SPIRITUAL DIRECTION FOR INDIVIDUALS AND GROUPS
Spiritual gift profiles have confirmed my gifts as one who teaches, mentors, acts as a confidant, and provides spiritual leadership.
Throughout my call, I have had an opportunity to interact with persons of different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I adhere to the Apostle Paul's contention that we ought to see one another from another point of view. God looks on the inside, not on the outside (paraphrased).
The body of Christ is comprised of all of God's persons, those who acknowledge they are made in God's image and those who have yet to embrace that fact. As an adjunct professor teaching courses in spiritual disciplines and practices, prayer and grief recovery, I am intimately aware of a person’s life experiences and spiritual beliefs. I have discovered that the breath of the Spirit of God inhabits each one differently. It is tailored individually so persons receiving understands it is touching them in their present life and heart situation.
I am a spiritual director. This allows me to bring an intimate practical application to the gifts of spiritual formation, heart grounding, and grief tending. It is the Spirit of God that fills us up and sets the path we travel. It is the Spirit of God that nurtures and guides when loved one’s transition and when life expectations fail.
Equipping with the tools that will sustain and keep them as well as prepare them as they journey is building up people to be their best selves. Being an open honest example of someone trying to live faithfully with one's head below one's heart (as the ancients used to say), is building them up as members of the body of Christ.
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CONGREGATIONAL TRANSFORMATION
The church is the "body of Christ". The church is the hands and feet of the Master. We have heard and read these truths many times and for many members of the "called out ones", carrying out the demands of Matthew 25 is the primary charge.
Yet, there are those who continue to feel as though something is missing. The gathering of the saints one day a week does not fulfill the inner desires of their hearts. There is a void, a desire for something deeper that pulls them closer to their Creator God.
James C. Wilhoit in his book "Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered," challenges the status quo of business as usual in our congregations. He says, “The key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the persistent rediscovery of the gospel.” He further asserts, “In our culture of self-improvement, which has (in some), turned spirituality into a narcissistic pursuit. Making spiritual practices a daily part of one's life routine.
The book of Acts declares that the early church gathered to hear the Apostles teaching, shared what they had with others and grew as the Spirit of God moved among them. We often read this passage emphasizing the numeral growth of the church family. I contend that the sharing of their goods one with another and the responsibility each had toward the other was the transformation of each heart as they delved deeper into the message of the gospel. It was the transformation of their hearts that enabled the "body" to be the salt in such a diverse society.
There are four tenets that have proven helpful in bringing the church back to its roots of heart transformation:
Receiving – providing places of safety and community. Allowing space for introspection, repentance, confession, and prayer.
Remembering – sharing stories of the transformative power of the gospel. Dwelling in the Word of God; engaging in meditation and silence.
Responding – sharing how the Spirit is engaging you now. Actively responding to the Word of God as a vehicle that discerns God's desires for you now. Gathering together in groups throughout the week or months to practice spiritual disciplines. Making the disciplines a daily part of one's routine.
Relating – taking the spiritual formation tools into other areas of community life. Handling conflicts beginning with prayer, affirmations, and appreciation for one another's gifts and graces.
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LOSS AND GRIEF RECOVERY
I am a certified grief recovery specialist.
Grief is when your heart is broken. It is not your head that needs to be fixed. That is one of the reasons why some forms of therapy are not effective.
Grief is emotional. There are triggers like songs, places, shows, poems, and more that arise unexpectedly.
Grief defined is caused by an incomplete relationship that can have a lifelong negative impact on one’s capacity for happiness. Grief is a normal and natural reaction to loss.
Grief is conflicting feelings caused by an end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior.
Unresolved grief is unrealized hopes, dreams, and expectations. It is undelivered communications of an emotional nature.
Unresolved grief or loss is undelivered communications of an emotional nature. The goal is to complete what emotionally has not been resolved.
Completeness is the result of emotional communication that either was never heard or delivered but need to be said or heard.
Recovery gives the opportunity and ability to say goodbye to any pain, which may be limiting one from fond memories and to say goodbye to any unmet hopes, dreams, and expectations about the future.
The Grief Recovery Method Is
Educational in approach
Confidential
Non-judgmental
Respectful
Activity-centered