Through the years when people asked me what I think about Dallas, the truest thing I could think to say was, “He is the real deal.” And that is exactly what I would say today—Dallas is the real deal, only now even more so!  

In honor of Dallas’ life and in celebration of what his transforming presence meant to so many of us, we offer this excerpt (slightly adapted) from one of his later works, The Great Omission.  It is Dallas at his best—insightful and penetrating, theologically and biblically deep, culturally savvy with a generous helping of his endearing, tongue-in-cheek humor.

Wherever you are today, perhaps you can take a few moments in quiet to read this piece and thank God for this man who submitted a brilliant mind, a beautiful heart, and a great spirit to the transforming presence of Christ in such a way that it brought forth such a unique ministry among us. If you are drawn to renew your commitment to be a student of Christ—one who is “possessed and permeated” with God’s character such that you can be trusted with Christ’s power to do God’s work in the world—what a worthy tribute that would be!    —Ruth Haley Barton

Why Bother with Discipleship?

by Dallas Willard

IF WE ARE CHRISTIANS simply by believing that Jesus died for our sins, and that is all it takes to have sins forgiven and go to heaven when we die, why, then, do some people keep insisting that something more than this is desirable? Lordship, discipleship, spiritual formation, and the like?

What more could one want than to be sure of one’s eternal destiny and to enjoy life among others who profess the same faith? Of course everyone wants to be a good person. But that does not require that you actually do what Jesus himself said and did. Haven’t you heard? “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.”

Those who honestly find themselves concerned about such matters might find it helpful to consider four simple points.

Vampire Christianity
First, there is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself or his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus’s expense and have nothing more to do with him.

Some years ago A. W. Tozer expressed his “feeling that a notable heresy has come into being throughout evangelical Christian circles—the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need him as Savior and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to him as Lord as long as we want to!” He then goes on to state “that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scriptures.” (I Call it Heresy, Christian Publications, 1974, p. 5f)

This “heresy” has created the impression that it is quite reasonable to be a “vampire Christian.” One in effect says to Jesus, “I’d like a little of your blood, please. But I don’t care to be your student or have your character. In fact, won’t you just excuse me while I get on with my life, and I’ll see you in heaven.” But can we really imagine that this is an approach that Jesus finds acceptable?

And when you stop to think about it, how could one actually trust him for forgiveness of sins while not trusting him for much more than that? You can’t trust him without believing that he was right about everything, and that he alone has the key to every aspect of our lives here on earth. But if you believe that, you will naturally want to stay just as close to him as you can, in every aspect of your life.

Locked in Moral Defeat
Second, if we do not become his apprentices in Kingdom living, we remain locked in defeat so far as our moral intentions are concerned. This is where most professing Christians find themselves today. Statistical studies prove it. People, generally, choose to sin. And they are filled with explanations as to why, everything considered, it is “necessary” to do so. But, even so, no one wants to be a sinner. It is amusing that people will admit to lying, for example, but stoutly deny that they are liars.

We want to be good, but we are prepared, ready, to do evil—should circumstances require it. And of course they do “require” it, with deadening regularity. As Jesus himself indicated, those who practice sin actually are slaves of it (John 8:34). Ordinary life confirms it. How consistently do you find people who routinely succeed in doing the good and avoiding the evil they intend?

In contrast, practicing Jesus’s words, as his apprentices, enables us to understand our lives and to see how we can interact with God’s redemptive resources, ever at hand. This in turn gives us an increasing freedom from failed intentions as we learn from him how to, simply, do what we know to be right. By a practiced abiding in his words, we come to know the truth, and the truth does, sure enough, make us free (John 8:36). We are able to do the good we intend.

Simplicity that is Really Transparency
Third, only avid discipleship to Christ through the Spirit brings the inward transformation of thought, feeling, and character that “cleans the inside of the cup” (Matthew 23:25) and “makes the tree good” (Matthew 12:33). As we study with Jesus we increasingly become on the inside—with the “Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6)—exactly what we are on the outside, where actions and moods and attitudes visibly play over our body, alive in its social context. An amazing simplicity will take over our lives—a simplicity that is really just transparency.

This requires a long and careful learning from Jesus to remove the duplicity that has become second nature to us—as is perhaps inevitable in a world where, to “manage” our relations to those about us, we must hide what we really think, feel, and would like to do, if only we could avoid observation. Thus, a part of Jesus’s teaching was to “avoid the leaven, or permeating spirit, of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1).

The Pharisees were in many respects the very best people of Jesus’s day. But they located goodness in behavior and tried to secure themselves by careful management at the behavioral level. However, that simply cannot be done. Behavior is driven by the hidden or secret dimension of human personality, from the depths of the soul and body, and what is present there will escape. Hence, the Pharisee always fails at some point to do what is right, and then must redefine, redescribe, or explain it away—or simply hide it.

In contrast, the fruit of the spirit, as described by Jesus, Paul, and other biblical writers, does not consist in actions, but in attitudes or settled personality traits that make up the substance of the “hidden” self, the “inner man.” “Love” captures this fruit in one word, but does so in such a concentrated form that it needs to be spelled out. Thus, the “fruit [singular] of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). Other such passages easily come to mind, such as 2 Peter 1:4–8, 1 Corinthians 13, and Romans 5:1–5.

