Character Testimonials
I’ve known Nathan for about 12 years. His passion for people is unmatched. Nathan is a true visionary. He leads with a combination of high-level thinking and deep intuition. His strengths include recognizing the importance of roles, responsibilities and accountability, and common-sense coaching. His strategies always translate into effective leading, efficiency, and the reinforcing of essential life skills.
- Steven Sisler, The Behavioral Resource Group
Coaching Testimonials
One of the most difficult challenges I’ve struggled with as a leader is the tension between decisiveness and openness. If you can’t stay open to the winds of new data pushing you in a different direction, you’re going to fight a lot of unnecessary friction. On the other hand, “Ready, aim, aim” syndrome can be deadly to a vision as well. Eventually, you have to fire. I came to Nathan at a time where the future of my organization was very much dependent on me making the decisions that no one else could make but doing it out of sensitivity to a number of different indicators, which weren’t necessarily telling me what I wanted to hear. Nathan helped me to reframe the problem in terms of my broader dreams and goals for the organization, rather than whatever the squeaky wheel of the week happened to be. Once I remembered the soul of the vision, making the right decision was easy.
- Pr. Jared Witt, The Hearth: A Church Outside of Church
Imagine feeling professionally frustrated and in need of someone to talk through difficulties. That’s probably an easy visualization exercise if you’re looking for a coach. Now imagine that the Coach you’re talking to gets it! They understand the big picture as well as the details. That’s Nathan.And that’s not a low bar… Nathan has walked through numerous leadership challenges himself. He understands the lonely landscape of being a change agent. I felt a kinship in talking with him right away. In Nathan I was speaking with someone who understood what I was trying to do and what was keeping me from doing it. Like my therapist Nathan helped me see my part in leading; unlike my therapist he was able to offer more than insight or feelings. With Nathan I embarked on a series of exercises designed to help me lead better. Getting a coach was the single best investment in my career. Getting Nathan as my Coach has been the best investment in myself.
— Martin Malzahn
Nathan has an ability to both encourage and challenge at the same time. I found this enormously helpful. If you are considering coaching, I would highly recommend talking with Nathan.
- Pastor Amy Thompson Sevimli
Rev. Dr. Nathan Swenson-Reinhold is the coach you need. You come to him with a jumble of anxiety, loose ends and unfinished thoughts and he helps you craft a workable ministry game plan with newfound confidence. His coaching helps you see what was hiding in plain sight: a leadership path forward that accounts for your own humanity and spiritual journey. He deftly navigates his different coaching hats to help meet you in the leadership moment--and never leaves you without an actionable way forward. His coaching helps accelerate the results you want to see by helping you gain the balcony view advantage that is easily lost in the weeds of day-to-day work. Nathan's coaching continues to help me be more effective, faithful, and frankly, more human in my life and leadership. I recommend a consultation without reservation.
— Kevin Bergeson
Pastoral leadership can be relentlessly challenging and often the path forward to doing the right thing for the right reason is not clear. Add to that the fact that Pastors have few trusted resources they can turn to at key crossroads. For those reasons I sought the help of Nathan Swenson-Reinhold as a clergy coach close to two years ago. Nathan is skilled at asking the questions which get to the heart of my uncertainty and indecisiveness. He listens well and probes even better. Through understanding and acknowledging my unique personality style he guides me to seeing myself in a freshly bold manner and is a faithful encourager for which I am very grateful for. Nathan is trustworthy as he allows my personal ownership of each conversation and helps me to set achievable goals for myself. I offer the highest personal recommendation for him.
- Jeanne Madsen, Lead Pastor
Grateful for the space Nathan creates for me to hear myself. I leave each session more aligned with my desires, gifts, and hopes. From that space, I am released to take new action towards my goals in life.
- Kristen Kane, RiseUp Nutrition (Owner)
Facilitation Testimonials
For the past twenty years, I have been in the corporate world supporting C-level and executive leadership on fulfilling their strategic goals.
In those twenty years, I have never witnessed what I witnessed in ONE session with Pastor Nathan.
He was able to guide 30+ Jesus loving congregation members to ALIGN and ESTABLISH our strategic goals for the next five years! Let me repeat that. Our five year goals (5 in total) in ONE session. What he did for our strategic vision committee was awe inspiring. To get us all focused on the heart of Jesus and guide us in way that showed we all had buy-in for what our church’s five goals should be, is a gift. A gift the corporate world desperately needs. A gift I was honored to be a witness of. Pastor Nathan broke us up into self chosen teams, helped us establish our short and long term goals, guided us in establishing leaders of those teams, and so much more. He even sang worship songs and played the guitar as all this took place! It never once felt like work, it felt like worship! The weekends he was with us, can only be described as “Holy”. Holy Spirit Lutheran Church is blessed beyond measure to have Nathan as our guide. The next five years looks way different than any of us expected since the pandemic, and in speaking for myself, my spirit is overjoyed knowing Nathan is the one guiding us on this journey."
In Him,
Nicole Graeser
Small Groups / Sparc Groups
Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, Juno Beach, Florida