Flourishing Culture Podcast Series Leading From an Abundant Spiritual Life February 8, 2016 Al Lopus & Ruth Haley Barton Al Lopus: Hi, I m Al Lopus, and thanks for joining us today. How does a busy Christian leader with a plate full of responsibilities and activities maintain an abundant spiritual life so they can effectively lead from that place? Today, I m talking with Dr. Ruth Haley Barton, the founder of the Transforming Center, located in Wheaton, Illinois. She is a seasoned spiritual director, teacher, and retreat leader. She has also served on the pastoral staff of several churches, including Willow Creek. She s a professor of spiritual transformation at Northern Seminary and the author of spiritual formation books and resources. They include Pursuing God s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups, and the book I m currently reading, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Sacred Rhythms, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence. Hi, Ruth, and welcome to our podcast today. Ruth Haley Barton: Thanks! It s great to be with you. Al: Great. So Ruth, give us a glimpse into your work of leadership transformation, corporate discernment, and spiritual community. Ruth: Well, we work with pastors and Christian leaders around their own spiritual formation, offering them a safe place to attend to their own ongoing processes of transformation, and we do that primarily through the heart of our ministry, which is what we call the transforming community. It s a two-year experience, delivered in quarterly retreats, nine retreats delivered quarterly. A group of pastors and leaders come together with a commitment to stay together and to be together in these rhythms for the two years. In that process, we pay attention to how our souls are doing. We do teaching and guided experiences with spiritual practices that keep us open to the presence of God. We also foster a very significant experience of community among leaders, and people enjoy the fact that for most of them, they don t usually know anyone else in the group before they come or maybe just one or two. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 1
It s a place where there are other leaders but people who are not part of their own ministry or business context. For them, that gives a certain kind of safety for them to pay attention to the questions that are going on in their own souls, to ask their most honest questions, to be honest about what s going on between them and God, what s going on in their leadership. Through that process, Jesus himself does draw near and help us to move into deeper levels of spiritual transformation, which in the end strengthens what we re able to bring back to our leadership environments. Al: Yeah. Great. You founded the Transforming Center to help leaders and organizations grow in areas you ve just mentioned. What s one thing you would like our listeners to know about the Transforming Center when it comes to their own personal journey and spiritual formation? Ruth: Probably the most important thing I would say (and I say it often in our transforming community experiences) is that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self. That is a bit of a radical statement because most of us enter into leadership thinking it s our gifts, it s our skills, it s our competencies that people are looking for. It s our training. It s whatever experience we ve had. Those things are all very important indeed but not the most important thing. The most important thing we bring to leadership is our own transforming selves. Whatever is transforming within us and changing for the glory of God will find its way to the edges of every aspect of our organization by the same token. A little bit more sobering is that whatever is dysfunctional and untransformed within us will also find its way to the edges of our organizations, whether we want it to or not. There s no way to hide it. Who we really are will eventually affect who the organization is and who they become and what the health of that organization is. You might wish it were different, but it just simply is not. The best thing you can bring to leadership is your own transforming self. If you don t attend on that level, chances are you re probably bringing your untransformed self, your own dysfunctions. You re transmitting pain and deformation rather than bringing the life of Christ. Al: Right, the untransformed self. I love that term, kind of like the Ruth: The false self. Al: The false self, yeah, right. That really ties into our research at the Best Christian Workplaces Institute where we ve statistically linked the importance of spiritual vitality in leadership and employment and engagement. As a Christian leader, you ve described that you came to a place where you felt you were losing your own soul in ministry. Even though on the outside, things were appearing to go well, that wasn t so true on the inside. Tell us about that experience and what you learned. Ruth: Well, when I was in my early 30 s, I hit a wall. If we re awake and aware at all, oftentimes, in our 30 s, we do hit a place where we discover that our gifts and our skills and our competencies and our training aren t going to really carry us where we need to go in our leadership. That certainly happened for me at that stage. It came in the form of exhaustion because I was driven and over-functioning. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 2
It came in the form of recognizing at times that there were some darker elements to my motivations, but I didn t know how to pay attention to those or how to name those. It kept me on a performance treadmill. There were questions I had for God about God, about my faith that I didn t have a safe place to talk about those things because I was already in leadership, so how can you bring out those very threatening kinds of questions when you re already in leadership, and people are looking to you for answers and to lead them in a particular direction? I had unresolved questions with God that I had no place to go to work those out. There were emotions underneath the surface of my life that I could sometimes control and manage, but not always. Sometimes, there would be flashes of anger or tears of sadness or a kind of brittleness that came from that which was untransformed in me. Also, I knew I wasn t doing well in my human being-ness, that I was pushing my body beyond its limits. I was pushing my introverted personality