Receiving the Gift

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Kelli Sittser

On December 1, 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from prison to his young fiancée:

“I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential. I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious … The poorer our quarters, the more clearly we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth.” – as recorded in Bonhoeffer’s God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

It is striking how Bonhoeffer reminds us what Advent is for. He allows the Holy Spirit to prepare his heart for the birth of Christ. His posture is one of receiving and welcoming. How blessed it is to receive, maybe even more so, than to give. “I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas,” Bonhoeffer writes. In spite of his own unjust imprisonment, the losses of good friends to war, separation from those he loved, and dealing with evil all around him, Bonhoeffer believed it would not just be an endurable Christmas, but an exceptional one.

In a 1978 Christmas Eve homily, Arch Bishop Oscar Romero preached a similar message:

“No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God — for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.”

May you have an exceptional Christmas!

-Kelli Sittser

Photo by Flickr user Rachel Kramer, via CC

A Life of Prayer

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Katie Huffman

Spirited Life has been a holistic health program, and we have tried to offer a broad framework within which participants can define health for themselves. This wellness wheel (seen at right) while comprehensive in its characterization of health, is also limiting because it keeps these parts of our lives in separate, neat and tidy little circles. I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s not quite how life works. So, how do we reconcile a life in Christ when our days are filled with grocery shopping, meetings, charge conference papers, and if we’re lucky, a trip to the gym?

A couple of years ago, while preparing for a Spirited Life workshop, we came across this article by Rev. Sam Portaro, an Episcopal priest and faculty member at CREDO. In the article, Rev. Portaro expands the definition of prayer. He suggests that by reframing what it means to have a prayer life, we can move from a daily ritual of spiritual practices to living a life of prayer where we are in constant and holy relationship with the Lord, even in our mundane activities. In some respects, Rev. Portaro is offering us a way to integrate the compartments of our lives.

Click here to read Rev. Portaro’s article, “Practicing a Life of Prayer,” which originally appeared in William S. Craddock’s All Shall Be Well: An Approach to Wellness.

The Big Silence Retreat

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Katie Huffman

You are invited to experience big spaces of solitude and silence in community for the purpose of tending the inner fire of your soul. Hosted by Centenary UMC (Winston-Salem) and Davidson UMC, this 4-day mostly silent retreat will be grounded in the modern classic The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen. As a participant, you will embark on a spiritual path consisting of the three stepping stones of solitude, silence, and prayer. You will also leave with empowering resources for your continued journey into the heart of Christ.

RETREAT LOCATION: St. Francis Springs Prayer Center, Stoneville, NC

DATES: January 25-28, 2015

COST: $445

RETREAT LEADERS: Rev. Jonathan Brake, Rev. Dianne Lawhorn, Ann Starrette

Space is still available for this retreat. Click here for more information and to register.

Painting by Odilon Redon, 1910; image courtesy of wikiart.org

Strength for the Journey

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Katie Huffman

At our closing workshops for Spirited Life Group 3 participants this fall, we have had the honor of hearing from Rev. Sam Portaro. Rev. Portaro is a retired Episcopal priest and a faculty member at CREDO, a wellness initiative of the Episcopal Church, where he conducts seminars and offers spiritual direction to participants.

Rev. Portaro alerted us to a fantastic (and free!) resource available through CREDO that we wanted to pass along to you. In this resource, called Strength for the Journey: A Guide to Spiritual Practices, author Renee Miller discusses 20 spiritual practices, some of which are quite familiar and some that are a bit more unexpected. CREDO describes the book this way:

“Stretching the boundaries of traditional practice, Miller’s reflections focus mindful attention on the spiritual dimension of life’s common activities, from walking and studying to moviegoing, writing, and using the computer. Her voice alone establishes a cadence of calmness necessary to transcend the seeming randomness of our hectic lives and become aware of God’s presence in all the activities of our day.”One neat feature of this resource is that it is available in a variety of forms:

We hope you’ll take a look!

A Time for Renewal, Part III

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Katie Huffman

This is the third in a special series on renewal leave by guest blogger Rev. Dianne Lawhorn. Read the first and second installments.

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Guidelines for selecting helping professionals during a renewal leave:

Spiritual Direction– This form of support is helpful if your need is to work on your relationship with God. If you are feeling the desire for a more rich spiritual experience, a spiritual director can provide guidance in developing practices that will help you connect with God at a deeper level. A spiritual director can also help you to notice where God is at work in your life and discern what response might be called for. A Spiritual Director can provide a prayerful, companioning presence for this time in your life.

Counseling– This form of support is helpful if your need is for healing. If you recognize disappointment, disillusionment, or despair in your life, a counselor can help. Counseling is useful in uncovering what’s going on with you emotionally so that you might seek the healing you need. A counselor can also help you cope with situations and relationships that are causing you discomfort, allowing you to recognize and honor what you are feeling.

