{"id":21981,"date":"1997-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1997-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/1997\/01\/01\/deepening-our-conversation-with-god\/"},"modified":"1997-01-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1997-01-01T00:00:00","slug":"deepening-our-conversation-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/deepening-our-conversation-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Deepening Our Conversation with God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOn September 21, 1996, Henri Nouwen died of a heart attack in Hilversum,\nThe Netherlands. Nouwen was a Catholic priest and psychologist, best known\namong Protestant pastors for his book The Wounded Healer.One of Nouwen’s themes was living our brokenness under God’s blessing.\nIn one interview, Nouwen said, “Many people … don’t think they are loved,\nor held safe, and so when suffering comes they see it as an affirmation of\ntheir worthlessness. The great question of ministry and the spiritual life\nis to learn to live our brokenness under the blessing and not the curse.”<\/em>\nIn 1982, Leadership published an interview with Nouwen and Richard Foster\non what it takes for church leaders to know God. Founder and chair of\nRenovare, Foster has written, among other books, Prayer and\n<\/em>Celebration of Discipline. After hearing of Nouwen’s death, we reread\nthe interview and were moved by its timeless and timely wisdom on the spiritual\nlife. We offer it again in memory of the wounded healer.<\/em><\/p>

Where are you currently in your spiritual journey?<\/p>

Henri Nouwen<\/strong>: I’m in one of the most difficult periods of my life.\nAt times I’ve felt my spiritual direction to be clear-cut; right now, however,\neverything is uncertain. When I came from Holland to the United States, I\nbecame a diocesan priest, a psychologist, and a fellow at the Menninger Clinic.\nI joined the faculty at Notre Dame, taught in Holland, and came back to teach\nat Yale Divinity School. People started to respond more and more to what\nI had to say, and that led to an \nincreasing sense of “Yes, I obviously must have something to say.” I should\nbe happy.\nBut these past months I’ve come face to face with my own spiritual abyss.\nNone of this success has made me a more saintly or holy person.\n\nLast semester I traveled all over the world and spoke to large audiences.\nAll this created a sense of having arrived. Yet my inner life was precisely\nthe opposite of that. More and more I felt that if God has anything to say,\nhe doesn’t need me. I found myself experiencing two extremes at the same\ntime: high affirmation and great darkness.\nRichard Foster<\/strong>: Back in my earlier years of coming to God, I was very\nintense. I once spent three days fasting and praying. After doing so, I felt\nan urging to call a man I had confidence in for his spiritual guidance. He\nlived quite a distance, but I called and asked him if he would come and pray\nfor me. He came, and I was all ready to place myself before him and let him\nminister to me.\nInstead, he sat down in front of me and started confessing his sins. I thought,\nI’m supposed to do that to you.<\/em> After he finished, and I had prayed\nforgiveness for him, he said, “Now, do you still want me to pray for you?”\n\nAll of a sudden I realized his discernment. He knew I had thought of him\nas a spiritual giant who was going to set me right. Only then did he place\nhis hands on me and pray for me.\n<\/p>

What made you believe so intensely that you needed to find God?<\/p>

Foster<\/strong>: Desperation. Not so much for me at first, but for people I\nsaw who needed help. Later, I began to feel how very much I also needed God.\nAlthough the hunger is deep to spend time in solitude, many of us feel\ntrapped by the demands of ministry.\nNouwen<\/strong>: I’m like many pastors; I commit myself to projects and plans\nand then wonder how I can get them all done. This is true of the pastor,\nthe teacher, the administrator. Indeed, it’s true of our culture, which tells\nus, “Do as much as you can or you’ll never make it.” In that sense, pastors\nare part of the world.\n\nI’ve discovered I cannot fight the demons of busyness directly. I cannot\ncontinuously say “No” to this or “No” to that, unless there is something\nten times more attractive to choose. Saying “No” to my lust, my greed, my\nneeds, and the world’s powers takes an enormous amount of energy.\n\nThe only hope is to find something so obviously real and attractive that\nI can devote all my energies to saying “Yes.” In effect, I don’t have time\nto pay any attention to the distractions.\n\nOne such thing I can say “Yes” to is when I come in touch with the fact that\nI am loved. Once I have found that in my total brokenness I am still loved,\nI become free from the compulsion of doing successful things.\nFoster<\/strong>: After I finished my doctorate I went to a tiny church in Southern\nCalifornia that would rank as a marginal failure on the ecclesiastical\nscoreboards. I worked and planned and organized, determined to turn the church\naround. But things got worse. Anger seemed to permeate everyone: the\nconservatives were mad at the liberals, the liberals were mad at the radicals,\nand the radicals were mad at everyone else. I hated to go to pastors’ conferences\nbecause I didn’t have any success stories. I was working myself to death,\nbut it seemed to do no good.\n\nThen I spent three days with my spiritual director. Toward the end of that\ntime he said, “Dick, you have to decide whether you are going to be a minister\nof this church or a minister of Christ.”\n\nThat was a turning point. Until then I had allowed other people’s expectations\nto manipulate me and my own expectations.\n<\/p>