beyond its limits. I was pushing my human relationships beyond their limits. My family was wishing for more from me, and I wasn t giving it because I was so driven in my work. All of those were indicators that something was not quite right at the soul level. Al: You ve worked with scores of ministry leaders who often describe this disconnect between their souls and their leadership, almost like they re two separate areas in their lives. How do leaders get to this place? I think you ve partially described it already, but how do they get to this place? Ruth: One thing that s interesting is that oftentimes, when Christian leaders get into leadership, whether it s a pastoral role or a leadership role in a Christian non-profit organization or a ministry organization or even in business that has very high ideals and desires to make a difference in the world that we get into those positions and places because we re grateful for what God has done for us. We believe in the message of the gospel. We want to serve God. We want to serve others. We want to bring some of the goodness we ve experienced in our own relationship with God to the world. That s all very good, but something subtle happens along the way, and it has to do with the false self. Oftentimes, the false self s motivations, the false self s dynamics get hooked into those more pure motivations. Pretty soon, without even knowing it, we find ourselves trying to be successful. We find ourselves trying to perform and prove ourselves. We find ourselves exhausting ourselves by trying to be perfect, by trying to manage our image, by trying to have all of the answers, by refusing to acknowledge failure and weakness in ourselves and being unable to deal with our own humanness. Eventually, we are really functioning more out of false self-energy than we are functioning out of passion for Christ, and we certainly are relying on our human energies and human resources rather than relying on God s resources for us. It s a very, very subtle thing until one day, we wake up and realize that we re functioning primarily out of false self-motivations. We wake up and realize how exhausted we are. We might feel like we can t go on. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 3
We might be making poor decisions because we re disconnected from discernment and from the presence of God deep within, witnessing to our spirits about those things that are true. We might also experience moral failure because we ve gotten disconnected from God within satisfying our deepest longings. We feel like we deserve something that is sort of outside the realm of morality. There are all sorts of dangers at that point from the disconnection between us and the presence of God deep within. Al: Yeah, you mentioned that we get this sense that we deserve something for doing all of this good work, and that really is a bad path to start going down. Yeah. Let me nudge our conversation toward what could be done to connect our souls with our leadership to move away from the disconnection from the false self-motivations that you mentioned between our souls and leadership to a place of integration where we fully live in that joyful will of God and our true selves. What does that path look like for Christian leaders? Ruth: Well, I think it has to do with the big general category of our spiritual rhythms and our spiritual practices. That would include the rhythms and practices that take place in solitude, the rhythms and practices that take place in community, and the rhythms and practices that take place in our engagement with the world. Spiritual practices and rhythms by definition are just regular and routine ways we open ourselves up to the presence of God. If those are not in place, the mechanisms aren t in place for the presence of God to continue God s transforming work. The spiritual practices, on whatever level I don t want to just reduce it to solitude. I mean all, a full range of spiritual practices that includes solitude, community, and ministry in the world. It s the rhythms and the spiritual practices that we practice daily and weekly and routinely that keep us open to the presence of God. When we have those kinds of rhythms in place, it s almost impossible to get too far from the sustenance that God s presence can bring. When those rhythms are absent, it becomes very easy to slip and become disconnected. My encouragement for leaders would be to think about what the rhythms and practices are that we have in place. In the Christian tradition, those kinds of rhythms are called the rule of life. Again, it s just a regular rhythm of habits and patterns and relationships and experiences that keep us open to the sustaining and transforming presence of God in our lives. In our culture right now, I would say that the disciplines of solitude and those things that take place in solitude are perhaps some of the most challenging because our culture isn t set up to support those kinds of disciplines. We are much more accustomed to the communal aspects of our faith, more accustomed to the activistic aspects of our faith. It is cultivated in that solitary place with God that for many of us goes by the way pretty quickly, especially if we are driven, activistic types. It feels like that kind of solitary time is wasted, and we re not really doing anything, and God can t possibly be active in those times, but obviously the opposite is true. The practice of solitude in silence and other solitary disciplines open up a great deal of space for God beyond the false self-motivations and patterns. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 4
