Copyright: This article is reprinted from Congregations on the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ with the permission of The Alban Institute, Inc., Suite 433 North, 4550 Montgomery Ave., Bethesda, MD, USA. 20814. Copyright 1995. All rights reserved. The article is owned and licensed for use on the world wide web. It can be downloaded for personal use only and not for reproduction.

Pneuma is a journal on spiritual direction and formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

I offer hints, and minor ones at that. The big hints come from God. You alone can hear them. Even the minor hints that I contribute may be just for my present parish. But I will tell stories and make suggestions, in the hope that something will ring true in your experience.

I realize that some of you want concrete programs that will bring spiritual awakening to your parish. I can't give you that. It's like riding a bicycle. You don't learn how to keep your balance from a book but from watching and trying it yourself. Even Ignatius of Loyola, the organized saint of spiritual direction, gave only practices and an outline to his student directors, advising them to pay attention to where the Spirit was working in a person's life.

What kind of program in prayer and spiritual growth did Jesus offer? He helped people wake up and put God first in their life. He told them to pay attention to what God was saying. He said that it was for our advantage that he went away, or else the Spirit would not come. Timing is important: some things have to happen before others can happen. This still holds true. Let me give you an analogy from my own life to make this clearer.

When I was an early adolescent, I was sent to learn ballroom dancing and found it painful. There were a lot of do's and don'ts. Holding a girl in my arms was very embarrassing. I didn't want that much closeness. Trying to get my feet straight while holding a girl was like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. It was mortifying to dance with the very well-endowed dancing instructor. There was another level of awareness besides trying to get my feet right. Cruel and unusual punishment! Later, after I got over my fear of girls, dancing became much more interesting.

Many people who are taught to pray have no real interest in praying. Keeping God at a friendly distance is all they are motivated to do, and for good reasons. Just like me with the dancing instructor, intimacy with God is more than they can handle.

Showing people that God is at their level, interested in their concerns, may help. There's a story of a man who went to see a noted spiritual guru in a small village. He overheard the holy man talking to a woman about geese. The man asked the guru, "Why do you speak with her about geese?" "Because her consuming passion is her geese," the guru answered. "Don't you think the Almighty is interested in geese?"

It is essential to accept people at their own stage of intimacy with God.

In late adolescence I learned to square-dance. There were certain steps to learn and you had to pay attention, but square-dancing was a lot more relaxed than ballroom dancing and, although there were set patterns, you could improvise within the general framework. You weren't stuck talking with one girl all night. I think that many people do better in group direction than in individual direction. In both cases, ballroom churches and square-dancing churches, the emphasis should be on the music and the people you're with more than getting your steps perfect.

When I was in my early forties my son took me to a Grateful Dead concert. I was overwhelmed by the noise which my son called music. Even worse, my wife seemed to enjoy it! I've been in some charismatic churches that were almost as wild, and some contemplative groups that I felt equally weird in. One size or type of spirituality does not fit all. If your parish is a Grateful Dead parish, then you'd better move like it. If your agenda is to make it High Church or Contemplative or Evangelical, you are probably in for trouble unless that is where the Spirit is leading the group. Try to minister to folks where they are, and to the whole congregation, not just the ones who have souls wired liked yours.

Later in my forties I went to a healing retreat with the Kelseys, and at the end we had a dance. I must have danced with fifteen women that evening. I tried to figure out what kind of step they were dancing, and mirrored that. Sometimes I led and the women followed. Sometimes we danced in parallel. Sometimes we both made up steps, and it was difficult to tell who was leading who, except maybe that the music was leading us both.

I think that's the way it is with my parish. Together we try to figure out what the music is in our lives, where the Spirit is blowing. Sometimes the parishioners think up a new step, and sometimes I do, and when we step on each others' feet we apologize. Most of the time we are aware that the Spirit is leading us.

Thinking back on my history with dancing, I think I finally understood what Jesus said about some things having to happen first, about some letting go, and some development, before we know the leading of the Spirit.

Here are some patterns of responding to God's Spirit that I have found:

1. For all leaders: work on your own spiritual journey. Find a group or a spiritual director who isn't trying to develop one sort of spiritual practice, who knows about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the process of adult development. I find Jesuit-trained directors are rooted in scripture and orthodox belief, and yet are trained to discern where the Spirit is in you. I don't think you can pick up the Spirit's movements in others or a group until you first recognize the music in your soul.

   Consider using the material in the first part of my book with all the leadership in your parish. It will do wonders for understanding and group cohesion. You will have more in common than getting programs done.

2. Join or form a group outside your parish for corporate formation. It may be a clergy supervision group or a Stephen Ministries group, but it should not only be a case-study format, but also include the practice of naming God's presence and absence. Keep asking,"Where is the call of God in the outside events and in the inner life" I don't think you can practice corporate discernment by yourself. In such a group you see what the Spirit is doing in other parishes, and you get feedback that helps you learn when you are stepping over the boundaries or trying too hard to get it right.

