TESTIMONIALS
Geoffrey is my first call when I plan to start something new or address complex issues in parish ministry. He always focuses me clearly see the dynamics of a particular situation and helps me understand how I function as a leader of a complicated system.
I feel privileged to have Geoffrey as a coach. I have been rector of a small country church for several years. Since my first days here as a solo rector he has helped me negotiate needed changes from finances, staff, and programs. He was a great asset as we navigated the pandemic. We think through the day-to-day issues as well as the strategic longer-range issues. He is astute about parish ministry and his many years of experience give me perspective and tactics for overcoming obstacles and avoiding pitfalls. He also makes me laugh. Laughter is most valuable when ministry can be so serious, and responsibilities seem so weighty. Working with him as my coach has been a great gift
Geoffrey and I have worked together, meeting on average once a month. Geoffrey is an effective listener and excellent mind in providing me honest, trustworthy, and candid counsel for navigating leadership in a large, complex parish system. As my coach, he also is holds me accountable to my own goals and priorities, a skill for which I am especially grateful. I recommend him enthusiastically.
It is my privilege to work with Geoffrey. His sound counsel and incisive questions lead me to reflect and consider long after the conclusion of each monthly session. After serving for many years as part of a dynamic clergy team that offered regular mutual challenge, I knew that such checks and challenges would be important for me, but in a new and different way as I now have the honor of serving in a parish that has been returned to the Episcopal Church and is being rebuilt and restored in every way. Given the grand systems change we are engaged in, I knew it would be vital to procure Geoffrey’s brilliant and measured guidance along the way. I am grateful.
I’m thankful to have had the gift of working monthly with Geoffrey, as my family systems and leadership coach. Geoffrey has helped me understand my role as a chaplain in a school family system (parents, admin, teachers, students, etc.). He has helped me see things systemically vs. reacting to things emotionally as they come up. A scholar of Bowen Systems Theory and Edwin Friedman, Geoffrey explores with me how my position in my family of origin impacts my decision making. Geoffrey brings to each session his sense of humor, his invaluable experience serving as a rector, and his leadership in the wider Church. He challenges me to apply in practical ways what I have learned.
Over the years I have been working with Geoffrey Hoare, I have grown as a leader. He is available during emergencies, listens deeply, asks powerful questions, and makes sound suggestions. Geoffrey draws on vast experience in a variety of contexts to inform our conversations, which have both challenged me and affirmed my existing knowledge and capacities. With Geoffrey’s coaching, I have grown in my capabilities and confidence as a leader. I highly recommend Geoffrey. He is an exemplary coach.
Working with Geoffrey as my coach has been one of the most grounding and growth-filled experiences of my ministry. Geoffrey brings a rare blend of deep pastoral wisdom, clear-eyed insight, and steady encouragement. His ability to listen without judgment while asking just the right questions helped me name what matters most in my vocation and leadership and to let go that which wasn’t serving me. He is especially helpful when facing complex issues—offering perspective, clarity, and practical wisdom without ever rushing the process. Geoffrey doesn’t offer quick fixes—he offers a thoughtful partnership rooted in faith, integrity, and lived experience. I recommend him wholeheartedly to any clergy person seeking to grow in both spirit and skill.
Geoffrey’s coaching has changed the trajectory of my ministry. He has helped me to gain confidence and clarity to commit to courses of action in my ministry with wisdom, faith, and care. Geoffrey mixes accountability, humor, and wisdom in his coaching sessions to help me feel at ease. He allows me to neither take myself too seriously as leader nor to discount the power I have as a leader to be an agent of change. I feel empowered as a leader with Geoffrey as a coach behind me. I also know that I have someone in my corner who loves parish ministry and wants me to make the most of my opportunities in my current parish. I also appreciate Geoffrey’s broad church approach, and ecumenical outlook. As someone from a mainline, Christian tradition different from Geoffrey’s, I am surprised how much he understands about the nuances and constraints of my denomination. I highly recommend Geoffrey’s coaching services. With Geoffrey as your coach, be prepared to be encouraged and challenged to enhance your resilience, confidence, and capacity as a leader.
Geoffrey is a lifeline, a sounding board, a steam vent, a deep well of compassion, a reference source on systems theory with a sound business head, and a long, hearty laugh. In a small diocese of primarily sole practitioner rectors, Geoffrey’s coaching meets a need that cannot be served locally, providing a connection with a wise, vastly experienced cardinal rector who is both visionary and adaptable to smaller local contexts. Geoffrey always holds the thread on the narrative and is able to sort unique features from common patterns, neither over-simplifying nor getting tangled in detail, providing the colleague support and experience of a big staff in the real world of our single priest churches. I wouldn’t want to do this alone.
As a new rector, I found myself easily overwhelmed by the complex and varied duties of my new position. Geoffrey’s combination of gravitas, diverse experience in church leadership, and good humor helped me organize and prioritize my tasks and my strengths. Since our sessions together, I find myself leaning into my own leadership with renewed confidence and non-anxiety in anxious times.