“Spiritual formation” in the Christian tradition is a process of increasingly being possessed and permeated by such character traits as we walk in the easy yoke of discipleship with Jesus our teacher. From the inward character the deeds of love then naturally—but supernaturally—and transparently flow. Of course there will always be room for improvement, so we need not worry that we will become perfect—at least for a few weeks or months. Our aim is to be pervasively possessed by Jesus through constant companionship with him. Like our brother Paul, “This one thing I do:…I press on toward the goal!…That I may know Christ!” (Philippians 3:13–14, 8).

Those Jesus can Trust with His Power
Finally, for the one who makes sure to walk as close to Jesus as possible there comes the reliable exercise of a power that is beyond them in dealing with the problems and evils that afflict earthly existence. Jesus is actually looking for people he can trust with his power.

He knows that otherwise we remain largely helpless in the face of the organized and disorganized evils around us, and that we are unable—given his chosen strategy—to promote his will for good in this world with adequate power. He is the one who said, “I have been given say over all things in heaven and earth. So you go…” (Matthew 28:18). Of him it was said that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, and he went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). It is also given to us, we are called, to do his work by his power and not our own.

However we may understand the details, there can be no doubt on the biblical picture of human life—that we were meant to be inhabited by God and to live by a power beyond ourselves. Human problems cannot be solved by human means. Human life can never flourish unless it pulses with the “immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19).

But only constant students of Jesus will be given adequate power to fulfill their calling to be God’s person for their time and their place in this world. They are the only ones who develop the character which makes it safe to have such power. But, someone will say, can I not be “saved”—that is, get into heaven when I die—without any of this? Perhaps you can. God’s goodness is so great, I am sure that He will let you in if He can find any basis at all to do so.

But you might wish to think about what your life amounts to before you die, about what kind of person you are becoming, and about whether you really would be comfortable for eternity in the presence of One whose company you have not found especially desirable for the few hours and days of your earthly existence. He is, after all, the One who says to you now, “Follow me!”

Adapted (subheads added) from Dallas Willard, The Great Omission (New York:  HarperOne, 2006) pp. 13-15.

Dallas Willard was a Professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California and renowned author of numerous books on the spiritual life including The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and Renovation of the Heart.  Dallas was one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our time, calling us back to the true meaning of discipleship and Christian formation.

Share your journey with us.

How has Dallas’ life and ministry drawn you to renew your commitment to follow Christ…to be inhabited by God…to live by a power beyond yourself?

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WESTMONT, IL—Award-winning author Ruth Haley Barton has signed a six-book contract with InterVarsity Press. Barton, president of The Transforming Center, a spiritual formation ministry to pastors and Christian leaders, will release Invitation to Transforming Community, the first of six books in the Transforming Church series, in Fall 2014.

“I am very excited about publishing a new series of books on becoming a transforming church with IVP,” Barton said. “This series will include a ‘big book’ addressed to leaders which will cast vision and clarify the major components of a church or ministry organization committed to becoming a transforming community plus a collection of smaller books designed to guide community members in studying and learning together in small groups and educational settings. Developing resources that equip and empower leaders to cultivate transforming communities is a natural next step for me and for the Transforming Center. We are so pleased to be taking it in partnership with IVP!”

“The Transforming Center is doing significant work equipping leaders in the church to have a transformational impact on the lives of the people they touch,” said Jeff Crosby, InterVarsity Press associate publisher and director of sales and marketing. “Throughout its existence, both IVP and, more personally, I have been honored to be a partner with Ruth and her team. I look forward to collaborating with them on the launch of this new collection of books.”

Barton published her first book with InterVarsity Press, Equal to the Task, in 1998. She has published five more books with InterVarsity Press, including Invitation to Solitude and Silence (2005 Christianity Today Book Award), Sacred Rhythms (2006 Logos Book Award), Longing for More, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and Pursuing God’s Will Together (2012 Leadership Book Award).

Cindy Bunch, Barton’s editor and associate editorial director said, “It has been a delight to be Ruth Haley Barton’s editor for the past fifteen years and to follow her journey as a leader in the area of spiritual formation. We are very pleased to be continuing the relationship long into the future. Ruth has some very important work ahead of her as she helps churches bring spiritual formation into the center of their ministry.”

It was almost twenty years ago now when, as a young leader, I crept into a spiritual director’s office desperate for help.  A grown up pastors’ kid in my in my early thirties, on staff at a church I loved, busy with a growing family, and just beginning to embark on a public life of writing and speaking…I was aware of things in my life that needed fixing and longings that were painfully unmet.  There was a level of selfishness that was being exposed in the crucible of marriage and family life that I did not know how to shift or change.  There were emotions from past pains and current disappointments that I did not know how to resolve.  There was a performance-oriented driven-ness that I did not know how to quiet and a longing for more, but more of what?

I had tried everything that had been offered in my own Protestant tradition—more Bible study, praying harder, trying harder, better sermons, Christian self-help books—to fix what was broken and to fill what was lacking, but to no avail. In the midst of the outward busyness of my “professional” life there was an inner chaos that was far more disconcerting than anything that was going on externally.  But this was not a good time to admit to any kind of spiritual emptiness or acknowledge any kind of serious questions about my faith.  As an emerging leader, it was a time for being “good,” for being available when people called, for maintaining outward evidences of spiritual maturity commensurate with the responsibilities I carried and the opportunities that were coming my way. It was a time to do what was needed in order to keep climbing the ladder to professional success and I knew it;  yet my interior groanings were real and needed attention.

