meditaiton

5 Minute Prayer #14 'Lion or the Dove' No. 11

A lion or a dove? How do you meditate?

The awkward truth about prayer is that you can only learn it by practice. This can be a very discouraging realization. This truth can cause many to avoid prayer altogether. We don't like being beginners. We don't want God to be difficult, and we don't know how to be alone and quiet. We assume that if Jesus is really about love, then a relationship with him should be convenient and simple.

I know how to confess the difficulties of prayer because I've been discouraged most of my life in regard to prayer. Even while serving as a ministry leader, I held God at arm's length and struggled to sit still and give myself to his presence and truth through prayer and meditating on the Scriptures. 

While we can't learn how to pray from books or from someone else, it is possible to gain some inspiration and even some practical coaching on what to look and wait for as we approach God. This is the gift of spiritual direction and what I hope is the gift of this podcast outreach: that you can find some inspiration and practical help to get started or to try again to know and be known by God.

Prayer is simple. It is accessible and even convenient, but not in the way we think of any other simple, accessible, or convenient thing in our lives. Once you enter in you will understand in your own way what I mean. Talking to God is unlike talking to anyone else. Being in his presence is different than the personal presence of any other being. This is God. No one is like him. When you go to prayer on your own, you will learn your own way. There are various ways! You might pray like a lion or a dove, or in some completely other way. 

To understand what I'm getting on about, I invite you to listen to episode no. 11 based on prayer exercise #14 from the prayer guide, "40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes With God."

5 Minute Prayer #4 'Listing Your Loves' no. 9

The goodness?
The truth?
I'm having a real good time. 
Living into my vocation has become a delight. Yes, there are genuine difficulties. Susanna and I lost three babies in the past three years (Jericho 20 weeks, Tiernan and Havilah at almost seven). I really miss being with college students and running a recording studio at Hope College. At times it is a mess managing two little boys, the house, the calendar, making meals.... Yes, I'm at my worst in the 'witching hours' of 3:30-8pm. 

However, I'm happier, healthier, and more emotionally and spiritually present than ever. In fact, the Spirit is changing me in ways that are beyond anything I could ask or imagine. 

How? Meditation, the Scriptures, contemplative prayer, spiritual direction, serving in the prison, risking with God. These are all things you and I have known for a long time about faith. It's just that I've only begun to take it all seriously in the last five or six years. 

Please consider the Invitation Podcast my attempt to share the goodness with you, to invite you to listen to the Spirit's invitation. What could be more fun than to watch the Holy Spirit speak to incarcerated felons and pastors?

A NEW 5-Minute Format!
This will end up being five-ish minutes. As you see, I've put a big No. 4 on this one. The 4 refers to exercise #4 from the prayer guide "Forty Ways to Spend 5 Minutes with God" that I wrote for Harderwyk. The idea is to do guided meditations of each of the 40 prayer exercises. N. 4 is my first attempt at this. As always, I appreciate your positive/critical feedback.

I started with #4 because I hope it might especially help with the front end of Lent:  During Lent we are attempting to slow down, do less, eat less, drink less…to empty ourselves…to create internal space for God as we anticipate his resurrection. I pray episode No. can help you live into Jesus' death and resurrection.

I invite you to 'list your loves' here in Episode #9 on prayer exercise No. 4.  

The closing song, "Psalm 23:1-2" is used with permission from theversesproject.com and Zach Winters.

An Update & Short Meditation, 'Choosing Less' no. 8

In this episode Josh offers two updates in a reflective meditation, a kind of short retreat. If you are interested in the Feb 7-8 church leader's contemplative retreat, send him an email (josh at harderwyk dot com). Josh also explains his decision to step down from his position at Harderwyk. Huge thanks to the leaders at that church and to all the people as well. Listen to find out more. A new, proper website will be online soon. Stay tuned for more conversations and retreats coming soon!

Conversation #3 Sharon Garlough Brown no. 7

 

January 7, 2017

In late November I had the good pleasure of sitting down with author of Sensible Shoes, Sharon Garlough Brown. In our conversation Sharon says:

"Whenever we are talking about spiritual disciplines, we have to talk about them as ways of receiving the love of God, and then abiding in the love of God, and then finally responding to the love of God."
 

I fear that we often get this backwards. We focus on our actions trying to live out the Christian life without substantially receiving much of his love into our lives. When we get this backwards--when we don't live with a deep sense of God's love--we will either practice a vain, superficial Christianity or a very guilty, heavy Christianity. 

In my conversation with Sharon Garlough Brown, you'll get a glimpse of a woman compelled to serve God out of an abundance of love. 

