I’ve written before about a ministry I have loved getting to know: CRM: Empowering Leaders.

 At the event a few weeks ago, I received a lovely devotional guide for Lent that I intend to use, beginning today–Ash Wednesday. It’s called The Journey to Surrender.

I have a printed copy, but also signed up for their daily emails during Lent. Link here to see today’s which is about experiencing Lent in community.

If you are searching for a way to connect to the meaning of this season, I would encourage you to sign up for the daily email, too. 

Themes developed will be: Thirst, Seize, Relinquish, Prevail

I am looking forward to this journey! Please, join in…

I have never been asked a more sincere but bewildering question. “Do you plug in?” she repeated? “Oh, yeah… you’re driving Brendon’s car; Brendon doesn’t plug in. Do you want to plug in?”

Again, clueless.

Turns out, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada… the environmental conditions tend to make car engines freeze. Minus 40 is a hostile environment for maintaining the core heart of a vehicle. How do folks make sure they can still drive? They plug in.

In fact, the entire community arranges itself for this! Drivers purchase special adaptors for the engine block (I am stretching my automotive understanding to its limits), so that whether they are in the garage, at the office parking lot, at the church parking lot, and even at the hotel where I am staying, they often “plug in”.

While this is certainly no perfect image, I couldn’t help but notice the connections to our need for connection with God. Like the harsh Saskatchewan winter, the reality of ordinary life is often quite hostile to the well-being of our soul. And yet, deep within, the soul invisibly drives everything that matters to us… far more than just our car!

In order to live the lives we’re called to live, in order to be available and effective and loved as God’s people in this world, we, too, need to guard and protect that inner engine, what Henri Nouwen called, “the fire within”. Of course, the opportunity for us to “plug in” doesn’t require a physical outlet in a parking lot; God’s presence and power and love surround us at all times. Yet we, too, need to be intentional about connecting to the source. Simple spiritual practices do this. They care for our souls; they connect us to love.

Do you plug in? Can you connect with God right now, even as you read? What difference does it make?

In preparing for this weekend’s National Missionary Training Forum, sponsored by Church Resource Ministries, I read a fascinating article about Leighton Ford’s current involvement in Spiritual Direction.

For those who want to understand more about spiritual direction, from the heart and soul of a respected and beloved evangelist, I thought you might find it inspiring and interesting as well.

Enjoy!

a Quote:

“I began to realize that a lot of my best work in Arrow [leadership development ministry] had been at the level of spiritual direction—long walks and talks with men and women, listening to their own stories, telling them mine,” he says. “Increasingly, I found that many of them wanted guidance about evangelism and mission, but more than anything they wanted spiritual guidance.” (emphasis mine)

Link to the whole article

Over the past few years, I’ve had the great honor (and fun!) of working with some exceptionally gifted leaders and teachers and musicians through the Spiritual Formation Alliance. The SFA hosted national events in 2004 and 2006, and then regional Forums in 2007.

Currently, I give leadership to the Midwest-based efforts. At our most recent gathering we decided on a few things I want to share with the Soul Care community:

• We have a new Facebook group, Alliance-Midwest, to make connections with others and share upcoming events/helpful resources. Already, discussions on retreat centers and books have begun. (We’ll interpret “Midwest” loosely if you live elsewhere but would like to join us online for the conversation!) If/when you have a Facebook account (free), simply request to join the group.
• Our next “event” is Saturday, May 3, hosted at Willow Creek Community Church. The morning provides a guided solitude experience for personal refreshment, and the afternoon will be devoted to various topics related to spiritual formation and leadership, prayer ministry, personal soul care, etc. Registration information will be available soon. If you would like to be placed on our email list, please contact us at connect@soulcare.com.

Author Eugene Peterson speaks directly and poignantly on the dilemma many of us feel in vocational ministry. I’ll let his words (below) speak for themselves, but would love to hear your thoughts. (BTW, thanks, Gary, for your comments on the importance of silence as a pastor. I think you’ll like this)

Early on in Peterson’s ministry he developed this awareness:

“I and my work converged: my work an extension of my faith, vocation serving as paving to make the faith accessible for others who wished to travel this road.

Then this chasm opened up. This split between personal faith and pastoral vocation… Gradually it dawned on me that the crevasse was not before but within me. … Why weren’t things fitting together simply and easily?  I was a pastor vocationally; I was a Christian personally. I had always assumed the two, “pastor” and “Christian”, were essentially the same thing and naturally congruent. Now I was finding that they were not. Being a Christian, more often than not, seemed to get in the way of working as a pastor. Working as a pastor, with surprising frequency, seemed to put me at odds with living as a Christian.” (Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, Eugene Peterson)

This painful awareness led Peterson to search for “a spirituality adequate to my calling” or “an interior adequate to the exterior“, which he writes of, now, with some thirty years’ worth of hindsight on pastoral ministry and the personal life. The big idea? Our ministry becomes a career, and we bow low to it, UNLESS we find a way to “pay more attention to what God does than what I do., and to find daily, weekly, yearly rhythms that would get that awareness into my bones.” 

He particularly hopes to encourage those who, facing this same painful awareness, never resolve the chord in their souls, and instead abandon vocational ministry.

So how about you? Have you had a similar awareness? What helps you develop a spirituality adequate to your vocation, be it “ministry” “motherhood” “marketplace” “student” or something entirely different? The challenge, of course, is universal.

journaling questions:

• What tensions exist between my personal devotion to Jesus Christ and the work I do?
• What helps resolve that tension constructively?

This past week, I had the great fun of joining in a week-long conversation about starting the new year out right… courtesy of Midday Connection on WMBI. Throughout the week, hosts Melinda Schmidt and Anita Lustrea interviewed guests on several topics such as getting organized and being wise with money.

And Thursday was Soul Care day! Anita wondered, how might we arrange our lives in 2008 for a healthy, growing relationship with God? Adele Calhoun and I shared the interview, and enjoyed the conversation with Anita as well as the folks who called in during the broadcast.

So what was the “answer”? How do we care for our souls in ‘08? You’ll need to listen to the archives to hear the whole thing… but here’s a few highlights:

Pay attention to your desire. For “more” for “something else” for “transformation”. Desire, Adele reminded us, can take the form of a positive feeling or even a holy discontent, a holy longing, both pointing to a desire for change. What to do with that desire? First, it might be helpful to write about it in a journal. Capture those fleeting thoughts or wishes or longings on paper, where they can become more concrete and actionable. Once identified, you can Read the rest of this entry »

Silence is Golden

Duct Tape is Silver

So read the T-shirt slogen most often quoted by my noisy family this year!!

Over the Christmas vacation, I learned about silence in a new way, thanks to J. Brent Bill, who leads the Center for Congregational Growth in Indianapolis. While Brent’s organization serves a diverse range of congregations, he himself is a Quaker and has written two excellent books on Quaker history, spirituality, and practice: Holy Silence and Mind the Light.

I enjoyed both, especially the one on silence. Brent explains, [Quakers] worshiped in silence. They did so because they felt that they needed to be quiet and wait on God–not man–to speak. … They saw holy silence as a way to Read the rest of this entry »