You both talk about receiving spiritual guidance from other people. How\ndo you describe a spiritual director?<\/p>

Foster<\/strong>: Spiritual directorship is a Christian idea. It means having\nsomeone who can read my soul and give me guidance in my walk with Christ.\nMany churches call it “discipleship.”\nNouwen<\/strong>: The church itself is a spiritual director. It tries to connect\nyour story with God’s story. To be a true part of a church community means\nyou are being directed, you are being guided, you are being asked to make\nconnections.\nThe Bible is a spiritual director. People must read Scripture as a word for\nthemselves and ask where God speaks to them.\n\nFinally, individual Christians are also spiritual directors. The use of an\nindividual person in spiritual direction has as many forms and styles as\nthere are people. A spiritual director is a Christian man or woman who practices\nthe disciplines of the church and of the Bible, and to whom you are willing\nto be accountable for your life in God. That guidance can happen once a week,\nonce a month, or once a year. It can happen for ten minutes or ten hours.\nIn times of loneliness or crisis, that person prays for you.\n<\/p>

How does a pastor find such a person?<\/p>

Foster<\/strong>: This is itself a great adventure in prayer. I ask God to bring\nme someone, and then I wait for the salvation of God to come.\n\nMy first director was an older woman who worked nights in a large hospital.\nSix days a week at eight in the morning, the end of the night shift, we met\ntogether to learn about prayer and to share our experiences with God. We\nbegan to learn what it means to walk with Christ, and the experience was\na wonderful one for both of us.\n<\/p>

But many pastors don’t feel there’s anyone they can turn to.<\/p>

Nouwen<\/strong>: If you are seriously interested in the spiritual life, finding\na spiritual director is no problem. Many are standing around waiting to be\nasked. However, sometimes we don’t really want to get rid of our loneliness.\nThere is something in us that wants to do it by ourselves. I constantly see\nthis in my own life.\n\nA spiritual director is not a great guru who has it all together; it’s just\nsomeone who shares his or her sinful struggles, and by doing so, reveals\nthere is a Presence who is forgiving.\nFoster<\/strong>: In a pastorate in Oregon, I realized I needed people to help\nme. In a dozen ways, I said, “Folks, I love you, and I need your help. I\nwould love it if you would come to my office not just when you have a problem\nor when you are angry. Come any time and give me a booster shot of prayer.”\nPeople began to stop by for ten minutes or so and pray for me. Grinning,\nthey would say, “I’ve come to give you a booster shot of prayer.” I’d get\non my knees before these people in an act of submission and let them pray\nfor me.\nNouwen<\/strong>: Richard, I like the idea of asking people to come pray for\nyou, but for some congregations that might be a little too explicit or formal.\nThe first thing for me to communicate to people is that I would really love\nto know them. In other words, I say, “Listen, come and tell me what is happening.\nDrop in. Interrupt me.”\nI’m always running somewhere, and I need people to say, “Stop! You didn’t\nnotice I was trying to say something to you.”\n<\/p>

But how do you cope with those interruptions?<\/p>

Nouwen<\/strong>: What I’m talking about is having a spiritual attitude that\nwants to be surprised by God. We crowd our thoughts with so many agenda items\nthat we don’t take time to listen to God. God doesn’t just talk to me at\nthe end or at the beginning of a project, but all the time; he may have me\nchange directions in the middle.\nThe minister in one sense is a useless person, useless in that he or she\ncan be used at anytime by anyone for anything. I was talking yesterday to\na priest in Philadelphia who said, “I’m so worried about the summer; I’m\na white priest in a black neighborhood. What do I do?”\n\nI replied, “Be sure to walk the streets. Make it clear that you are there.\nYou don’t have to talk all the time; just hang around. Tell the people you\ndon’t want anything. Act totally useless, waiting to be with them and love\nthem.”\n<\/p>

