pat loughery

Odd stuff: In our conference packet handout thing there’s a big survey to fill out regarding the National Office’s desire to be more intentional in caring for pastors.

There are great questions in here:

“How do you define Spiritual Formation?”
“What do you see as the goal of Spiritual FOrmation in a person’s life?”
“Over the past year, how many times hav you gotten away for 4+ hours of uninterrupted time of personal retreat and reflection, without doing church work or takign church phone calls?”
“Do you understand how to practice Lectio Divina”
“How would you define the practice of spiritual direction? Do you meet with an SD?”
“How often do you practice The Examen”

There’s plenty more stuff here. It’s all quite good, actually. Here’s my confusing point though: Why are there no workshops (or virtually no) on these topics? Ken Wilson is teaching on fixed hour prayer. Mike Turrigiano teaches on becoming midwives of the HS. Dianne Leman and Adey Wassin teach on women preaching/pomo preaching. But there’s nothing experiential (no labyrinth, no contemplative prayer room, no artistic experiences, …)

Lots of “program” language in the workshops. Outreach programs. Evangelism programs. Being More Productive. Leading Large Churches Forum. How to increase givng in your church. These workshop leaders are good people, and good content.

But how many of these things are truly in line with being missional churches?