitating the P.A.C.E. coaching workshops in the healthcare sector, Dr. Holder decided to combine her deep understanding of human behavior and development, coaching skills, and her spiritual background in applied spirituality (see autobiography) to create the P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™. The Institute is dedicated to supporting Ministers and Spiritual Leaders, recognizing that their work often requires them to be both spiritual guides and practical problem-solvers. By integrating coaching skills with a spiritual perspective, the Institute™ equips Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to serve their communities with greater presence, clarity, and effectiveness.

The P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™ is more than a skills training program; it is a journey in transformation that empowers Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to lead with wisdom, empathy, and a profound understanding of their role in fostering spiritual growth within their congregations and communities (…and within themselves) through a coaching approach.

Many ministers discover that the difference between a draining conversation and a transformative one often lies in the questions being asked. The P.A.C.E. approach introduces ministers to a structured coaching framework that helps guide conversations toward deeper awareness, insight, and responsible action.

The details of the P.A.C.E. framework are explored during the Information Session and subsequent coach training.

Many Ministers and Spiritual Leaders notice that some conversations leave them energized while others feel draining. Often the difference is not the situation itself, but how the conversation unfolds.

When ministers learn coaching skills, conversations begin to shift. Instead of repeatedly offering advice, the leader helps individuals recognize patterns, clarify choices and discover their own next step forward.

Ministers and Spiritual Leaders hold profound responsibilities within their communities. They are entrusted with guiding individuals through life’s challenges, offering support during times of need, and fostering spiritual growth and development.

For Ministers and Spiritual Leaders who are committed to their congregation’s well-being, personal and professional growth isn’t just a desire – it’s a sacred duty. Engaging in coaching offers a transformative journey that enriches both their soul’s growth and their service to congregational members.

By gaining skills in coaching, the Ministers and Spiritual Leaders can (personally and professionally) gain:

1. Deepened Self-Awareness. Coaching serves as a mirror, reflecting the inner landscapes of Ministers and Spiritual Leaders. Through experiential learning, probing questions and introspective exercises, a new level of authenticity is fostered personally and professionally, providing a solid foundation for guiding others on their spiritual paths.
2. Greater Impact. By helping spiritual leaders first to use coaching to clarify their vision, goals, and priorities, they learn the strategies to use a similar lens to help those who come to them for support. The impact on the one becomes the impact for the many.
3. Cultivated Resilience. Ministry often entails navigating turbulent waters, from consoling grieving families to addressing contentious issues within the community. In the face of adversity, resilience becomes an invaluable asset. Learning about the conservation of energy in P.A.C.E allows for greater flexibility and awareness in the modulation of energy.
4. Heightened Spiritual Connection. Amidst the demands of leading in their communities, it’s easy for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to lose sight of their own spiritual nourishment, as they nourish others. The P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™ offers a sacred space for reconnecting with the divine, deepening their spiritual practices and replenishing their spiritual wellsprings. Hence, by nurturing their own spiritual vitality, Ministers and Spiritual Leaders can more authentically guide others on their spiritual journeys.

“As you expand your knowledge, your soul grows, fostering a more profound alignment with your inner self and those around you.”  Dr. Judith

What Are the Personal Benefits of Developing Coaching Skills?

As ministers develop coaching skills, many experience a noticeable internal shift. Conversations become less about carrying the burden of others and more about guiding meaningful discovery.

Leaders often report feeling more attentive, more discerning and more confident in helping individuals move forward.

Learning coaching skills offers spiritual leaders a myriad of benefits for both their professional and personal development. Some of these benefits include:

• Enhanced Self-awareness: Through reflective exercises and insightful questioning, coaching helps Ministers and Spiritual Leaders gain deeper insights into their values, strengths, and areas for growth.
• Improved Leadership Skills: The role of a spiritual leader is multifaceted, demanding a blend of empathy, vision, and strategic acumen. Coaching acts as a strategic complement, honing interpersonal and leadership skills tailored to the unique challenges of ministry. From mastering the art of compassionate communication to navigating complex organizational dynamics, coaching equips leaders with the tools to inspire, empower, and unite their congregations, allowing them to better lead in their communities with confidence and authenticity.
• Heightened Spiritual Attunement: During difficulties, requests and unexpected demands on one’s energy, it is easy to feel out of sorts, disconnected and stressed. Engaging in coaching skills and strategies offers something that can be used to help self and others feel balanced, in alignment and centered. Ministers and Spiritual Leaders learn to become focused on what really matters as they sort through how they might help others on their spiritual journeys.
• Increased Resilience: Coaching equips spiritual leaders with tools and techniques to navigate the challenges and pressures inherent in their roles, fostering resilience and emotional well-being.
• Expanded Impact: By clarifying their vision, goals, and priorities, coaching enables Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to align their actions with their values, maximizing their impact and effectiveness within their communities.

Coaching principles have long resonated with the heart of spiritual guidance across many traditions. Themes of empowerment, compassionate listening, inner wisdom, personal responsibility, and service appear throughout the world’s spiritual teachings of growth and transformation.

The P.A.C.E. approach draws on these universal principles — supporting ministers and spiritual leaders as they help others access their own insight, take meaningful next steps, and grow in alignment with their deepest values and sense of purpose.

Here are some of the core principles reflected in the P.A.C.E. approach:

1. Empowerment and Self-Responsibility. Coaching can provide strategies for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to support individuals in accessing their inner wisdom, strengths, and resources, empowering them to make conscious choices and create positive change in their lives.
2. Compassionate Understanding. Coaching becomes another way to support Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to listen deeply without judgment and to offer support through coaching strategies with love, kindness, and discernment.
3. Divine Guidance and Intuition. Coaching as a skill set can encourage Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to embrace a deep connection with the Divine Presence within themselves and to attune to their inner guidance and inspiration in their work with others.
4. Inner Healing and Transformation. Through coaching, Ministers and Spiritual Leaders embark on a journey of using proactive ways of creating forward movement for individuals as they identify and release limiting beliefs and negative patterns, allowing them to align more fully with their divine potential.
5. Transcendence of a Closed Mindset. Coaching emphasizes the importance of flexibility, transcending weaknesses through understanding blind spots and perceptions that may hinder growth and self-realization. Coaching is a framework for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to shift their and their worshippers’ perspectives from fear to love, from separation to unity, and from limitations to possibilities.
6. Service to Others. Coaching offers another lens by which to look at servant leadership for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders engaging in activities that embrace the qualities of humility, grace, compassion, and generosity in their service to humanity, inspiring others to do the same.

The Institute supports the continuing development of Ministers and Spiritual Leaders—including ministers, pastors, and lay ministers—as they grow spiritually while strengthening the skills they use in serving their communities.

In this way, coaching becomes more than a conversational technique. It becomes a way of supporting spiritual growth while honoring each individual’s responsibility for their own path forward.

For Ministers and Spiritual Leaders who want to explore this approach more deeply, P.A.C.E. can be experienced in two complementary ways: through the forthcoming Learn to P.A.C.E. book and through the Institute’s live, experiential coach training.

Ready to Move from Reading to Practice?

The P.A.C.E. Minister-Coach Training brings the principles of Learn to P.A.C.E. into live, interactive Zoom conversations where Ministers and Spiritual Leaders learn, practice, reflect, and grow together. The book complements the training but is not required to begin.

What Training is Offered By the P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™?

Lead with Presence. Listen with Intention. Empower Without Carrying It All.

The P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™ equips Ministers and Spiritual Leaders with practical coaching skills that deepen connection, reduce emotional fatigue, and empower others to grow without dependency.

This progressive series of workshops is designed for ordained Ministers and Spiritual Leaders who want to strengthen their effectiveness in conversations that matter most—pastoral care, leadership development, conflict navigation, and spiritual discernment. The training is designed as one guided learning journey, with each level offering a manageable next step—from discovering coaching, to learning and practicing P.A.C.E., to refining and integrating coaching skills into ministry conversations.

You are not expected to learn everything at once. Each level builds naturally upon the one before it.