Al: That s exactly right. I m just thinking about that in my own life. Solitude has come to play an important role for me for sure. As an Enneagram 3, an achiever, just to be quiet and let the voices I listen to in my head dissipate so I can actually hear the voice of God is transforming for me for sure. Ruth: It is. Yes, indeed it is. Also, I think it s so important for us to have a community outside of our working environment sometimes that supports that part of our journey. Thomas Merton says, Ask me not where I live or what I like to eat, but ask me what I am living for and what keeps me from living fully for that. We need people outside of our ministry work environments who don t care so much about our successes but care more about how we re seeking God and how we re keeping that the priority in our lives and whether or not we are living our lives for what it is that we most deeply value. We need spiritual friends who don t have a mixed agenda with us. That s what I mean when I talk about community. I m talking about people who care about us as souls and who will ask us the hard questions. Without those kinds of friendships, it s also very easy to lose our way. Al: We oftentimes will see really healthy cultures where people love to be together. The people who work together also like to spend time together socially and outside of work. You re saying this community should be a group of people outside of our ministry work group to be really healthy. Ruth: Let me say I would suggest that it s both. We want to cultivate community within the ministries and churches that we re a part of so that is a real community. We re together. We can pay attention to the impact the ministry is having on our lives and whether or not we re living in sacred rhythms and how we re moving and transcending the false self-patterns we each have. Ideally, the work environment would be cultivating that kind of sense of community, but we would also have places outside as well where people don t have a mixed agenda for us. No matter how hard you try in your work environment, there is more than one agenda going on. Al: There s no question. In our Best Christian Workplaces staff engagement survey, we ask questions like, Our leaders exhibit the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Our leaders demonstrate humility. Our leaders demonstrate compassion for people at all levels of the organization, and our leaders put Christ first in daily decision-making. The responses to these statements have a significant influence on staff engagement in Christian organizations. In your mind, what is keeping ministry leaders from exhibiting such spiritual character? Ruth: I think that in the past 30 years or so, maybe 35 years, there has been a trend toward more of a secularization of looking at our lives in ministry and even in the church. The secularization of the church might be a way to put it, and when I say church in that context, I do mean Christian ministries as well. We re all part of the expression of the body of Christ here on the earth now. I think we have started to measure our success by secular standards for success. We ve adopted secular means for accomplishing the spiritual goals we ve set for ourselves. We ve started to compare Best Christian Workplaces Institute 5
ourselves to secular models for success. I think all of that contributes to a disconnect between what we re doing in our work and our character. Sometimes, we get to the point where we are seeking external, outward measures of success as being even more important than what is happening on the level of our character. It s hard to say those things because you wish it weren t true. I remember a day when it wasn t what it is like now. I m a pastor s kid, so I watched my dad as a pastor from when I was a very young child, and things were different in the church back then. The standards were different. It was not nearly as complex. The ways of measuring success were different than they are today. I think part of that has to do with the secularization of the church. In that, we ve gotten disconnected from what is most important to us as Christian people, which is the character and the person of Christ being formed in us and exhibited in us at all times. Al: Yeah. When you look at those questions, how can leaders change to reflect the fruit of the Spirit or humility or compassion if that s not just naturally part of their character? Ruth: By having regular ways of opening to the transforming presence of Christ, the living presence of Christ within us, and finding ways to open to the transforming power of the presence of Christ is really the only way. One of the reasons solitude and silence is such a powerful practice There are so many reasons, but one is that it gives us a chance to actually see the false self-patterns for what they are, to let go of those false self-patterns in one way or another. You mentioned that you re an Enneagram 3. Solitude and silence is a very powerful practice for 3 s because 3 s are oriented toward wanting to be successful and wanting to manage their image. In solitude and silence, you let all of that fall away, and you re just you in the presence of God in a very humble way, and there is something about that that is profoundly transforming for a 3. There are other reasons why solitude and silence are profoundly transforming for others of the Enneagram types, but the only way for these characteristics to be cultivated in us is to first of all be open to the transforming presence of Christ in our personal rhythms, and then to bring that transforming self to the workplace and to allow our interactions with other people to expose that which is lacking within us. When you re in the work environment, and you notice, My goodness. I am not compassionate toward the person who is packing up the books over there or cleaning the floor, it s in the context of our lives with others that we see, I am not as great of a Christian as I thought I was. I can feel very pious in my times of solitude, but when I come back into my life here in community, I see who I really am. We allow Jesus to show us that, to confront us with that. Then we fall on our knees and ask forgiveness and seek to go out and be the presence of Christ to the least of these in our work environment. Al: That s really true. Behavior modification has to start with Christ s work in us, from my perspective. We can look at characteristics like love and joy and peace and compassion and humility, and we can try to modify our behavior to that model, but it really isn t going to be successful unless it s transformed from the inside. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 6
