Spiritual Directors International Coordinating Council Nominee Information

Transcription

1 Rev. Dr. Brenda Buckwell, Obl OSB Ohio, United States Spiritual Directors International Coordinating Council Nominee Information 1. In what ways have you been involved in Spiritual Directors International to date? Most recently I led a teaching webinar in September This webinar was on my newly published book "The Advent of God's Word" published by Skylights Path Publishers. I have written an article for "Presence" on spiritual direction in the United Methodist Tradition and a book review. For the annual gathering I have presented workshops three times and been a person who hosts or introduces the main workshop leader. I am part of Hearts on Fire: The Fellowship of United Methodist Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders, which gathers Protestant spiritual directors at the annual event. I have also written articles for "Connections". For four years when I worked at the spiritual formation conference "Soulfeast" I promoted SDI. 2. In what ways have you been involved in other nonprofit organizations, spiritual centers, and training programs? Tell us about your governance experience serving on the board of directors of nonprofits. What models of governance work best? Tell us about your executive experience (secretary, treasurer, chair). How many years? Tell us about your communications (publishing online and in print), marketing, fund raising, experience and if you have experience directing formation and training programs. I have just begun the role of Spiritual Director for the Executive Board of The Spirituality Network in Columbus, Ohio. (October 2015) Discernment is the model of spiritual direction that I bring to this board. I lead an extended time of prayer and experiencital practice which interfaces with the board in application of vision and action. An example of my style of this leadership has been recorded in an article I wrote for Dr. Dwight Judy's book "A Quiet Pentecost." This article shares how I led a small church into a discerning vision of mission, which openned community mission and ministry to over 10,000 people within one year. As co-founder and current Director of Formation and Learning for Hearts on Fire: The Fellowship of United Methodist Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders, I found the model of a "working board" was most helpful. In this model each board member is responible for moving a specific area of ministry forward with the support of the full board. I was chair for 9 years and now Director of Formation and Learning, for 5 years. While volunteering as chair for Hearts on Fire, I wrote and edited the online e- newsletter for 9 years, led group spiritual direction at conferences, trained spiritual direction practices and built re;ationships with training centers. I teach online classes for Garrett-Evangelical Lifelong Learning using Moodle and Zoom. As adjunct faculty for Ashland Theolgocial Seminary, I teach in the spiritual formation area both online and onsite. I have previously taught at United Theolgocial Seminary in the United Methodist Certifcation program for spiritual formation; there I taught Spiritual Direction and Supervisison. I served as pastor of local congregations. As pastor I worked with endowments, fundraising, volunteer recuitment and training. I held weekly group spiritual direction sessions during liiturgical seasons of Advent and Lent as well as expanded my public speaking skills weekly. For the greater Columbus community, I was appointed by the county commissioners to the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Trustees for Franklin County. As I member of this board I worked with a budget exceeding 20 million dollars and funded many mental health and recovery ministries. Through this board and with the Celebrate Recovery ministry that I was working Page 1 of 5

2 at the time, I worked with homeless, addicted, mentally ill and those living in poverty. My print book "The Advent of God's Word" by Skylight Paths Publisher came out in Oct I have received excellent reviews by individuals and church groups that have used my book. 3. Tell us about your experience with technology. In what ways have you used technology for meetings and work between meetings? Zoom is the latest technology that I am using. This video conference gathers my online classes for retreat and community gatherings. It is real time face to face time for conversation, uploading student work and giving instruction. Moodle is the other venue for online teaching I most often use. In moodle I use the discussion forum. Students can post streams of dialogue and engage one an other and myself through questions, reflections, prayer and art work. As instructor, I pose spiritual direction questions to each students' postings. This results in grounding the class in spiritual direction as a foundation to academics. Hearts on Fire: The Fellowship of United Methodist Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders uses bimonthly free conference calling for all board meetings, and I have been an active particiapnt on these calls. St. Brigid of Kildare Methodist Benedictine Monastic Community also uses free c onference calling for Daily Office prayers. I participate in the Daily Office with this dispersed community as my schedule permits. These opportunities provide practicing the presence of God's empowering and shared energy and heart through technology. I have an upcoming webinar class schedule for Lent 2016 through the United Methodist General Board of Ministry and Higher Education in Nashville, TN. I provide the content and lead the class and the webinar is hosted by the General Board. This coming February I am online instructor for Integrating Spiritual Formation into the local congregation. In this class students have assignments with Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram. I received my online teaching certificate from UTS, which equips me to teach spiritual direction and other formation ministries online. My greatest take away from that learning was how to create community in online teaching situations. Further use of technology is demonstarted when I have spiritual direction and supervision classes and one on one sessions through and via Skypee. My recently published book, "The Advent of God's Word" is a resource for online learning and prayer practices. The creative arts prayer practices in the book for which I provide instruction are lectio divina, audio divina, visio divina and icon gazing. Each of these spiritually forming practices lead to the discovery of God's whisphered Word through guided spiritual direction in the daily reflections. I wrote the book from the perspective of being the readers' spiritual guide and director. In local church many monthly, bi-monthly and quarterly meetings shared reports, questions, discussion and votes through group discussions or with Go To Meeting. This resulted in getting some necessary business completed between meetings so the teams had more time in the face to face meetings for praying scripture and sharing in God's visionary discernment. 4. What grounds and supports your effort to show high integrity and to practice sound ethical conduct? ~Meeting with my spiritual director and with a supervisor regularly is imperative for grounding my work. ~The evaluation and assessment process of working at the seminary also provides sound ethical feedback and support. Each student evaluates my teaching at the conclusion of each class and assesses their progression of learning from my instruction. This results in inspiring me to prayfully and skillfully do the best I possibly can of integrating integrity, ethics and opening contemplative space for God to work within student learning. Page 2 of 5

