The First Source: Direct Experience

August 13, 2012 By 2 Comments
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In 1962, only a couple of years after I was born, pollsters found that 2% of Americans claimed to have had a “mystical experience” of God. In 1976...that number had risen to 31% of the population.... By 2009, 48% of Americans confessed that they had had a mystical encounter with the divine. ...Not everyone who has experienced [the Sacred] afresh is an evangelical, fundamentalist, or Pentecostal. Indeed, they hail from many sorts of faiths.... What if the 1970s were not simply an evangelical … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Mysticism, Pluralism, Spiritual Practices, Unitarian Universalism Tagged With: 2 Comments

How To Lead a Congregational Discernment Process

July 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Discernment was a major emphasis of my spiritual direction training at San Francisco Theological Seminary. The following is adapted from my coursework, and is based on a congregational discernment process that I have used in the past and continue to refine. Ground Rules (adapted from Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis, MN) You don’t get to complain about what you’re not willing to help fix. Every vision/passion has to have someone’s name on it. Week One What aspects of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Discernment, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Practices Leave a Comment

Highlights from “Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity”

May 10, 2012 By 5 Comments
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This past week I had the privilege of attending a conference focused on the future of children and youth ministry, which was inspired by Brian McLaren's book A New Kind of Christianity. To learn more about the conference or to see supplementary opportunities, visit http://children-youth.com. (The website also features more information about the speakers listed below: http://children-youth.com/speakers). The following are some of the highlights from the conference. Caveat: Because I was … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christian Education, Emergent Church Movement, Spiritual Practices, Worship Resources, Youth Ministry 5 Comments

Do You Believe in Miracles?

May 2, 2012 By 7 Comments
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(E. Kent Rogers, 12 Miracles of Spiritual Growth: A Path of Healing from the Gospels, Swedenborg Foundation Press, 2012, 210 pages.) The opening track of Paul Simon's landmark album Graceland ruminates on what the word “miracle” means in the twenty-first century: These are the days of miracle and wonder / This is the long distance call ... / The way we look to a distant constellation / That's dying in a corner of the sky / These are the days of miracle and wonder.... / Medicine is magical … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Practices 7 Comments

Individuation, The Beatles, and the Journey to Wholeness

April 2, 2012 By 4 Comments
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Note: This post is part of our Lenten study of Joyce Rockwood Hudson's book Natural Spirituality: Recovering the Wisdom Tradition in Christianity. Links to the previous installments in this series on “Jungian Spirituality” will be included at the end of each post in this series. In the evangelical Christianity of my childhood, the major turning point in someone’s spiritual journey was “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” Once you believed that “Jesus died on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Jungian Spirituality, Mysticism, Sermons, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Practices 4 Comments

Jungian Spirituality: A Sermon Series Retrospective

March 30, 2012 By 9 Comments
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For Lent, I preached a five-part series on Jungian Spirituality, based on Joyce Rockwood Hudson's book Natural Spirituality: Recovering the Wisdom Tradition in Christianity. The following is a brief description of each of the sermons in this series: Confronting the Unconscious: From Supernatural to Natural Spirituality We should be extraordinarily careful about attributing causation to God and meaning to events. And I am, by no means, promoting a variation of the harmful canard that … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Jungian Spirituality, Lent, Mysticism, Sermon Series Retrospective, Sermons, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Practices 9 Comments