How is love best communicated?<\/p>

Nouwen<\/strong>: I remember a student whose father was never able to express\naffection to him. The boy decided to become a minister and came to divinity\nschool. I was one of his teachers. Even though others think I’m a good teacher,\nhe told me, “I never enjoyed anything you were saying. I came to class, and\nI left it.”\n\nI tried to be interesting, but he couldn’t hear an adult male tell him anything\nbecause it reminded him of his father.\n\nOnce when he was feeling sick, I was biking around one evening and suddenly\nrealized I was near where he lived. I decided to drop in. I said, “I’ve been\nthinking about you today. Are you feeling better?”\n\nHe said, “You came to see me? You thought of me?”\n\nI touched him, put my hand on his hand, and said, “I love you, I really do;\nthat’s why I’m here.” And I meant it; I really felt it. Later, he told me\nhe’d cried for several hours; he had never heard an adult male say, “I love\nyou.” He added, “That taught me all I wanted to learn.”\nFoster<\/strong>: One day I had a strong feeling to call a parishioner who is\na college chaplain. I said, “John, I didn’t call you to ask you to do anything.\nI just wanted to say ‘Hi.”\n\nOn the other end, there was a deep sigh of relief. He said, “I’m so glad\nyou called.” Then he began to share a deep inner need. One of the greatest\nexpressions of love is simply to notice people and to pay attention to them.\nNouwen<\/strong>: If you really want to know God, go to his people. Go to your\nbarber and talk about God. Tell the carpenter about what you’re experiencing.\nTake time to read the lives of the saints. They always knock you off your\nfeet because they tell you the preoccupations you have aren’t the ones you\nshould have. Get in touch with those women and men who did crazy things like\nfalling in love with God\n\n.Foster<\/strong>: I agree. But don’t let your experience get behind your reading.\nRather than read twenty books on servanthood, get the idea, and then serve\npeople. Some of us have experimented with this little prayer: “Lord, lead\nme today to someone whom I can serve.”\nAlso, pastors should take spiritual retreats. Moses did, Elijah did, David,\nPaul, and Peter did. Jesus took time to retreat.\n<\/p>

What should happen at a spiritual retreat?<\/p>

Nouwen<\/strong>: One word: prayer.\nFoster<\/strong>: I think the Protestant world needs to rethink the whole question\nof retreats. I remember preaching a sermon about the need for “tarrying places,”\nbased on Peter’s experience at Joppa, and then adding, “If any of you want\nto take a spiritual retreat, I will find a place for you to go.”\nOne individual took me up on it, and I called every retreat center I could\nfind in Southern California. Everyone gave me the same story-they had facilities\nto accommodate 500 people, but not just a single individual. As far as I\ncould determine, Catholic retreat centers were the only places that would\ntake an individual person. Why can’t we build places for this in our churches?\nNouwen<\/strong>: That’s an excellent idea. I know of parish houses in Canada\nwhere the third floor is arranged as a retreat place.\nFoster<\/strong>: You don’t always have to go away. You can have retreats by\narranging a room in your house for prayer and quiet reflection. I know one\nfamily that has a chair designated as a quiet chair. When someone sits in\nthat chair, he or she is to be left alone.\nNouwen<\/strong>: The discipline of silence has been very important in my teaching.\nLast semester I offered a course in spiritual direction. One requirement\nwas that students spend an hour of silence with a selected Scripture passage\nduring our afternoon together. After that hour of silence, I invited them\nto come together in small groups and share what they had experienced. Many\nrealized for the first time that there is something other than discussion.\nThey would say, “I was impressed that the Lord had something to say to me,\nand it frightened me when it happened.”\n<\/p>

Continued in next article.<\/a><\/p>

1997 by Christianity Today\/Leadership<\/em> Journal.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On September 21, 1996, Henri Nouwen died of a heart attack in Hilversum, The Netherlands. Nouwen was a Catholic priest and psychologist, best known among Protestant pastors for his book The Wounded Healer.One of Nouwen’s themes was living our brokenness under God’s blessing. In one interview, Nouwen said, “Many people … don’t think they are Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[653,156,657],"tax_ctp_tags":[3535,3761,4459,4679,4708,4822,4867,4974,5042,5043,5046,5065],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-21981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tax_publications-1997-leadership-journal","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_publications-winter_1997-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-busyness","tax_ctp_tags-dependence-on-god","tax_ctp_tags-mentoring","tax_ctp_tags-prayer","tax_ctp_tags-priorities","tax_ctp_tags-rest","tax_ctp_tags-sabbath","tax_ctp_tags-silence","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-direction","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-discipline","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-formation","tax_ctp_tags-spirituality"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"\nDeepening Our Conversation with God - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On September 21, 1996, Henri Nouwen died of a heart attack in Hilversum, The Netherlands. 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