3 ~Praying the Daily offices with St. Brigid's holds community at a paramount level of practice and ethics. We have covenanted together to be in prayer as community and to make as many times weekly as our schedule permits to be on the phone. ~For me the grounding of my ethicial foundation comes from the example and instruction of Jesus and his disciples. For Jesus turth and integrity are/were vital for the formation of individuals in faith and within community. ~A part of each class that I teach for spiritual direction uses the Spiritual Directors International code of ethics. The students have real-life role plays where they bring situations they have encountered to the conversation through printed verbatums and apply SDI code of ethics to these scenarios. ~I am also accountable to my Bishop and the Academic Dean of the Seminary where I teach for ethical practices. As clergy, I am mandated to participate in sexual ethics training every four years. 5. What contemplative practices make your heart sing? I find that I go through seasons for which practices most passionately speak to my spirit. One spiritual discipline may capture my heart for years, one season - while another practice may hold may soul intensely for a week or two. Currently icon gazing is holding me fast to the heart of Jesus. I awake each morning with a time of icon gazing and end the day with the same practice. This practice of icon gazing preceeds my community prayer time of the Daily Office and follows compline prayers. The Daily Offices provide a stability of faith and holistic grounding in faith formation which truly captures my heart. I am also held fast by silence, to listen to the sheer silence of God's beauty touches my heart deeply. Writing is a very deep spiritual and contemplative practice for me. I regularly record personal jounrals, both written with words and drawn within mandalas. For the joy of community I find the practice of ballroom dancing to be great expression of soulful movement hidden within the body. My heart sings most when I am intentional with a disciplined contemplative rhythm of life. Regardless of what practice I am doing, it is the desire and the act of loving, seeking, and knowing God that makes my soul dance with joy. 6. Describe your current spiritual direction ministry and service. For how many years have you served as a spiritual companion and in what contexts? There has been a ebb and flow to my 18 years of spiritual direction ministry and service. I provide one on one and group spiritual direction consistently for litutical seasons of Lent and Advent. The clergy for whom I provide spiritual direction have remained consistent for years and then the UMC intinerant system which deploys clergy to local church, sends me or them to a different church and I have to start again with new folks because I am in a new geographic area. I worked 7 years with a church and the recovery community with whom I did spiritual direction for addicts and those living in poverty. This was a very formational and humbling time for me. As I listened and encouraged those on the margins of society to share and tell their story, healing and empowerment occurred in their lives so that each person could live into their most authentic God self. I am so thankful my season of itineration is complete. I have completed my time serving as a local church pastor. I will now be in one location as I continue to increase my spiritual direction ministry through my start up business "Living Streams - Flowing Waters" I am only just beginning this and getting website in place - hopefully it will unfold in a few months. A part of this ministry is my seminary teaching. With my seminary teaching; both online and face to face, I teach from a prespective of spiritual direction and weave it throughout all of my classes. The students have direct acess to me for one on one spiritual direction as well as the class/group setting. Previously for 4 years, I served as spiritual director at Page 3 of 5