Ruth: Yeah. Amen to that. Al: How about patterns for people in ministry? Are we talking about daily devotion times, daily quiet times? Are we talking about What s a good pattern for leaders in ministry around some of these things? Ruth: That s a great question. You could answer that in two ways. One is I like to suggest that people look at concentric circles of relationships in their lives. I ve already alluded to this. We can look at our lives and understand that the spiritual life happens in concentric circles of relationship, starting with our own personal relationship with God in solitude and then moving from there to the different kinds of community we experience, and then moving from there to our engagement with the world. Our spiritual disciplines take place within each one of those concentric circles, and a life that is balanced in terms of trying to open to the transforming presence of Christ will have spiritual disciplines within each of those circles. We can always look across those circles even diagnostically and say, So, how am I doing? Do I have practices that have to do with solitude? Do I have practices that take place in community? Do I have practices that take place in the world? and see a balanced perspective to our spiritual lives. I suggest looking at concentric circles and looking at the spiritual practices that take place within each. Solitude would include silence, Scripture, some personal aspects of discernment, journaling, selfexamination. Those are all practices that take place in solitude. In the circle of community, there would be corporate teaching and corporate worship and hearing preaching and serving one another with our gifts and confession, corporate confession. All of those are the community disciplines. We need those for our spiritual rhythms to be balanced. Then in our engagement with the world would be being involved with the poor and being involved in issues of justice. There is a transforming work God does in us while we are engaged with the world in that way. It needs to be sort of evenly distributed over time. Another way to look at the rhythms though is to look at just the time frames of our week. I m going at this in two different ways, and I encourage pastors to do this and leaders in our our transforming community experiences. Once you begin to become familiar with the key spiritual disciplines as I just described them, then you look at the increments of time that make up your life, daily, weekly, monthly, maybe quarterly, annually, and you look at what needs to happen in those increments in order for you to stay well. I call it your minimum daily requirement, if you will. You know how much you need to eat to be well. I m asking you what kind of spiritual disciplines you need in your life to be well, and how do you fit those into the increments of time we all have to work with? Yes, I do suggest a daily practice of solitude and silence at a time when you can be awake and alert and present to God. Will you give God your best time? For some people, it could be morning. For some people, it could be during a lunch hour. For other people, I could be later at night if they re night people. You want to give your best time to solitude and Best Christian Workplaces Institute 7
silence and allow that to be your grounded place. Then look at your week. When you look at your week, of course, you look at the practice of Sabbath. Sabbath is a very important rhythm that is described in Scripture, working six days, resting on the seventh. That s an increment of time. We all have weeks to work with. How you work your week so you have five days for paid work, the sixth day for your human needs, and the seventh day for your Sabbath rest. I suggest that leaders look at their monthly, quarterly rhythm. I suggest at least a 9:00 to 4:00 retreat, if not a 24-hour retreat every month or every quarter for people who are actively engaged in leadership because so much is required of them externally that they need to have a rhythmic way of going down under, going inside and allowing God to replenish them in that way. Then some people in an annual rhythm need to look at their vacations. I suggest people take all of their vacation because God knows we need rest, and he built that into the rhythms of the universe. Also, I would suggest perhaps one longer retreat per year or one other event or something that is sustaining for you at the soul level or invites you further on the spiritual journey. That s another way I encourage leaders to think about their spiritual practices, is to look at these increments of time we all share and determine what needs to happen in those increments in order for me to be healthy and whole and sustained in my life with God. Al: That s a great way of looking at it, Ruth. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually. Then within those circles of personal community and world, that gives us two dimensions to really look at our own spiritual practices. The challenge is to not operate in this false self as you described where we feel like we have to perform, and it s really not a healthy place to be as a leader. It s through these actions that you ve so articulately described that brings us into that transforming relationship with Christ, and then we actually have the outcomes of living the life of love, peace, joy, of the fruit of the Spirit, compassion, humility, and the things that as we bring our transformed self to leadership, allows us to be the most effective we can be in our jobs. Outstanding. Thanks, Ruth, for the wisdom, insights, and stories, and for extending your ministry to the leaders who have been listening to you, working with you, and benefiting from all you ve shared with us today. Ruth: Thanks, Al, for a great interview. I loved the questions, and I can tell that you get it, so that s a joy. Al: This has been an important part of my spiritual journey. I actually have a life plan. I put those things on my calendar. My alarm goes off every morning. I have 45 minutes that I spend in solitude. I do regular full-day retreats at least on a quarterly basis. I m working on that. I do also take all of my vacations, but I m working on that annual retreats. I really like that idea. I need to implement that in the near future for sure. Ruth: Wonderful. I will pray for you with that. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 8
Al: That s the next thing for me. To our listeners, if you ve enjoyed today s episode, you can find a transcript at blog.bcwinstitute.org. We would love to hear your feedback about our interview today, so please take a minute to leave a comment on our blog post or reach out on social media, @bcwinstitute. Also, do us a favor before you go. Would you please click over to itunes to rate this program? It makes a big difference for getting this material into the hands of the right people. We would be grateful. Well, my friends, remember your leadership is a gift. Let s work together to be sure Christian organizations set the standard as the best, most effective places to work in the world. We ll see you next time. Best Christian Workplaces Institute 9