Why Coaching Skills Matter in Ministry

Most ministers were trained to teach, counsel, advise, and care. Very few were trained to coach—yet coaching is often the missing skill that makes everything else more effective.

Coaching skills help you:

• Empower people to discover their own answers rather than rely on you for solutions
• Reduce emotional fatigue by shifting from fixing to facilitating
• Navigate complex, emotionally charged conversations with greater clarity
• Strengthen trust, accountability, and engagement within your community
• Complement counseling, teaching, and pastoral care without replacing them

Participants often discover that small shifts in how questions are asked can completely change the direction of a conversation. This is where coaching begins to transform ministry interactions.

P.A.C.E. coaching is not about doing more. It’s about leading with greater intention, presence, and impact.

You do not have to become a professional coach to benefit from coaching skills. P.A.C.E. adds another way of listening, asking, and supporting others within the ministry and leadership roles you already hold.

Your P.A.C.E. Learning Path

Level 0 — Discover
Complimentary Information Session
Is coaching a useful addition to the way I already minister?

Level I — Empowerment
Learn and practice the core P.A.C.E. skills in live conversations.

Level II — Refinement
Deepen your ability to guide conversations with presence and precision.

Level III — Fellowship Circle
Integrate coaching skills into your ongoing ministry and leadership.

Each level builds naturally on the one before it.
Complete the full path and receive a Certificate of Completion from the P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™.

Your P.A.C.E. Journey At A Glance.

P.A.C.E. LEVEL 0 — DISCOVER

Complimentary Information Session

Is Coaching a Useful Addition to the Way I Minister?

The complimentary Level 0 Information Session introduces Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to the P.A.C.E. Approach and how coaching can complement the ways they already teach, guide, mentor, care, and minister.

Rather than simply hearing about coaching, you will have an opportunity to experience how a coaching-centered conversation can create greater reflection, clarity, and ownership.

This session is designed to help you explore—not overwhelm—and determine whether continuing the P.A.C.E. learning journey is right for you.

What You Will Walk Away With

• Clear distinctions between coaching, counseling, mentoring, teaching, and ministering
• A practical overview of the P.A.C.E. coaching model
• An experiential introduction to coaching conversations
• A clearer understanding of how coaching skills can complement the ministry skills you already use
• An introduction to the complete Levels 0–III learning journey so you can decide your next step with confidence

Format: Virtual (Zoom) | 75 minutes
Investment: Complimentary
Registration required. Cameras on and full participation expected.

Start here. Experience P.A.C.E. Decide your next step.

No previous coaching experience—or reading of the book—is required.

P.A.C.E. LEVEL I — EMPOWERMENT

Build the Foundation That Changes Your Conversations

Level I is the essential first step in learning to integrate coaching skills into ministry. This highly interactive Zoom training moves beyond theory and into real practice.

The emphasis is not on mastering coaching all at once. Instead, participants begin learning how to listen differently, remain purposeful, ask more thoughtful questions, and create space for others to discover greater clarity and ownership.

What You Will Walk Away With

• A practical understanding of the four P.A.C.E. pillars and how they support a coaching conversation
• Enhanced listening skills that help you hear beyond the presenting concern
• Awareness of four common communication blind spots
• Hands-on coaching practice in a supportive learning environment
• Greater awareness of when you are coaching and when you may be advising, teaching, rescuing, or taking over
• Tools to foster empowerment, ownership, and growth in others

After Level I, you will approach conversations differently—listening more deeply, asking better questions, and creating space for meaningful insight and forward movement.

Learn it. Practice it. Begin using it.

Format: Virtual (Zoom) | Two half-day sessions
Workbook: Included
Seats: Limited to 9 participants

Note: Each participant has to have a computer and camera to participate in the interactive activities (i.e., no sharing of computers/cameras). The same requirement applies to participants in Levels II and III.

This is where coaching becomes real.

P.A.C.E. LEVEL II — REFINEMENT

Deepening Your Coaching Presence in Complex Conversations

Level II builds on the foundation established in Level I and focuses on refinement, discernment, and real-world application.