4 Soulfeast a spiritual formation conference sponsored by the United Methodist General Board of Disicipleship and the Upper Room Publishers at Lake Junaluska. At Soulfeast I gave instruction on spiritual direction, facilitated group spiritual direction sessions and met with individuals throughout the time of the yearly conference. This resulted in increased understanding and desire to explore spiritual direction and SDI resources to support their journeys after the conclusion of the conference. Having completed my International Coaching Federation certification within the two last year, I also offer what I call spiritual coaching a combination of spiritual direction and coaching to assist congregational leaders in discerning and implememting spiritual formation ministries within the church. This contemplative listening and holy story telling integrates noticing the interior movement of God with empowerment of action steps moving the ministry leader further onto intentionally ground and into spiritually directed ministry. Further the United Methodist Church has what is called "General Conference" every four years, this is where delgates modify the church law book of Discipline. I have served as spiritual director for this international delgation and have been asked to serve in this capacity again in What was your preparation for spiritual direction ministry and service? I first trained in spiritual direction under MaryAnn Schofield at Mercy Center in Brulingame, CA. Then two years later, again under MaryAnn Schofield and James Kegan, I trained in supervision at Mercy Center. Then I trained under Dwight Judy to acquire my United Methodist Certifcation in Spiritual Formation. I followed that with training at the Shalem Insitute for Spiritual Formation with the Clergy contemplative program. I have completed the annotated 19th step of St. Ignatius with my former spiritual director. I wrote my doctoral disseration on spiritual direction and clergy leadership within local church. My reaserch site for this written work was the Louisiana conference of the UMC and their two year program of Spiritual Direction and Formation. These multifaceted training expereinces have deepened and widened my vocabulary, interfaith and ecumenical awareness and expressisons of the Holy in the midst of spiritual direction. 8. Write a brief biography that explains to SDI members your sense of call to serve and what you would bring to your service as a coordinating council member. Include the gifts and experiences that would contribute to your role on the coordinating council. Describe your vision for the future of Spiritual Directors International. I believe that this generation is an historical time of spiritual awakening. If one reviews Christian church history it shows that every 500 years or so there is an awakening, a new birthing, of spiritual life to bring believers closer to the heart of the Divine. One of the most famous spiritual awakenings was the Protestant Reformation which divided the Christian church into Catholic and Protestant. As our global world continues to shrink in size by the Internet and instant communciations, threats of terror and global fear, I believe we are experiencing the first stage of awakening which is increased chaos. Fear within the USA and around the world of Muslims is ever increasing; yet there are many places, such as the church where I attend and worship that practices intentional community building in interfaith. At Bethel International United Methodist Church not only are Korean worship expereinces scheduled every Sunday, but intentional invitation to the Muslim community happens as we build relationships through worship and ESL classes. The influence of Budahism in the Korean part of this family brings an intentional meditative spirit to the church. I believe the 21st century spiritual awakening that is occurring is modeled by Spiritual Directors International. By this I mean that with the increased chaos of the world, a new heightened search for the Page 4 of 5

5 Divine is happening across the world. This search for God crosses faith traditions as our global spiritual awakening invites us to new and renewed practices of the Divine human relationship. I believe this new spiritual awakening will unite interfaith rather than divide people into faith traidtions. I experience the vision of Spiritual Directors International to be a unifying contemplative search for the Divine. Truly not just stated in the tag line of tending the holy around the world and across traditions, but taking action to weave contemplative believers into one community. It is this increased united search for the Divine which I believe is the foundation of the new spiritual awakening of the 21st century. And Spiritual Directors International is on the fore front of this awakening movement of contemplative life. I am passionately called to be a leader in this new awakening. That is why I was part of the founding team for the Fellowship of United Methodist Spiritual Directors and Retreat Leaders, to bring this prophetic ministry to the United Methodist Church for spiritual direction training. I model ecumenisim in my training for and practice of spiritual life in my online and onsite seminary classes and retreats. This creates synergy with spiritual direction, formation and daily spiritual disciplines with acadmeic excellence. Being both ordained (United Methodist) and reglious vowed (St. Brigid of Kildare Methodist Benedictine Monastry, Oblate) I weave practices together in my disciplines across traditions for the most holistic practice of contemplation.these practices include but are not limited to: icon gazing, spiritual direction, creative arts prayers of mandala making, audio divina, lectio divina, visio divina and the contmeplative gift of silence. I have studied and taught Ignatius, Benedictine, and Wesleyan theology. My expertise grounded in the ancient monastic tradition of the Desert Abbas and Ammas knit together ancient and contemplative practices in my spiritual direction, training and teaching. If selected, I will bring this solid grounding of faith formation to the SDI coordinating council. In addition to this grounding in interfaith and ecumenism with my years of pastoral leadership, I bring to the council a plethora of experience in event planning, newsletter writing and editing, and training volunters. I am excellent at taking notes for meetings as well as leading the financial teams into greater abundance of assets. I will bring a valuable global and contempoaray perspective with online training and contemplative praxis to the SDI coordinating council. Page 5 of 5