3. Teach a group on the MBTI or adult development. You'll begin to see how God has wired other people and to distinguish the waltz from a fox trot, beginners from intermediates.

4. Start asking the question aloud in leadership meetings: "Where do you sense the Spirit at work in our congregation?" You may not get a response at first, so point out where you notice the Spirit. You might rephrase the question: "What is the quality of our common life saying to us?"

   When we are at a dance I sometimes ask my wife, "What kind of music is that" Sometimes she says, "Maybe you can't label it. Just get out there and start moving your feet." Often my rational mind can't come up with a label. But if I check with my body or my feelings, I may get a clue.

   I listen for parallels to stories in the Bible, for experiences of being connected. But I listen with my body, my imagination, to whatever is going on inside me. I will report these to the group to see if others are hearing the same music.

5. If you're the pastor, share your experience and encourage people to get in touch with theirs. "Big" dramatic stories are useful, but homey examples of when you noticed God in ordinary experience are better because people can identify with them.

   One way to get lay people to share their stories is to get someone to collect stories for a Lenten or Advent booklet written by your parishioners. Invite your people to write up an incident in their life. This project requires some work, but the recipients sit down and read all the stories when they get them, and they get in the habit of reading one daily.

   If you're a lay person leading a group, start by sharing something of your story. Don't share the deepest problems, but start with something slightly more revealing than you would say at coffee hour.

6. When the time is right, encourage the leadership group to draft a mission statement. I think it's better to have an outsider facilitate this process so that your ego won't be caught up too much in the wording or outcome. Read Stephen Covey's book, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," and preach on it.

   Writing a mission statement shouldn't really be hard. It should be some variation on helping people love God and their neighbour. A mission statement is saying what you are about. If you are on the dance floor, your mission is to learn to dance. If you are a Christian, your mission is to love God and your neighbour and receive God's grace. Mission is not something we invent, but something we discover, something already given by God.

   If you are a lay leader, write a short mission statement for your small group. The clearer you are at the beginning about what you have in mind and where to set the boundaries for confidentiality, the happier people will be, in my experience. I usually write a statement that describes the purpose and the content, and then go over it verbally. If the group is just short-term you may want to leave it at that. But even in a long-term Sunday School class I ask people to evaluate our process and tell where they think God is leading us. I recommend that all small groups have a stopping point so that one small group does not get ingrown.

7. Use your mission statement until people get sick of it. (I'm not certain this is from the Lord, but it's what I did.) We use the mission statement with newcomers and have lay people tell their stories. This way the new people learn our purpose as a congregation and get an introduction to our style of openness.

   Use it for evaluations. If your mission is to help people love God, ask: "Are people learning to love God" Ask them!

   Are you following your mission as a congregation? Look at your budget and time spent. Some congregations go crazy in evaluations. Please don't. An evaluation can be done lightly, as you occasionally look at a map. Are we headed in the right direction?

   I think it's very important to evaluate small groups and committees. I ask members for written feedback: "How helpful was the meeting? What was the most helpful part? How could we improve next meeting?" This helps the members to be more responsible. I am finding that an extended check-in, sharing where we think God is acting in our lives and in our life together, helps speed up the business part.

8. A congregation-wide approach of spirituality for a season will encourage individuals to awaken and will probably change the nature of your congregation. (My book has suggestions for preaching, small groups, and individual practices for a season.) The second year, discern where God is moving the congregation and plan a congregation-wide follow up.

9. Continue to discern where God is leading. This is far more reliable than basing your approach on what the denomination sends down or what brand X church is doing down the street or the latest thing that the publishers foist off on you. (Present company excepted, of course). Back in the days of uneducated clergy, denominations printed sermons for pastors to read. Now denominations give programs and successful churches spawn imitators. There are things you can learn from another parish or a program, but I believe that every parish is unique and that God is already prompting you to move God's way. Listen.

I believe that the Living Lord is leading us individually and collectively.

I end with a description of ministry by Paul:

"We are guides into God's most sublime secrets, not security guards posted to protect them." (I Corinthians 4:2) (Peterson).

The mystery is the wonder of God's presence inside and outside, transforming individuals and history.

And we -- pastors, group leaders, and friends -- are to be guides. Guides are like tour guides, helping people to open their eyes and see the wonder and glory. We are not only to pay attention to the wonder ourselves, but to know how to help the individual we relate to. This means knowing their abilities, nature, limitations, and where they might be most open. Likewise, pastors and small group leaders must pay attention to the atmosphere of the tour. Unlike a sightseeing tour, the wonders here are found in relationships and within.

This skill or heavenly wisdom we cannot learn in seminary or from books.

"We didn't learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we're passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way." (I Corinthians 2:13) (Peterson).

Whatever we do can have this quality. Pray that the Spirit will wake you more fully for the sake of those around you.