A few years ago several women in my spiritual direction cohort recommended Sharon's books to me as a good way to introduce folks to contemplative prayer and spiritual direction. A few even said they were training to become directors all because of what the Spirit stirred in them through Sensible Shoes. I quickly read the book and introduced it to Harderwyk where it has taken off. 

For those of you who still feel outside contemplative spirituality--those who are scratching their heads wondering who Ignatius of Loyola is--this conversation should be helpful. Sharon and her fiction are very much in the Spirit of the Invitation Podcast extending the invitation into the deep love and life of God. 

I welcome you into conversation #3 with Sharon Garlough Brown as we discuss Sharon's journey into spiritual direction, the story behind her Sensible Shoes books, Ignatian Spirituality, the missional church, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, the disciplines of silence, lectio divina, journaling, Scripture meditation, and Sabbath keeping. Sharon also recites a section of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "Aurora Leigh."

Conversation #2 Brad Kilman no. 6

December 20, 2016

In early November I had a reunion with my long-time friend, Brad Kilman. Brad and I have been friends since we were 18, almost 25 years. We were interns together at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City in 1999. We wrote our first worship songs and recorded them with Charlie Hall for his Generation Productions during that time.

Over the years since I have had to discern my way through the conundrum of contemporary worship. There is enormous power in those instruments and musical voicings that can easily dethrone God with ego and self-worship. As I've struggled to trust leaders and songs, Brad has been a touchstone especially when he says things like:

"I only have my own affection and my own prayer. And if that is not true and honest before him, the I have nothing to give...."

It had been two years since we had been together, so there was much to talk about. The recurring theme of our discussion on and off the podcast mic was how to follow God. As the conversation progressed, we began to outline the similarities between leading worship and practicing spiritual direction.

Mostly it was just good to be with a spiritual friend. 

A spiritual friend is a true gift of the Holy Spirit. A spiritual friend shows you God in ways that make you jealous for more of God. Deep calls unto deep. Brad's relationship with Jesus--the way he sings to God and loves God is contagious. 

I welcome you into conversation #2 with Brad Kilman as we cover topics like song writing, mentoring worship leaders, the influence Charlie Hall and Don Chafer had on us, balancing life with ministry, serving a local church community, the ego, the enneagram, Taizé, and our first experiences in a recording studio.

 

www.bradkilman.com Also check out www.theversesproject.com to find more of Brad's music. The next interview will be with author, Sharon Garlough Brown in anticipation of a contemplative prayer retreat for church leaders she will be co-leading with Josh February 7-8. Then we will begin releasing a new five-minute retreat format that will correspond to Josh's prayer guide, "Forty Ways to Spend Five-Minutes With God." At the end of this episode you can hear a bit of a song based on Psalm 103 written by Brad and recorded in a cabin during their time in a cabin near Three Rivers, MI.

Conversation #1 Joseph Byrd OLF no. 5

November 1, 2016

In this episode, I sit down with my spiritual director, Joseph Byrd OLF, to conduct the very first interview of the Invitation Podcast! Joseph has helped me and many others, even so-called 'hardened prisoners,' experience God's loving presence.  In this conversation with Joseph you can experience our shared joy and love for each other and God. Our deepest lessons are more 'caught than taught,' as God is a person to experience instead of a concept to explain. In this discussion with Joseph, my hope is that you will catch on to a new experience of God as I have over the past seven years.

Joseph says:

"Prayer is so much like music....What my sense of God has become is flow."

And goodness, does this conversation flow!

Join me for Conversation #1 with Joseph Byrd OLF as we cover topics like prayer, suffering, waking to God as if from a dream, music, prison outreach, CS Lewis, Dallas Willard, Teilhard de Chardin, St. Ignatius, St. Francis of Assisi, Isaac of Nineveh, Evelyn Underhill and more.

Retreat #3 - Revelation 3 no. 4

"I will come in to you to eat with you, and you with me."

September 18, 2016

We eat from many different tables even while the Spirit of Christ has invited us to eat from the abundance of his table. As CS Lewis has said, "It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us....We are far too easily pleased."

Yet, how do we sit down and participate in the greater pleasures of God? This retreat slowly and carefully guides you through Scripture, quotes from great authors (Fredrick Buechner, Origen, Theophan the Recluse), and questions for you to consider, all to help you become more familiar with God in prayer.


Join me for Retreat #3 as we meditate on Revelation 3 and consider the inner regions of our hearts.

Music:
“Save My Life” Josh Banner 1999
“Always Faithful” by Brad Kilman www.bradkilman.com
"Silence" Josh Banner and Susanna Childress 1999
Josh with Jared DeMeester (uke & upright bass)
Other sound design by Josh (rhodes w/ fx) & Josh Holicki (snare)
“Light of Jesus” Instrumental Josh Banner