Coaching- This form of support is helpful if your need is to make an assessment of your current situation and to develop a plan of action for moving forward. Coaches can help you assess your strengths, growth edges, and vital needs. They can help you discover new possibilities for creating the life that you want. They are equipped to assist you with your plan for development and can provide accountability as you move forward.

A final step might be to think about how you want to continue in ministry. It would be good to think about what aspects of this leave time you can incorporate into your regular life. Deciding what rhythms you will keep from this valuable time away will be essential to sustaining the renewal you’ve experienced. It is important to think about how you are going to create space in your life to nurture that which contributes to your health and well-being.

Hopefully, your renewal leave will uncover some areas where you would like to pursue a greater degree of health. It’s important to remember that in order for us to become healthier, we must embrace a new way of being and a new way of doing ministry that small group is life-giving to us. We must then walk forward into this new way, having been equipped with tools for a better way of doing life and ministry.

We all need accountability to make change a reality in our lives. Maybe it’s time to think about how you can create that accountability for yourself. Do you need to connect with a spiritual friend or ministry colleague on a regular basis to help you implement this new way of life? Perhaps you could create a support group of others who join together in sustaining this important life change? Hopefully, this support will sustain you for years to come, making life-long transformational ministry a reality!

Dianne Lawhorn is the Minister of Spiritual Formation for the Lydia Group which is a resource for spiritual wholeness offering formational teaching, retreat leadership, and spiritual direction.

A Time for Renewal, Part II

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Katie Huffman

This is the second in a special series on taking renewal leave by guest blogger Rev. Dianne Lawhorn. Read the first installment here.

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A renewal leave is an ideal time for you to develop rhythms that can be incorporated into your life when you return to work. You may never again have this opportunity to “try on” a new rhythm and see how it works for you. The rhythm I sought to embrace was to: eat healthy foods, exercise, get plenty of sleep, take a Sabbath, and have some fun! By doing these things over a short-term period, I was able to conceive of how this rhythm could become a reality over the long-term as well.

You might try incorporating a particular time every day where you can connect with God through a favorite spiritual practice. On my leave, my husband and I worked through the book The Cup of our Life by Joyce Rupp. This guide not only provided readings but also included practices for prayer, reflection, scripture reading, journaling, and a commitment for each day. We found the use of this guide to be a great resource to us individually and as a couple!

A renewal leave is a wonderful time to reflect on your ministry journey. A book that I found very helpful in my reflection was Leading on Empty by Wayne Corderio. This book helped me better understand the challenges of life-long ministry and the effects it can have on our bodies, minds, and spirits. It also helped me learn how to navigate these challenges with greater ease.

A renewal leave is a great time to reflect on your personal life. It’s a good idea to consider if the life you are living is the life you want to live. It’s a time for you to think about what changes might help you to more fully live into the desires you have for your life.

These questions may contribute to your reflection:

Where am I now?

What do I really want?

What is my next right step?

What is life-giving to me, helping me to give and receive love?

What is life-draining to me, hindering me from giving and receiving love?

In this reflection, you may find needs that you don’t know how to provide for on your own. We all need help from time to time in processing what is going on with us at a deeper level. A book that I used to assist me in this discovery was Release by Flora Wuellner.

Renewal time is an opportunity to consider if you want to make use of a helping professional such as a spiritual director, counselor, or a coach. In the next article, I’ll provide some guidelines for selecting which resource you need at this point in your journey. You may even elect to participate in The Davidson Clergy Program, an excellent resource to build your resilience!

Image by Flickr user ienjoysushi via CC

A Time for Renewal, Part I

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Katie Huffman

This is the first in a special series on taking renewal leave by guest blogger Rev. Dianne Lawhorn.

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Often in our ministry, after years of service, we find ourselves in need of being recharged. Current statistics say that most of us will experience ministry fatigue at some point in our journey. We shouldn’t feel guilty about taking the time we need because all of us will need a break eventually. Recognizing the need for a break is actually a sign of health. Taking a break allows us to be renewed for the journey.

Thankfully, the Methodist Book of Discipline recognizes the need for this time and provides for it in the form of a renewal leave. I took this time of renewal back in 2012 and found that it gave me a renewed sense of vitality and purpose in ministry. I needed some guidance, however, in order to discern how to structure the time of my leave so that I could receive the greatest benefits from it. I wondered if you might find yourself in this place and might like some tips for shaping this time.

A renewal leave is a time where we really need to give ourselves a break! For most of us, our tendency to over-schedule and over-commit has led us to the need of a break in the first place. So, we don’t want to bring this pattern into our leave time. For this reason, I devoted the first and last part of my own leave to rest. It was great for me to spend that time simply being still, with stillness as my only task or accomplishment for those days.