Help is on the Way
For me, help came through a spiritual director, although I didn’t even know what one was at the time.  Our paths crossed because she was a psychologist.  I sought her out for therapy because I assumed that my problems were psychological in nature and could be fixed at that level.  Psychological insight and process were indeed valuable—to a point.  Eventually, however, she observed that what I needed was spiritual direction and suggested that we shift the focus of our times together to my relationship with God.  She told me that the questions I was raising were actually an invitation to deeper intimacy with God and needed to be dealt with in the context of that relationship. It was a welcome invitation and so we made the shift.

As I stayed faithful to my own spiritual journey under the tutelage of this wise guide, spiritual direction became one of the most disciplines in my life as a leader. Eventually responded to the calling to become a spiritual director, completed my training in spiritual direction at the Shalem Institute, and took a position in a large church as director of spiritual formation. Over time began writing and speaking as a spiritual director on themes related to spirituality, leadership, and the church and later on founded an organization focused on caring for the spiritual needs of pastors and Christian leaders. Our mission has been to provide a safe place for pastors and leaders to receive direction in attending to their own spiritual formation in the midst of the realities of life in leadership. In all of this, my commitment to having a spiritual director myself has remained strong because I am convinced that spiritual direction is an essential practice for all those who are in positions of spiritual leadership.

Welcoming Desperation
I am not the only leader to have come to spiritual direction by way of desperation. Many pastors and leaders come for spiritual direction because they, too, are experiencing inner emptiness in the midst of outward busyness, feelings of being “stuck” in their spiritual life or a longing for more in the midst of seeming success.  Their question is where does a leader go to articulate questions that seem so dangerous and doubts that seem so unsettling?  Who pastors the pastor?  Who provides spiritual leadership for the leader? Oftentimes it is a spiritual director.   The question for us is how can we increase our sensitivities and our capacities to be helpful to the particular needs of pastors and leaders?

Although it may sound strange, a good place to begin is to welcome, or at least normalize the desperation or desire a leader brings. It can be very hard for a leader to seek out spiritual direction because it represents something of a role reversal.  Leaders are accustomed to being, well, the leader and to submit to someone else’s guidance or to admit the need for such guidance can be a humbling experience.  Oftentimes, desire and desperation are the only dynamics powerful enough to cause them to seek guidance and in that sense, desperation is a good thing.  Desperation opens us to possibilities that we might not otherwise be open to—like spiritual direction!

Oftentimes, a leader will come to the first direction session overwhelmed or embarrassed by the state they are in or the questions they are bringing. As they start to feel reassured that their need or desire or feeling of desperation is a wonderful starting place for new spiritual journeying, they visibly relax.  They breathe a deep sigh of relief as they realize that this is a safe place to ask questions and explore issues that are lurking under the surface of their leadership personae.  Leadership, by its very nature, places us in a position where our spirituality and ability to lead are constantly being scrutinized and evaluated.  To have a safe place far outside one’s leadership setting in which to attend to my own soul’s need is a great gift.

While the “normal” person has many options for seeking spiritual guidance and sustenance (churches, synagogues, a relationship with a pastor, priest or rabbi, spirituality centers, para-church ministry organizations that cater to specific groups), spiritual leaders are often very isolated in their leadership roles.  Since everyone is looking to them for spiritual leadership, they cannot share the depth of their own doubts, questions and growing edges without creating uncertainty among those they are leading.  They labor under the burden of knowing that their job is, in very real ways dependant on their perceived spirituality and doctrinal clarity—however that is evaluated in their particular circles.  They know that even if they have questions, they need to continue to teach and preach with confidence; they must be wise about what they reveal in the presence of those who have the power to hire, fire or significantly influence their career path.

The conundrum, of course, is that without a safe place to attend to his/her own journey, a leader’s growth will be stunted and their spiritual life will atrophy.  As one directee (a parish priest) shared recently, “My job is to help people attend to their own inner world and to cultivate hope and expectation that God is actively present in their lives but I have lost that hope and expectation in my own life. I need someone to help me do what I am trying to help others do.”

Create Sacred Space
The word sacred simply means set apart or, set apart for a special purpose. Leaders are deeply in need of finding a place that is set apart for the care of their own souls, a place of privacy that removes them from the public scrutiny of their work environment and the leadership persona that they must maintain.

Privacy is an ethical commitment that spiritual directors make to all their directees but privacy is of particular concern to those who are in public positions of leadership and they may need more reassurance and concrete evidence that their privacy will be protected than most.   When I first began spiritual direction, the questions and issues I brought felt so personal and had such potential to effect how others in my religiously conservative circles might view me that I was extremely skittish at first; however, I was also acutely aware of my need for a place where I could be completely open. I needed my spiritual director to assure me in the strongest terms that there was no possibility that she would ever betray my confidence.  The fact that she was far outside my leadership settings and my social circles was very important.

Where we met was also important.  When we began, we met in her office where she was a part of a busy practice of psychologists. The possibility of seeing people I knew in the waiting room in the midst of something that felt so personal was very unnerving to me.  If I did see someone I knew, I felt like I had to explain something I didn’t want to explain and would have preferred to keep private. When she dropped out of the practice and we were able to meet in her home office, there was more privacy and that was helpful.

I am convinced that some of us need to function as spiritual directors outside of existing church systems and corporate structures so that there is a safe place for leaders to go. I have offered spiritual direction in my home and more recently, in my office at a nearby retreat center. In both settings I have taken great care to cultivate the physical environment in such a way that the space itself ushers leaders into a sense of being “apart” from the distractions, the responsibilities and the frenetic activity that has become the norm for so many leaders.  Without fail, leaders express deep gratitude for the quiet, the privacy, and the sacred quality of the space.  Sometimes, when they first enter into the space and we share initial moments of quiet, they are moved to tears that they hardly know how to explain. To have a sacred space that is set aside for them and for the care of their souls rather than being in a religious environment that is associated with ministry or a coaching environment associated with getting more work out of them is a tremendous blessing.

