Introducing Spiritual Practices To Your Congregation – Transcript

Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers: best practices and quick help, from interims for interims – wisdom from the field. My name is Reverend Jim Latimer and I have the pleasure to be welcoming Reverend Henry Schoenfield today. Henry is a spiritual director, a professional certified coach and an experienced interim minister. Henry, thank you so much for joining us today. What would you like to share with our listeners right now in this segment?

Henry Schoenfield (he/him): Jim, thank you so much for having me. I would like to talk about setting up spirituality groups for congregations. I found this to be useful for three reasons. First of all, I recognize that with all of this sort of “spiritual but not religious” talk and “Nones,” one of the things that tells me is that we’re not doing such a great job teaching people spirituality. If churches were, then then folks wouldn’t be looking for it elsewhere. The other reason why I find building spirituality groups to be really useful is especially right now, it helps to keep people connected. When they’re practicing together, they’re automatically sharing some of the most tender parts of their lives. And the third reason is that in the interim process itself, there is such discernment that’s involved in the interim process itself, that having spirituality practices on the congregational level helps people to know what it’s like for God to be speaking to them.

Jim Latimer: Wow! – for them to know what it’s like to experience God speaking to them.

Henry Schoenfield (he/him): Exactly. We Protestants have this idea that discernment is often a heady process, something to be figured it out. Well, discernment isn’t about the head at all. Discernment is about the heart. When we can begin to occupy the heart space, then we know what it’s like for the spirit to be speaking to us. Throughout an interim process, as congregations are answering the questions of, “Who are we now?” “Who’s our neighbor?” “How’s God calling us to serve?” that a lot of that has to do with the heart. Not repeating yesterday’s answers to those questions, but sinking into those responses today. So then if we begin to cultivate that sort of spiritual wisdom through practices, then people know how to do it when it comes time for a search committee to come together, or a congregational-wide conversation. There aren’t a lot of ground rules that need to be put on to things like that once people start to grasp what it’s like to sense into God’s presence and how God speaks to us, which brings all three of these things together. Because God is speaking to us, that is, to the spiritual hunger that I believe people are looking for.

And of course, it’s God speaking to us not only as individuals, but also as a community, that helps to strengthen the bonds of community, which is so important, especially in these particular times.

Jim Latimer: So the spirituality groups not only help people know and experience God speaking to them personally, but they also build community which you are saying is so important, and what so many people are looking for and hungering for in life. So what are one or two examples of some of these spiritual practices? One of the practices that I’ve worked with in the congregation is Lectio Divina – prayerful reading of scripture. And what I love about Lectio Divina, especially working with a group, is that we can go through a short text, and different people in the group are going to pick up on different things. Or maybe I should say God is going to speak to different people in the group through different words in the text. What’s also beautiful about Lectio is that quite often, people will experience some kind of expansive sensation in their bodies as they’re getting on to a particularly potent word. And that’s exactly the sort of sensation we want people to become familiar with in this whole spiritual growth process.

So Lectio is one, but another is a really simple practice of pausing and noticing. And again, working in groups, just pause and notice what’s right in front of you. What do you sense in this group right now? That helps people to start noticing what’s there without judging, because that’s one of the things that really gets in the way of us noticing how God is moving. When we think we know how God is supposed to be moving, then we end up judging everything according to what we think is right or wrong. And, of course, when we start judging what’s right and wrong, we’re bound to miss it. We’re bound to miss God’s voice.

Jim Latimer: Almost every time, yes! That’s beautiful. So Lectio Divina, which most of our listeners are probably familiar with. And the pausing and noticing. As you said so well, it’s so simple, so obvious; you can pause just for a moment. Like I do with this recording, I just simply pause it, and then what’s right here, right now?

Henry Schoenfield (he/him): Yes. What am I present to?

Jim Latimer: What’s present here? In terms of your five senses? Is there a physicality to it for you?

Henry Schoenfield (he/him): Absolutely. It’s all of the senses. What do you see? What are you smelling? Tasting? Touching? All of it. Because we’ve been taught that some senses we should trust and others we shouldn’t. Such as, how does that show up in shape? What’s the density of the woods? that feeling of it – all of that sort of thing. And the more that we work with our senses, the sharper they’re going to be.

Jim Latimer: Nice. The more we work with our senses the sharper they will be. This is a lot. I have personally benefited a lot from this brief conversation. I’m sure listeners will too. Is there any last word you’d like to say before we wrap up here?

Henry Schoenfield (he/him): I would just encourage folks to play, to see what the different practices are like. There are so many spiritual practices, so see what works for you as an interim Minister. See what might work for your congregation. Just play with it and invite others to play with you as well.

Jim Latimer: Exactly. As the pastor, invite others to play. And it’s through the playing that they learn how to do this, right? Just play and make it fun! Beautiful. Thank you so much, Henry, for sharing your wisdom and great spirit with us.

Henry Schoenfield (he/him): You’re welcome, Jim. Thank you.

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