For just over 29 years, I have been a non-profit consultant, leading a small non-profit that primarily works in areas of prayer and community ministry. Over the past 16 years, I have worked as a full-time nanny for my two nieces from birth until they started school and then as a stay-at-home Dad for my two children. My wife and I have been married for nearly 27 years.
Eleven years ago, right before my first child was born, I discovered spiritual direction. It was what I needed at the time. I had been to seminary and graduate school, was ordained, and had served with churches helping develop their ministries, but I also knew there was more to the Christian life.
Anticipating my children going to school and having more time to devote to ministry, I started a spiritual direction training program to help others find the deeper spiritual life that spiritual direction had helped me to find as well. I attended a two-year graduate training program through Spring Hill College, graduating in 2021.
I am convinced that part of what is lacking in many churches, and in many individual Christian lives is individual discipleship and attention to the spiritual life. The spiritual life is not something we do in a morning devotion or at church each week; the spiritual life is what motivates all of our existence. Spiritual maturity is not about the biblical or theological knowledge we can recite; it is about living the life God created us to live, finding God’s path for us, and living an integrated life.