The tears seem to be associated with the disillusionment and grief that many leaders experience as they realize that they have lost a sense of God’s presence for themselves personally in the context of their leadership.  That grief is somehow comforted by finding a sacred space (not necessarily religious) that is carved out for them and for the care of their own souls.  Even their ability to feel something in response to the space assures them that they are still alive in places where they thought they had become numb or had even died.

The Unique Burdens of Leadership
Those who have been in leadership for any length of time at all have experienced much scrutiny and evaluation of their spiritual life and their leadership.  Many have experienced the heartache of being severely misunderstood, judged and even betrayed to the point that they have given up on ever being safe. The loneliness that comes from being “the buck stops here” person and the natural process of projection that takes place between leaders and followers is par for the leadership course and yet it takes its toll.

By the time a leader comes to a spiritual director, they may have lost any sense of being loved beyond what they can produce; they might harbor deep feelings of disillusionment about themselves, the human condition, and institutions they serve– including (and perhaps most especially) the church. Their experiences might have left them questioning their effectiveness as a leader, whatever vision they had and sometimes even their worth as a person.

Many leaders have repressed their grief and anger and soldiered on, leaving much that is unresolved beneath their professional exterior.  Almost all leaders have something in their lives—some pain, some character issue, some spiritual question, some failure—that they have never talked to anyone about and they desperately need a safe place to do so. They often walk into our presence carrying heavy burdens of unresolved pain; spiritual direction promises to be a place where they might be able to lay it down—at least for awhile.

When I first entered into spiritual direction, I was so beaten down by some of what I had experienced in pastoral ministry that I couldn’t believe that anyone could look into my soul and see something good.  Particularly as a woman leading in church I had experienced roadblocks that were deeply disillusioning to the extent that they had caused me to question my faith. When my spiritual director affirmed the brightness of my spirit or the goodness she saw in my heart I was surprised to find that I had a hard time taking it in. I didn’t realize how far I had gotten from any kind of realistic sense of myself. Even though it took time for me to get used to it and believe it, I needed the healing of her unconditional “seeing” so desperately.  Her consistent affirmation of my journey as a person with the call of God on my life and leadership was a significant element of what brought me back to a place of health and strength in my spiritual life. As the poet Hafiz writes: How did the rose ever open its heart and give to the world all its Beauty?  It felt the encouragement of light against its being.  Otherwise we all remain too frightened.[i]

The Power of Confession
The safety of the spiritual direction relationship makes it the ideal place (and for some, the only place) where a leader can experience deeper levels of self-awareness, examine the hidden dynamics and relational patterns that are hindering them, and at times make confession. The idea of receiving someone’s confession may be uncomfortable for some directors because we do not think of ourselves as priests and we feel quite unprepared for such a thing.  In some traditions the spiritual director and the confessor are seen as two distinct roles and two distinct people.  However, most pastors and spiritual leaders (at least in the Protestant tradition) do not have anywhere else to make their confessions and there are times when this is what the soul needs most.

Confession is good for the soul—especially confession in the presence of someone who knows how to mediate God’s grace in the moment. Because of the safety, the privacy and the longevity of the relationship with a spiritual director, this may be the only place a leader has to engage this powerful discipline.  If the Spirit is moving them make a confession, we need to be ready to receive it. There are many ways to receive someone’s confession; the important thing is to be available to the Spirit for what the moment requires.

The first time I made a confession to my spiritual director I had not planned to do it.  Confession to any kind of confessor was not a part of my tradition but it had been on my mind as something that could be beneficial to my spiritual journey and on this particular day, it just kind of came out.  Confession was so difficult for me, that I slid out of my chair and onto the floor in a wave of tears that took me by surprise.  My director just quietly got down on the floor with me and put her arms around me in a gesture of love, comfort, and unconditional presence that was tremendously healing in its impact. There was no need for words.

The first time I received someone’s confession, the person let me know ahead of time that this was something they wanted to do.  Because the person was from a liturgical background, I brought my Book of Common Prayer so that I could read the prayer of absolution.  She made her confession. The tears flowed. I put my arms around her and read the prayer of absolution along with a verse from Scripture that assured her of God’s forgiveness.

Each of us will have to discover the ways of being with our directees in such moments that are true to who we are and responsive to what the directee most needs.  The point is that receiving someone’s confession is a sacred trust and it is good for us to have given some thought to how we might respond.  If we are in spiritual direction with leaders, there is a good possibility that we are the only place where they can make confession and they will, at some point, be moved to do so. We need to accept this as a part of the gift that we bring and be prepared to respond in ways that fit the situation.  It is one of the ways we can serve them.

Fresh Disciplines for Worn Out Leaders
When I entered into spiritual direction I had been working very hard at practicing the spiritual disciplines that I had been taught in my Protestant upbringing.  I was sure I could make it all work if I just tried harder. But part of my desperation was the fact that the practices and habits that people had told me were supposed to work in bringing about my transformation were not longer working, no matter how faithful I was to the program.  I was embarrassed and felt very defeated. Surprisingly, my spiritual director encouraged me to stop doing what wasn’t working (!) and to pay attention to what I was longing for.  It was the strangest and most wonderful feeling to be freed from the Bible study and prayer methods that I had practiced for so long in the hopes that there might be something new for me! While I continued to lead in the arenas where I had responsibility, I had a private place for letting go of what wasn’t working and trying some new things. This was all very hopeful.

