As a way of probing beneath the surface, try to list ten ways to nurture and maintain your spiritual health as a clergy. Force yourself to go to ten. As I said yesterday, this presses you to go beyond the obvious. I will share my list of ten, but it would be best to stop right here and make your list. Only then go to my list.
1. I should find a discipline that involves me in prayer each day. This should be a prayer discipline that is personal rather than professional.
2. Each week I should take some time to read Scripture in a way that allows it to speak to me personally and not merely for how it can help me speak to a congregation.
3. I should take time to journal about how the spirit is moving in my professional life. If this is God’s call, then how open am I to hearing what God is saying.
4. I should find a spiritual director that occasionally I can talk to about where God is in my life.
5. At least once a year, I should review the past year or more of ministry and note where I now see God having been present.
6. At least every five years I should take a several day retreat, perhaps at a monestary where I can avail myself of the spiritual direction of one of the brothers, and probe my understanding of God’s call in my ministry.
7. It would be good for me to occasionally set aside the “shoulds” of my life and playfully enter into dialogue about my spiritual journey.
8. My family is part of my spiritual journey and occasionally I should invite them to share their perspective on where God is leading me and them.
9.Occasionally I should meet with some colleagues in the ministry and discuss the state of ministry and where we see ourselves.
10. As part of opening myself to the freedom of God in my life, I could write for twenty minutes on the subject, “If God wanted to call me beyond the ministry, what might be some of the areas of my new call.”
How does this match up to your list of ten.?
