Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way

Major Announcement - Volume Two: Invitations is Published

 

Even though it is 
Volume Two: Invitations
It is the FIRST volume now available for purchase!

Click the link below to go to the eCommerce Site to purchase a copy. 

The Exercises: Secure eCommerce Site

Many of you know that I have been writing (and field testing) a Five Volume spiritual formation for leaders curriculum. Many of you have used draft copies and given great feedback on the material and your experiences. It is now available for purchase and can be shipped anywhere in the U.S.A.

For that matter, if you want a hard copy anywhere in the world, it can be shipped overseas, it is just that the price of shipping internationally will be high.

We are working on the eBook format that will be available for Kindle and anyone using a Kindle app. That is a financial investment and it takes some time. So for those who are overseas and want this, you'll have to wait a little longer. These will be available at Amazon.com. 

We are using a professional publisher/printer who manages all printing and sales and they have a secure website. The link takes you to their website.

Once you fill out the required information (takes a minute or so) then the information is saved and will be there when you want to return to purchase future volumes. You can help us by spreading the word to others who may be interested in their own spiritual formation. We are so grateful for the stories of people going through them as they tell us of the life transformation that is taking place. 

The Sections of the Book Are:
First Principle and Foundation
Invitation to Relationship

Invitation to a New Identity

Invitation to Missional Service

Invitatin to Leadership


 

The Exercises seek to create a learning experience that:

1.  Engages the great biblical and spiritual themes that matter the most.
 

2.  Uses a process of formation that uses the best insights and tools of spirituality and learning.
 

3.  Moves toward the desired outcome of loving God more deeply, knowing  God more intimately, following God more nearly, and serving His missional purposes in the world He loves with greater faithfulness and fruitfulness.
 

4.  And, if you can do this journey with a few friends, you add to all this, the relational, community component where spiritual formation is meant to take place.

And please be aware that it is a challenging process that leads you into a deep engagement with Jesus and a full embracing of spiritual formation. This developmental tool is designed for mature followers of Christ who want to go a lot deeper and further on the journey.

This is my own shaping of the Ignatian experience of spiritual formation, casting it in a form that is much more accessible for people and designed for those who are generally in the evangelical tradition. 

 





And An Update About the Other Volumes


Volume Four:  What's Gone Wrong  will be available on this same eCommerce site within a few weeks. It will not be available as a Kindle book until we are able to recover costs from the Volume Two eBook.  (It has been an education learning about the publishing of eBooks.)


Volume Three:   The Focused Life  should be available early May. 


Volume One:  Conversations  has been a looonnnggg time in writing. I am making good progress on it. My desire is that it will be available mid-summer.  This volume will have so many of the insights on spirituality, the spiritual disciplines, the growth processes and biblical/theological themes that shape how we seek after God. I know many of you have been waiting patiently for this volume. (I am just helping you learn to persevere...)


And finally . . .

We are making good progress on our new website which will have so much more to offer you than what I am able to provide through this blog. When it is ready, I'll let you know.


Brian K. Rice  
Leadership ConneXtions International  
www.lci.typepad.com


 

 

The Influences on Ignatius

Well, I had an odd and pleasant experience this week. I have had a number of conversations with global leaders about Ignatius in recent weeks. One of the questions I explored several times were the influences on Ignatius. I had a request to blog about those influences. So I sat down to do that. 

As I am doing this, I begin to think, "hmmm, I think wrote about this before. Let me go back and see what I wrote." And sure enough, there they were. Two posts written in December 2009, almost two and a half years ago!

I looked them over and decided that instead of writing a new post on this, I would just link you back to those posts.

I realize there are many new readers that were not with me in those early days of this blogsite. I hope you will enjoy these old posts (there is a lot of good stuff there).

So, if you are interested in seeing the influences that shaped Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises, give these two posts a read. 

Sources Part One

Sources Part Two

Brian K. Rice  
Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way  
Leadership ConneXtions International  
www.lci.typepad.com

 

 

The Practice of the Presence of God

 

I am always working through the classics of spirituality. I decided to re-read The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

This time I read the edition that has a forward by Henri Nouwen.

It also has a very nice preface by the translator, John Delaney that explains who Brother Lawrence was, describes his influence and talks about how the content of this book was established.

This book was published after his death. It was a recollection of letters and oral sayings from those who remembered what Brother Lawrence said to them. It was published in the late 1700s.