Eventually my director helped me to understand that I was in a transitional place in the life of prayer and began to guide me into fresh disciplines that corresponded to my need and fostered fresh experiences with God that I was so thirsty for. Her concrete guidance along with the confidence she conveyed, marked out a new path for me.

One of the natural pitfalls of pastoral leadership in particular is that the boundary between one’s personal spiritual life and the demands of one’s profession can become very blurry. Pastoral leaders may come with a great sense of guilt that “I just don’t feel like praying” or “I study Scripture so much for my sermons, that I am no longer able to engage Scripture without thinking about my next sermon!” Corporate leader might have created a false dichotomy between their spiritual life and their leadership, having no idea how to engage spiritual disciplines that will help them forge of connection between their soul and their leadership.

One of the most significant contributions a spiritual director can make in the life of a leader is to create space for reflecting on their spiritual practices.  In this space, we help them quiet feelings of “ought” and “should” so that they can pay attention to those practices that are no longer fruitful for them or may have become layered with all sorts of professional expectations.  This can open the way for a letting go of what isn’t working and claiming fresh disciplines for themselves.  Our role as directors is to provide guidance for entering into spiritual disciplines that will forge a stronger connection between their soul and their leadership. The practice of mindfulness, paying attention to one’s breathing, building time into each work day for silence and prayer, staying attuned to inner dynamics of consolation and desolation and allowing such awareness to shape decision-making are all practices that strengthen the soul of one’s leadership.[ii]

It takes humility and courage for a spiritual leader to admit that they are guiding others in spiritual matters, they are coming up empty themselves. But as Thomas Merton so insightfully states, “The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a [person’s] life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to bring out his inner spiritual freedom, his inmost truth, which is what we call the likeness of Christ in his soul.”[iii]

The more experience and practice we as spiritual directors have with a wide variety of spiritual disciplines the more we are able to open up a treasure trove of spiritual possibilities for leaders who have done all they know to do and are desperate for fresh ways of connecting with God. This offers a world of hope to leaders who have lost hope in their ability to connect with God in the context of their leadership.

Reclaiming Identity and Calling
A leader’s calling is rooted in their identity. Whenever a leader is out of touch with his/her identity or our calling, they are vulnerable to a life lived at the mercy of other people’s expectations and their own inner compulsions. When a leader has lived this way for too long, it is hard to even tell the difference between being called and being driven.  A key role of the spiritual director is to help leaders stay in touch with their identity as given to them by God and their calling as spoken to them by God.  The experience of calling is a place of great intimacy with God if we know how to cultivate it; it can also be a place where a leader experiences a heartbreaking sense of being cut off from God and from their true self if they have let the demands of leadership consume them for too long.

I know one spiritual director who is always asking his directees if they are staying true to their calling and it is a question that immediately brings clarity or if not clarity, the need to find clarity.

Before calling has anything to do with doing, it has everything to do with being that essence of yourself that God called into being and that God alone truly knows.  It is the call to be who we are and at the same time to become more than we can yet envision.  Our calling is woven into the very fabric of our being as we have been created by God, and it encompasses everything that makes us who we are—even those things that have caused pain and confusion. This would include our genetics, our innate orientations and capacities, our personality, heredity and life-shaping experiences, the time and place into which we were born.  As Parker Palmer points out, “Vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to be something I am not.  It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”[iv]

The spiritual director has the extraordinary privilege of helping people—in this case leaders—listen to the voice “in here” so they don’t spend their whole lives being driven by other people’s expectations and their own inner compulsions.  One of the ways we can help leaders return to a true sense of calling or recognize a new calling is to notice that a spiritual calling often takes us out to the edge of our capacities and sometimes to a place of great risk. With courage and restraint, a spiritual director can help leaders to continue to listen to the voice deep within and to answer with a courageous yes when that voice speaks.

When I first began to sense God’s call to spiritual direction, I was in seminary preparing for a traditional pastorate while serving on staff at a local church. I thought that was my calling. But at the same time, several people were asking me to serve as a spiritual director for them and I began to discover that something about it fit better for me than a lot of what I had been doing.  However, my own experience in spiritual direction had been so profoundly shaping that I could not imagine really playing that role in someone else’s life.  The thought scared me to death.  When I finally got up enough nerve to say something about it to my spiritual director, she quietly said, “I’ve seen that in you for years.”  It was a moment that was electric with truth and I’m glad she hadn’t said anything about it any sooner because I wouldn’t have been ready.  I wept and trembled with fear and with hope—fear about what this change might require of me and whether or not I could really do it.  Hope that God knew me well enough to call me something that fit so well.

What was most helpful to me at this point was that my director had waited until God said it to my heart and then affirmed it in a way that helped me to believe in what I was hearing.  Our interactions changed the course of my life vocationally and took me in all sorts of risky directions that have brought me to where I am today. This is, indeed, holy ground and that is where we as spiritual directors often find ourselves standing with the leaders we are companioning.

The Soul of Leadership
Jesus indicates that it is possible to gain the whole world but lose your own soul.  If he were speaking to us as spiritual leaders today he might point out that it is possible to gain the whole world of success in leadership and lose your own soul.  And when leaders lose their souls, so do the churches and organizations they lead.

