pat loughery

Part of the learning model in the Doctor of Ministry program at Bakke Graduate University has us writing daily journals for each in-class day. These journals describe what we saw, how we interpreted it and what we’ll do with it.

WEDNESDAY 6/11

On the drive in to work today I listened to a set of podcasts of the interviews between Krista Tippett of the Speaking of Faith podcast and Shane Claiborne, a new monastic with The Simple Way. This was the full interview set which was edited down into the Speaking of Faith podcast episode on the New Monastics. Whenever I hear Shane speak I am thrilled. He is a deeply authentic, passionate, prophetic voice in our time. He is easily the best known of the people identified as new monastics, his books are popular, and he has gained a platform. From what I can tell, however, he is dealing well with this popularity. In one question, Krista asked Shane how he handled this growing voice, and Shane laughed and said that the community that he lived with did a good job of keeping him humble. I deeply value how he lives his faith and encourages others to go deeper.

This was a wonderful introduction to a day in which we talked about two topics: organizational transformation and spiritual formation.

The day began with Grace giving us some academic how-tos. She spoke on several topics. She relieved us all when she said that a life of balance is a pipe dream, as we will never be fully balanced. However, we can choose how we spend our time and how not to spend our time. We can rethink our life mission, we can design a life lived in chapters, we can focus on our strength, and we can redesign our lives continually. This intentionality of life choices was my biggest takeaway from this discussion.

Grace then spoke on different ways to read and study, giving us a continuum of reading from scanning through in-depth study. I found this so helpful that I wrote a quick blog entry about it, and I find that I need to pre-read more often in order to understand how the book is going to flow. In addition, what this continuum doesn’t include but I want to do more of, I want to go back to review learning from the books that I finish. I need a process of harvesting highlights and quotes, summarizing the book’s impact on me and identifying any areas that I need to read more.

Finally, Grace spoke on mind mapping. It is a process that I have used before, and as she spoke I realized that I should have used mind mapping for my note taking process. I haven’t been very happy with how I’ve had to structure the notes I’m taking in the software I use for this class, and if I had it to do over again, I’d strongly consider using FreeMind instead of OmniOutliner for this task.

Ken Fong and Ray Root spoke about organizational transformation. They work together in the Genesys Institute, which does organizational consulting to help organizations and leadership transform. They described two changes an organization can make: slow death, or deep change. They described models for organizational transformation and spoke about applying them in businesses and nonprofits. While I appreciated this content for large organizations, I felt that the entire discussion could have happened in a session at Microsoft or any other large business. While Ken spoke about modifying some of the goals for the systems in ways that would be consistent with churches and faith-based nonprofits, I found this section to be very me-focused: I create vision; I change my organization; I am successful. My own goals are met. I can see this being helpful in large organizations and in nonprofits, evening large churches. However, I see this work as a community – driven process that is initiated by listening reflectively to the voice of God, and arising from the skills, gifts, hopes and dreams of the community. I also see it changing as the community changes. I recognize that this reaction is filtered by my own worldview of the church and my leadership context. But I hope that we as leaders in the church choose to lead in ways that base models more on Jesus and less on businesses.

The end of the day focused on spiritual formation with lectures by Dale Pollard and Wes Johnson. Dale presented spiritual formation as walking with God. He used a nesting doll that he continued to open and reveal another inner reality. He also used the model of asking questions that we could reflect upon. Dale referenced a wide variety of writers and perspectives on spiritual formation, using Catholic, Protestant, Celtic, Orthodox and more ancient sources. Wes gave us an experience in spiritual formation, walking us through a lectio divina process. His also gave us a model for creating a simple breath prayer that used a name of God as a prayer to meet a specific need that we have of God.

Although it was difficult for me to follow the organization of Dale’s lecture, I appreciated what he and Wes shared. I loved again hearing about ancient spiritual practices for soul care. This is the world that I’m comfortable in. I also loved seeing others experience lectio and find a powerful model for letting Scripture read them.