During this time, in order to make a living, I began a farm service business. Over time, my business grew, I got married, we had children, and my capacity to invest in scholarship grew less and less. I completed all but the dissertation for my PhD. In part, my departure from academics was also due to a sense that I wasn’t making a big enough difference in God’s Kingdom. 

So I shifted my passion to something that seemed more significant, church planting. For the next 15 or so years I served within my denomination’s church planting efforts, supporting and resourcing church planters. Looking back, I now realize that much of my efforts were to in some way gain God’s approval. This striving for God finally took its toll on me and at age 55, my tank ran out; I simply had no energy. 

During this time of burnout, depression, and confusion, which lasted several years, I began asking questions and searching for what had gone wrong. In this “dark night”, I experienced many profound, some unexplainable, experiences of God and His grace. I heard directly from God that I didn’t need to strive for His approval, that He had already given me that. I experienced the realness of Jesus in a way that I had never known. And I found myself invited into a relationship with God that challenged me, encouraged me, and transformed me. 

During this time, I had the privilege of participating in the Renovaré Institute of Spiritual Formation and was deeply influenced by their curriculum and teachers: Dallas Willard, James Bryan Smith, Gary Moon, Jan Johnson, and Keith Matthews to name a few. I also became trained as a spiritual director in the Gonzaga University program for spiritual direction and later at Shalem. 

As I wrestled with my own soul diseases and depletion, there also emerged a growing hopefulness for a new way of living. I naturally began to share what I was learning with the many pastors and leaders that I had relationships with. I began to lead and resource retreats in which I invited leaders to come and explore the question of “Who am I?” rather than “What am I doing?” Jan Johnson and Keith Matthews greatly helped me as I experimented with and developed an approach to spiritual formation. 

My personal belief has become that spiritual formation happens best in a small group that meets regularly for a couple of days at a time, several times a year, and over a period of several years. In my experience, formation also happens best when people participate in personal discovery. Leading a formation group then requires an attentiveness to each person and an attentiveness to the Spirit that prompts questions to help each person discover what God is saying to them. It also requires a topic of focus, so these retreats are ordered around a subject that is significant in helping participants to grow in their relationships with Jesus. 

The statements and ideas that I present in this website have been influenced by a variety of sources and experiences that I have benefited from. However, the ideas are my own; no one else is responsible for any errors. The ideas and thoughts that I write about are true for me personally. They are not simply things I know intellectually, they are not doctrinal statements to be defended, rather they are principles that I have experienced to be true in my own life. They come from a blending of the rational and experiential ways of knowing. They are not meant to convince anyone, but rather to share what I have personally learned to be true about God, Jesus, the Spirit, myself, our relationship, and much more. Finally, my ideas are best understood as conversation starters, as ideas to explore, and an invitation for readers to “think about what they think and believe”. Enjoy!