Spiritual directors are in a unique position to help leaders stay in touch with their spiritual longings and support them in crafting a way of life that opens them to what their souls most want. While the people around them are often more concerned about what they can get out of them in terms of productivity and success, the spiritual director is in unique position to ask the question “How is it with your soul?” and to keep asking it whenever it seems like a directee is losing themselves amid the demands of life in leadership.

Since their relationship with a directee is “pure”—meaning that there is a singular focus on the well-being of the directee rather than competing agendas—spiritual directors are free to encourage and challenge leaders to be rigorously honest about how they are living their lives and whether their way of life is sustainable over the long haul.  Many congregations and organizations actually encourage and applaud—albeit in very subtle ways—destructive patterns like compulsive overworking, performance oriented driven-ness or lack of boundaries in the leader. The spiritual director has no such hidden agenda. He or she is free to be completely focused on the well-being of the directee.

There are few relationships in a leader’s life that are unencumbered with multiple agendas. This makes the spiritual direction relationship uniquely valuable to leaders as we are vigilant with them about finding a way of life that honors the whole reality of who they are—body, mind and spirit.  The best thing any of us bring to leadership is our own transforming self and the spiritual director is uniquely prepared and positioned to provide guidance in this process.

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2010.  This article first appeared in Presence:  An International Journal of Spiritual Direction, June 2010. Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center.  A nationally recognized speaker, spiritual director, and retreat leader, she is the author of numerous books and resources on the spiritual life including Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms and Invitation to Solitude and Silence.

Song of Praise
Psalm 118

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
His steadfast love endures forever!
The Lord is my strength and my song; and he has become my salvation.
His steadfast love endures forever!
The right hand of the Lord has triumphed; the right hand of the Lord is exalted.
His steadfast love endures forever!
The same stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone;
His steadfast love endures forever!
This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
His steadfast love endures forever!
This very day the Lord has acted:
We will rejoice and be glad in it!

Response
Almighty God, who sent Jesus into the world to suffer, die and rise again for our sake, help us to experience your resurrection power within our lives today and always. We offer this prayer in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Affirmation of the Church
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Easter Lectionary Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

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Good Friday Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42

Holy Saturday Job 14:1-14  OR Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16; 1 Peter 4:1-8; Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42

“Stay together, friends, don’t scatter and sleep.  Our friendship is made of being awake.”—Rumi

Several years ago during this season, my family gathered to bury my grandmother. She was 92 years old and greatly loved by many.  On Saturday we came together around her casket to see her body one last time, to pray, and say our personal good-byes. On Sunday, we gathered at a small church across from her home to worship and celebrate her life in a more public and formal way.  And then on Monday, a few of us made the journey three hours south for her burial.

At one point, I considered going home after the funeral because that would have been more convenient. But there was another desire within me, the desire to go the whole way—with my Dad as he walked the path of saying good-bye to his mother and with my grandmother as her body was brought to its final resting place.  Even though I knew she was no longer with us in the flesh, there was something about being present with her body up to and through those final moments that seemed important.

When my grandmother was alive her greatest delight was to have her family around her.  When it came time for us to leave, she would always stand on the porch and wave to us, straining for one last glimpse as we disappeared down the street.  In fact, the picture that we as grandchildren were given on the day of her funeral was a picture of her waving good-bye from her front porch; it captured something of her heart and her spirit.  I imagined that on the day of her burial, perhaps she would see us standing on the porch of this life, straining for one last connection with her before she disappeared from our sight. Staying with her all the way to the end of her journey here on this earth seemed like something we could do to honor her faithful love for us through the years.

It is this spirit that draws us to walk with Christ as we enter into these holy days.  It is the desire to stay with our loved one for as long as our presence can bring comfort and reassurance.  It is the commitment not to leave them alone as the darkness deepens and to be there waiting when the light dawns again.

Friends for the Journey
These are the days when Jesus’ followers around the world give themselves most fully and completely to worship.   This is our privilege—to walk with Christ and worship him during the holiest days of the Christian Church.  The journey begins, ironically, with the kiss of a friend on this very night—Maundy Thursday—after a dinner in which Jesus expressed his love for his disciples not just with words but with actions.

The irony has to do with the fact that Jesus had given such priority to cultivating relationships with his disciples during his brief time here on earth and now his betrayal was taking place within that most intimate circle. A careful look at Jesus’ life reveals that some of his most human moments had to do with his poignant expressions of longing for companionship.   From the earliest moments of his life in ministry he invited “those whom he wanted…to be with him,” the Scriptures tell us in Mark 3.

Jesus’ longing for intimacy and friendship with those he loved expressed itself in different ways throughout his life.  When his teaching became too challenging and many chose to leave, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “Will you leave me also?”  As their relationships deepened, Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.” And one of the crowning achievements of his life was that he loved his own until the end.  (John 13:1)

Going all the Way
Perhaps the most compelling expression of Christ’s longing for companionship was his request for his disciples to accompany him to the Garden of Gethsemane and to pray with him through the dark night of his betrayal and death. (Matthew 26: 36-37) There was something about knowing that his friends were nearby that provided strength and comfort.  He invited Peter, James and John, whom he trusted the most, to come farther than the others. And as he began to grieve more openly and to struggle with what was before him, he asked them specifically to stay awake with him.

I’m sure Jesus knew the difficulty of what he was asking. It is hard to stay present to someone else’s pain. The human tendency to “check out” when the human struggle becomes too much to bear is very strong. But he asked them anyway because only those who are closest stay through to the end.