Ministry conversations are not always simple. People bring emotions, history, expectations, relationships, spiritual concerns, and competing needs into the room. Level II helps you remain grounded and curious when the conversation becomes more layered.

What You Will Walk Away With

• Greater skill navigating layered and emotionally charged conversations
• Increased emotional intelligence and relational awareness
• Greater awareness of your own reactions, assumptions, and desire to quickly help or resolve
• Stronger listening and perspective-taking skills
• Greater discernment about what the person may need from the conversation
• Practical approaches to goal setting, accountability, and sustained growth

Level II strengthens both skill and confidence, helping you integrate coaching naturally into your leadership and pastoral practice.

Stay present. Stay curious. Go deeper.

Format: Virtual (Zoom) | One full-day session
Workbook: Included
Seats: Limited to 9 participants

P.A.C.E. LEVEL III — FELLOWSHIP CIRCLE

Integrate. Practice. Grow.

Where Coaching Skills Become More Natural

The P.A.C.E. Fellowship Circle is designed for Ministers and Spiritual Leaders who have completed Levels I and II and are ready to deepen their learning through practice, reflection, feedback, and shared wisdom.

This is less about learning more information and more about integrating what you have already learned.

In a small, supportive Zoom Fellowship Circle, participants practice applying P.A.C.E. to realistic and layered ministry conversations while strengthening their own minister-coach presence.

What You Will Gain

• Four facilitated Fellowship Circle sessions with a small peer cohort
• Practice using P.A.C.E. in realistic ministry conversations
• Personalized feedback and reflection
• Greater awareness of rescue patterns and the tendency to move too quickly toward solutions
• Practice remaining curious when conversations become complex
• Shared wisdom from fellow Ministers and Spiritual Leaders
• Increased confidence, clarity, discernment, and consistency in coaching practice

THE FELLOWSHIP JOURNEY

Presence → Curiosity → Complexity → Integration

Each participant also receives a 20-minute personalized session with Dr. Judith to clarify goals and intentions for the Fellowship experience.

Format: Virtual (Zoom) | Four sessions
Seats: Limited to 6 participants

REGISTER below.  We look forward to seeing you.

ONE JOURNEY. FOUR MANAGEABLE STEPS.

LEVEL 0 — DISCOVER
Experience the difference coaching can make.

LEVEL I — EMPOWERMENT
Learn the foundation and begin practicing P.A.C.E.

LEVEL II — REFINEMENT
Deepen your skills for layered and complex conversations.

LEVEL III — FELLOWSHIP CIRCLE
Practice, reflect, receive feedback, and integrate your learning.

The P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™ is a nondenominational, continuing education platform to support ordained Ministers and Spiritual Leaders in their transformative journey. The workshops are designed to elevate skills, deepen spiritual insights, and foster more meaningful connections with congregations and communities. Through a series of comprehensive workshops, engaging group discussions, and personalized learning experiences, attendees gain the tools to become more effective, empathetic, and impactful spiritual leaders.

By embracing P.A.C.E., participants learn to navigate the complex dynamics of spiritual practice with confidence and compassion. From understanding the nuances of coaching to mastering the art of communication, these workshops offer a holistic framework for growth and refinement. As participants progress through the levels, they gain valuable skills and cultivate a greater awareness of themselves and those they serve.

The Institute invites ordained Ministers and Spiritual Leaders to join the journey of lifelong learning through our continuing education offerings. Together, we will explore new perspectives, address challenges with grace, and strengthen bonds within yourself and your spiritual communities. With each workshop, participants move closer to becoming the leaders they aspire to be—ones who lead with wisdom, authenticity, and a heart attuned to the needs of others.

The P.A.C.E. Coaching Skills Institute™ and Dr. Holder look forward to welcoming participants to sessions and witnessing the profound impact emerging coaching skills have on one’s spiritual practice and growth. We invite you to take a look at our future offerings as you think about the multi-facet impact of coaching.

“By broadening your understanding through continuing education, you nurture your soul and the souls of those you minister, allowing for a greater attunement with mind, heart and what truly matters.” 

Dr. Holder