I've read it a half dozen times now, and every time I do, I enjoy the simplicity of Brother Lawrence. For example . . .

"All things are possible to him who believes
more so to him who hopes,
still more to him who loves.
and most of all to him who perseveres
in the practice of these three virtues." 
 

"My God here I am, all Yours, 
make me according to your heart."

"God has infinite treasures to give us
and still we are satisfied with
a brief passing moment of piety."

"It is necessary, however, to put our complete trust in God, putting aside all other cares, even certain devotions which, though very good in themselves, are often engaged in for the wrong reasons. These devotions are only means to attain the end."

This next one reminds me of Ignatius' encouragement to live with a wide open generosity toward God.

"God knows what we can do.
Let us begin -- perhaps He is only waiting
for a generous resolution from us.  

Here is a comment from Brother Lawrence about a woman who was dissatisfied with her rate of spiritual growth.

"She appears to be full of good will
but she wants to go faster than grace.
One does not become holy all at once."

 
And one more:

We must know before we can love; to know God we must often think of Him; and whenwe come to love Him we shall also think of Him very often, for our heart is where our treasure is! Let us ponder this often and deeply.

I am moved every time I read this little book. The simplicity of devotion and love for Jesus, from this simple man is striking and necessary. 

Where Brother Lawrence talks of practicing the presence of God, Ignatius uses the language of "finding God in all things."  

Brother Lawrence spent his life in the monastery and mainly wrote to those who were contemplatives in the monasteries. Ignatius wrote for those who would find the world to be their home and who would need to learn how to find God in all the missional activity of the world. 

Ignatius is the one who helped me learn how to Practice the Presence of God in the World.

May you and I both, this week, have this experience many times.

In Christ.
 

Brian K. Rice  
Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way  
Leadership ConneXtions International  
www.lci.typepad.com

Running Ahead and Lagging Behind

Margaret Cropper was a gifted writer, the autobiographer of Evelyn Underhill, a close spiritual friend with Evelyn and herself, a woman of great spiritual vitality. In a letter to Evelyn, Margaret remarked:

"how oddly my writing runs ahead of my experience."

To which Evelyn replied:

"Yes, I too arrive several years later at the experience of things I said."

 

I notice this in my own life as well. Maybe it is because I am also a writer. I write every day. I jounral every day. I blog every day. And I spend almost every day working on my books. Maybe this understanding of experience lagging behind our words is especially true for writers.

But I think is true for all of us... including the larger majority of non-writers... those people who do their thinking in their head. Non-writers think about things long before they actually live in to them. 

As a side bar... because our memory is so fleeting and faulty and because our world is so distracting, I think those who choose not to write or journal are at a disadvantage in an ability to sit with thoughts over longer periods of time... but this is a degression I won't follow any further at this point.

The reality of ideas running far ahead of experience is the BANE and the PAIN of all those who have a vocation of public speaking. It is pointedly so for those who are called to the ministry of preaching and teaching. Those who must week after week, serve up a new offering of ideas to an audience - this is almost a CURSE upon us.

When we are  honest, most of us who do this are HOPELESSLY and HELPLESSLY seeing our ideas run far ahead of our experience. 

We speak of our ideas and belief,
our  ideals and aspirations,
our desires and longings,
our firm convictions . . .

but we are far slower at actually living IN TO these realities and actually have them settle down deep and soak in to the receses of our spirit.

This leads to another SIDEBAR idea about J. I. Packer's note that the North American church is 3000 miles wide and 1/2 inch deep... which is really a statement about those who lead, teach and preach to that audience. We can't take people to depths to which we are not already going. Speed of the leaders/teacher comes to mind.  Time to reel this idea in.

All this is why I (and perhaps you as well, for I assume that many of the readers of this blog have a vocation of writing and speaking) must daily linger with, revisit and repeatedly engage with familiar things.

For while they are familiar they are not yet experience or reality.

So God teaches me patience.

Patience with the questions (Maria Rainer Rilke)

Patience with the process.

Patience with the unfinishedness.

Patience with the lagging.

Patience as His Spirit settles down in one pasture while I would rather skip my way through another green field of ideas elsewhere.

May you also be patient and stay within shouting distance of what you think, speak and write.

Brian K. Rice  
Evangelicals on the Ignatian Way  
Leadership ConneXtions International  
www.lci.typepad.com