Every year at this time we, too, have the opportunity to “go all the way” in reliving the events of Jesus’ last days here on this earth. Like the first disciples we have the opportunity to choose, as best we can, to deepen our friendship with Christ by communing with him and learning from him as we walk each step of the way—from the triumph of Palm Sunday to the darkness and death of the crucifixion to the victory of the Resurrection.

As we are intentional about seeking ways to walk with Christ through the events of these days, we respond to his deep and consistent desire to be with those he loved. Staying awake with him is an act of love and friendship.  It is the gift of ourselves, which is the truest gift we have to give. It is best to enter into these days very humbly for we are as human and fragile as Jesus’ first disciples were.

As St. Augustine wisely prayed, so we pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, don’t let me lie when I say that I love you…and protect me, for today I could betray you.”

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2013.  Not to be used without permission.

Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center, and author of Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence (InterVarsity Press).

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Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49

“The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”—Luke 19:37-38

Holy Week, which starts with Palm Sunday, begins with a bizarre juxtaposition of two kinds of passion. In the early part of the week we witness the passion of a hyped-up crowd screaming their affirmation that Jesus is king as he rides humbly into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. Later in the week we witness Jesus’ own passion (suffering) as he walks resolutely into the final stages of God’s plan for our redemption.

Many churches that follow the lectionary live both passions on the sixth Sunday of Lent—they stage a processional with palm branches early in the service (Liturgy of the Palms) and then read the Liturgy of the Passion in its entirety later on in the service.

In the church where I worship, the whole congregation participates in the Liturgy of the Passion by reading the parts spoken by the fickle crowd. It is very sobering to move from crying out in loud voices “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” to shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” It is a true beginning to the intense and conflicting emotions of this week in which we seek ways to walk with Christ and participate in his passion.

So let us pray together as we enter this Holy Week . . .

Almighty God, whose most dear Son
went not up to joy
but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:

Mercifully grant that we,
walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2013.  Not to be used without permission. Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer

Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center, and author of Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence (InterVarsity Press).

Lent Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

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“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
                                                                                                                         —John 12:24

This week’s lesson brings us face to face with one of the great paradoxes of our faith—that in order to really live, we must die. Before we can reign with Christ we must first share in his sufferings. When God begins to do a new thing, old things must pass away. In order to experience resurrection we, too, must die.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the only thing we stand to lose is the false self, which is not real anyway. The only thing passing away is that crusty old thing that is no longer useful.

Lent, then, is a time to practice dying in small ways so that when the bigger deaths come, we will know how to let go of that which is no longer needed. It is time to learn obedience in and through the things we suffer, just like Jesus did. It is a time for experiencing what it is like to have our outer nature wasting away while our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

This prayer from Henri Nouwen beautifully expresses the spirit and the discipline of losing our life in order to find it:

“Yes, Lord, I have to die—with you, through you, and in you—and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your resurrection. There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess. 

O Lord, I am self-centered, concerned about myself, my career, my future, my name and fame.  Often I even feel that I use you to my own advantage…

Yes, Lord, I know it is true.  I know that often I have spoken about you, written about you, and acted in your name for my own glory and success.  Your name has not led me to persecution, oppression, or rejection.  Your name has brought me rewards! I see clearly how little I have died with you, really gone your way and been faithful to it.

O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones.  Let me find you again. 

Amen.

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2013.  Not to be used without permission. Prayer adapted from Henri Nowen, A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee (Image, Doubleday, 2002)

Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center, and author of Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence (InterVarsity Press).

Lent Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

Read the post Week 4 Confession: Leaders in Lent 

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 “Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord…’”  Psalm 32:5

I have many big dreams, but there is one dream I have harbored for a long time—a smaller, more tender dream that I rarely speak about because it seems so impossible. It is the dream that we as pastors and leaders would lead the way in practicing confession. That we would take the initiative, not only in making general, corporate confessions (like the one we offered last week) but also in offering the more personal ones. Confessions that start with  inner repentance—like the prodigal son experienced when he came to his senses in the pig pen—and that culminate in confessing our sins to one another so that we may be healed.

Truth is, we’re not so good at that!

We prefer to live in the illusion that the relational break downs, the divisions, the unresolved issues among us are someone else’s fault.  Even if we do have an inkling that something is not quite right in our own thoughts, reactions, and behavior patterns—that perhaps we might have had a part to play in situations that went badly or ended badly—we are hard pressed to identify exactly what our part was. We resist taking responsibility for our sins and negative patterns because shame and denial run too deep.

True confession, however, requires naming our sin out loud to ourselves, to God, and to the person (s) we have offended.  It involves the willingness to do what we can to make things right.

Finding Our Confession

Wouldn’t it be something if, during this Lenten season, we asked God to help us make “a searching and fearless moral inventory” of ourselves? What if we actually confessed as sin our bad behaviors toward others—both in our current relationships and in our past relationships?  What if during this season we wrote notes, made phone calls, and had face to face meetings in which we acknowledged our sins to one another and sought forgiveness for sins past and present?

I cannot imagine a more powerful force for good in this world than for us as leaders to confess our sins to God and to one to another so that grace can flow more freely among us. I can only imagine the homecomings there might be in our relationships with God and with each other as we acknowledge the ways we have wounded our own life, the lives of others and the life of the world. But given the depth of our denial, we may need God to help us find our confession—that true truth that will set us (and others!) free.  So, let us pray together…

God help us find our confession;
The truth within us which is hidden from

our mind;

The beauty or the ugliness we see elsewhere
But never in ourselves;
The stowaway which has been smuggled
Into the dark side of the heart,
Which puts the heart off balance and causes

it pain,

Which wearies and confuses us,
Which tips us in false directions and inclines

us to destruction,

The load which is not carried squarely
Because it is carried in ignorance.