A renewal leave is the perfect time for you to get out of your environment, especially if you live in a parsonage. You might go to a place that you have enjoyed before, where you can connect with God and with yourself. You might want to spend a few days in the mountains, at the beach, or at a local retreat center, where you can spend some time alone in a peaceful environment that nurtures your soul.

If you are married, this is also a great time for you to connect with your spouse. During my renewal leave, my husband also took time away from his job so that he could share in my experience. We felt grateful to have that unstructured time together as a couple in a place that we both love!

This could also be a time to connect with family and friends. Maybe you could go to see a family member or friend that you would like to connect with whom you haven’t seen in years. Shared experiences with people who are important to us can certainly contribute to our well-being, which should be a goal of our renewal time. Sharing this experience with others can truly give us strength for our journey.

In next week’s post, I’ll offer some reflection activities and questions that might be helpful to consider for your renewal leave.

Click to read Part II and Part III.

Confessions of a Book Collector

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Katie Huffman

This is the second in a special series on Sabbath by our friends at Blessed Earth. Today’s post was written by Rev. Mairi Renwick (see her bio and contact information below the article). Read the first installment here.

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The most beautiful building on my seminary’s campus is the library. From the outside it looks almost like a castle with a tower. When you walk into the large foyer, you are greeted with high Inside Morton ceilings and a large circulation desk. Wooden tables with small reading lamps and comfortable reading chairs decorate the floors. Large portraits of former professors cover the walls. More than one person has stated it reminds them of Hogwarts.

After getting over the castle-like building, you realize that this is a library. A library with loads of books, commentaries, video recordings, DVDs, newspapers, and free access to online article databases.

After seminary, there is the harsh realization that commentaries are expensive. Online databases are expensive. Finding easily accessible materials from local libraries is difficult, and church libraries are rarely stocked with the newest books. While the internet provides useful resources, it is hard to know what is trustworthy.

This is a shame because clergy love books.

I recently talked with a group of colleagues who were also fellow PKs (pastors’ kids). We discussed what we wanted to inherit from our pastor parent. Was it money? A house? Of course not! We want their books, journals, and any other wonderful ministry items.

Aware of this love/obsession, Blessed Earth wants to help provide you with useful, reliable Sabbath resources. Here are a few to get you started:

1. Our new website called Sabbath Living! Check out these tools you’ll find there:

Sabbath Plan worksheets that can be downloaded and printed
A bibliography with over twenty Sabbath books
Online articles
Examples of sermon series
Sabbath scriptures and quotes

2. 24/6: A Prescription to a Healthier, Happier Life If you don’t already have a copy of Matthew Sleeth’s book, contact me, and I’ll make sure you get one. 24/6 is a great tool for congregation reads and small group study.

3. 24/6 DVD Email me for your own copy; the DVD makes it easy to facilitate a retreat, workshop, or Sunday school series.

Our biggest resource, however, is YOU! If you or your church has a Sabbath experience that you are willing to share, we’d love to hear your story. How about a sermon series that you’ve outlined? Or simply a favorite Sabbath quote? We would to share tools that you’ve generated and additional helpful resources on the Sabbath Living website! Examples of content our UMC friends have already generously shared:

Rev. Jonathan Brake of Centenary UMC in Winston-Salem developed a Lenten devotional
Rev. Ryan Bennett of Bethlehem UMC in Franklin, TN, outlined a “Margins” sermon series
Bishop Hope Morgan Ward passed along some great Sabbath quotes to add to our list

I have a theory that pastors are professional collectors of books and resources. I invite you to continue your collection—AND add to our collection—on www.sabbathliving.org.

Rev. Mairi Renwick, a graduate of Union Presbyterian Seminary, is Blessed Earth’s Sabbath Living Program Manager. Before coming to Blessed Earth, she was a hospital chaplain. While Mairi loves books and articles, she really admires her father’s card catalog of every sermon illustration, in alphabetical order according to topic, which he has used in 30+ years of ministry. Please feel free to contact Mairi at mairi@blessedearth.org.

Photo credit: The William Smith Morton Library at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA, and is used with permission.

Preventing Ministry Burnout in a 24/7 World

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Katie Huffman

This is the first in a special series on Sabbath by our friends at Blessed Earth. Today’s post was written by Nancy Sleeth (see her bio below the article).

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“I feel like I’m on call, 24/7.”

“Between my day job and a two-point charge, I haven’t had a real vacation in years.”

“My parsonage is next to the church, so I never have down time!”

Over the last year, my husband Matthew and I have spoken with more than one thousand UMC clergy in North Carolina. You may have crossed paths with us at one of our 24/6 workshops and retreats. What we’ve heard over and over is that clergy are feeling frazzled. Why? Too many demands and not enough time.