God help us find our confession.
Help us across the boundary of our understanding.
Lead us into the darkness that we may find

what lies concealed;

That we may confess it towards the light;
That we may carry our truth in the centre

of our heart;

That we may carry our cross wisely
And bring harmony into our life and world.

Amen.

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2013.  Not to be used without permission. Prayer adapted from Michael Leunig, The Prayer Tree  (New York: Harper Collins, 1991)

Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center, and author of Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence (InterVarsity Press).

Lent Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

Read the post Week 3 Repentance: Cleaning Our Messy House

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Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let us return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on us, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  Isaiah 55:6-7

In her book Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris tells the story of working as an artist-in-residence at a parochial school, teaching children how to write poetry using the Psalms as a model. One little boy wrote a poem entitled “The Monster Who Was Sorry.” He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him: his response (in the poem) is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. The poem concludes, “Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.’”

“My messy house” says it all, Norris observes. “With more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and gave him a way out… he was well on his way toward repentance, not a monster after all, but only human. If the house is messy, why not clean it up? Why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?”3

During Lent we enter more intentionally into prayer, self-examination and repentance for the purpose of restoration and renewal. We are willing to sit in our messy house and get a little more honest about the fact that we are in disarray. To the best of our ability we acknowledge what got us into the mess we are in, we feel our remorse, and we say, “I wish I hadn’t done that.”

This week we offer a prayer of repentance that might help you identify some of the messy places in your heart and life. Allow at least a half an hour to pray through this prayer so that you can incorporate time for silence after each confession. Ask God to reveal areas where repentance is needed…specific instances in which a particular sin pattern might have demonstrated itself in your life. Do not feel that you have to “get something” for each one. Allow this exercise to be characterized by gentle openness rather than pushing or forcing. Let God do the revealing and conclude with the refrain (Have mercy on me, Lord) and move on to the next confession.

Most holy and merciful Father:
I confess to you
that I have sinned by my own fault
in thought, word and deed; by what I have done, and by what I have left undone.

I have not loved you with my whole heart, mind and strength.
I have not loved my neighbors as myself.
I have not forgiven others, as I have been forgiven.
(Silence)

Have mercy on me, Lord.

I have been deaf to your call to serve as Christ served us. I have not been true to the mind of Christ. I have grieved your Holy Spirit.
(Silence)

Have Mercy on me, Lord.

I confess to you, Lord, all my past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of my life.
(Silence)

I confess to you, Lord.

My self-indulgent appetites and ways, and my exploitation of others,
(Silence)

I confess to you, Lord.

My anger at my own frustration, and my envy of those more fortunate than I,
(Silence)

I confess to you, Lord.

My love of worldly goods and comforts, my dishonesty in daily life and work,
(Silence)

I confess to you, Lord.

Accept my repentance, Lord, for the wrongs I have done: for my blindness to human need and suffering, and my indifference to injustice and cruelty,
(Silence)

Accept my repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, uncharitable thoughts toward my neighbors, and for my prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from me,
(Silence)

Accept my repentance, Lord.

Restore me, good Lord, and let your anger depart from me.
Favorably hear me for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in me and in all your church the work of your salvation,
That I may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son, our Lord, bring me, with all your saints, to the joy of his resurrection. Amen.

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2013.  Not to be used without permission. Prayer adapted from Phyllis Tickle, Eastertide: Prayers for Lent through Easter (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 187,188.

Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center, and author of Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence (InterVarsity Press).

Lent Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

Read the post Lent Week 2: Self Denial: Setting Our Minds on Things Above by clicking here.

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Come my heart says, “Seek his face!”  Your face, Lord, do I seek.     —Psalm 27:8

Most years I don’t feel quite ready for Lent with all its demands and disciplines—especially the call to self-denial and fasting. I don’t want to just “give up chocolate for Lent” because God is the curmudgeon in the sky who wants to keep it from me.  I don’t want anyone (including myself) to see the spiritual life as a joyless existence that eschews God’s good gifts.

And yet, I don’t want to miss anything either!  I don’t want to miss the possibility of having my life stripped down to its barest essence through fasting from those things that keep me out of touch with my longing and need for God.  I don’t want to side-step this “spring cleaning of the soul” intended to clear out the junk and garbage in my life so there is more space for God. I don’t want to miss the chance to abstain from soul-numbing distractions so I can be more attuned to God’s voice ringing as clear as bell in the depths of my uncluttered soul.

My guess is, you feel the same way, too. So let us pray together…

Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord,

and hold me in this Lenten season;

hold my feet to the fire of your grace

and make me attentive to my mortality

that I may begin to die now

to those things that keep me from living fully

with you and for you…

Hold my heart to the beat of your grace

and create in me a resting place,

a kneeling place,

a tip-toe place

where I can recover from the disease of my grandiosities

which fill my mind and calendar with busy self-importance,

that I may become vulnerable enough

to dare intimacy with the familiar,

to listen cup-eared for your summons…

And somehow,

during this season of sacrifice,

enable me to sacrifice time

and possessions

and securities,

that I may experience

something new,

something saving,

something true.

AMEN.

©Ruth Haley Barton, 2013.  Not to be used without permission. Prayer adapted from Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace, pp. 117-19.

Ruth is founder of the Transforming Center, and author of Pursuing God’s Will Together, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence (InterVarsity Press).

Lent Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary

Read the post Lent: A Season of Returning by clicking here.

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