A friend of mine calls this problem “time debt.” And it’s not unique to the church. It’s everywhere. Each “yes” requires a future commitment of our time. Like a home mortgage, some of those payments stretch out for years into the future.

Fortunately, the Church holds an answer. The solution first shows up in Genesis. In Exodus, it becomes one of the top ten—the longest of the commandments and the most peaceful sky and water image oft-repeated directive in the bible. We die if we don’t honor it, and we fly high if we do. (Isaiah 58:13-14) It’s called Sabbath rest.

One day out of seven, we’re invited to lay down our burdens—to be still, and know God. There are only two “rules”: pray and play. For me, that means no emails, no housework, and no shopping. Instead, I do the things that refresh me. I read. I walk. I spend time with family, friends, and God. I take holy naps.

Here’s the encouraging news: more and more of you are accepting God’s invitation to the Sabbath banquet. According to Clergy Health Initiative data, in 2012 only nine percent of UMC clergy in North Carolina were taking a regular Sabbath. Among the pilot populations we are working with, about thirty-three percent are now remembering the fourth commandment. And among our beta leadership groups, fifty-five percent are now keeping a regular Sabbath.

More good news: The Duke Endowment has awarded a generous three-year grant to the ministry that Matthew and I founded, Blessed Earth. Our goal is to improve the emotional and spiritual health of clergy by engaging in regular rhythms of work and rest. Like any habit, it takes repeated exposure to make sustained changes in our behavior.

The Sabbath Living Initiative is designed to support you in your Sabbath practices. First, we need to model the Sabbath ourselves. (Our best sermon is our own behavior)! Second, we need to extend the gift of Sabbath to others. You’ll find plenty of resources for both you and your congregations on the new Sabbath Living website.

In our next post, Rev. Mairi Renwick, Blessed Earth’s new Sabbath Living Program Manager, will share more about the sermon series outlines, small group studies, hymns, scripture, books, articles, and many other resources that are available to you and your congregations.

Until then, I wish you Shabbat Shalom—and a God-ordained Sabbath nap!

Nancy Sleeth is the Managing Director of Blessed Earth and author of Almost Amish: One Woman’s Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life. She and her husband, Matthew Sleeth, MD, started the Sabbath Living Initiative, which supports NC UMC clergy and their congregations in their Sabbath practices.

A Piglet Moment

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Katie Huffman

The following post is offered by Spirited Life Wellness Advocate, Lisa MacKenzie.

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“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind; ‘Pooh?’ he whispered.
‘Yes, Piglet?’
‘Nothing,’ said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. ‘I just wanted to be sure of you.’”
– Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne

Sometimes we all need to be sure that we’re not alone and that someone cares and is paying us some attention– especially when we’re feeling vulnerable. Some of us might even be having a “Piglet moment” right now.

I recently read an essay entitled Practicing a Life of Prayer by Sam Portaro,* in which he describes a spiritual practice of paying attention. Portaro says: “When I pay attention, I don’t have to remind myself of God’s presence in my life; God is nearly always present and manifest and recognizable in the other, the one in whom and to whom I have paid my attention.”

It takes practice to pay attention and to be aware in the present moment. Sometimes we don’t stop to think about our child who looks at us with longing while we’re racing off to a meeting, or the clerk who has been standing behind a counter for hours and sighs deeply as she bags groceries, or the pastor who has just moved his family to a new town this summer. Paying attention is one of the greatest gifts we’re given by God because it leads us to not only care for others but for ourselves as well.

When I was a young nurse, I’ll never forget a middle aged man with cancer who I cared for on the night shift. It was back in the day when patients had to wait for an injection of pain medication until the 4 or 6 hours were up. This patient was very uncomfortable, and I was in a hurry to request an order from his doctor to administer the pain medication sooner. As I hurried from his bedside, he reached for my hand and said, “don’t leave, please.” In that moment, my patient taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned- pay attention. He was scared and alone and needed someone to be present– to touch him, to hold his hand. And when I did that, for a moment his pain eased.

In his book Out of Solitude, Henri Nouwen wrote a meditation on care saying that we tend to look at caring as an attitude of the strong toward the weak, the powerful toward the powerless; yet the word “care” is rooted in the Germanic “kara,” which means to lament, to grieve, to cry out with. It seems that being present is the foundation of care, but to really be present we have to pay attention. We have to stop so that we, like Portaro writes, can recognize the presence of God in the other. Pooh understood this and willingly offered this gift to Piglet without giving advice or finding a solution– because sometimes we just need to be sure that someone is present with us.

*Sam Portaro’s article can be found in William S. Craddock’s All Shall Be Well: An Approach to Wellness.

-Lisa MacKenzie

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