The world we are living in is one that is physical; driven by thoughts and ideas; divisive politics and powerful personalities. This is a world that is empirically validated: What we “see” is what there is; What we “touch” and what or who touches us is what matters. What we have judged to be true is what we believe is actually true. Some of us believe doctrine more than we believe in God. We may go to church and speak of church more than we speak of encounters or experiences with Jesus. In our time hurried and fast culture, we want facts and we want them now-- short, succinct and bullet point if possible.

By Stephen W. Smith

The discovery that the sun was the center of the universe changed everything! Nicolaus Copernicus was an astronomer who discovered, in the 16th century, that the sun was at the center of the universe, not the Earth. This discovery changed centuries of thinking. It impacted the way people saw the world. People experienced a shift in their understanding, and it radically altered the way people thought about life. And the ripple effect of this discovery continues to this very day. It continues to remind us of the truth that we are not at the center of the universe. And that everything doesn’t revolve around us. In short, Copernicus gave us perspective with his scientific discovery.

It’s exciting to cast a vision of the future for Potter’s Inn ministry.  Our total revamping and transition to a new model of ministry is being led by the Board of Potter’s Inn.  Gifted and seasoned men and women are shaping a future for Potter’s Inn to transition to a healthy, vibrant and far impacting ministry.  We hope this impact will be greater than we have seen and experienced in the past.  We sense it will be. We feel led to study, build and release a new platform of ministry that people need, people want and people are asking for!

What is a “message centric” model?

In January 2017, I decided to invest an entire year of my life on the journey in discernment (doing the Ignatian Exercises).  I found myself at a critical crossroad. My work, my marriage, my heart needed attention and care. The future felt looming and did not excite me.I decided to do an ancient, year long, proven way of deepening my own heart and experience with God that helped me; renewed my heart and is rekindling love in my marriage.  I think I've morphed into a new place; a new space and a new way of living my life and expressing my faith.I did this because:

Potter’s Inn Ministry is in transition.   This is actually a transition that we have planned for and are excited about walking boldly into the future. We are moving from a property centric model of offering soul care to leaders in the marketplace and ministry to a message centric model.   

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

Living the questions of life, love, purpose, and faith is about wrestling through issues, perspectives, and views until some type of clarity comes—or maybe does not come at all. Finding our way in life and knowing God’s will for our lives is about holding questions in our hearts without an inner urge to answer too quickly or with all assurance that we’ve settled a matter, once and for all. And in all of the question asking and answer finding, we need to practice holding both loosely in our hands.

The holidays and life itself have been great reminders for Gwen and I about the need for soul care. It’s been a lot—perhaps too much.  For us, we were with all of our kids and their kids. We travelled to some while others came to us. Travel brings its own stress these days.  There were meals to prepare; presents to open; and hanging out with one another.  It was full. It was sweet and it was a rich time. But we came away exhausted.  We need to re-coup! I need to find “my” life that I seemed to have lost in a busy family time. But what if there’s no time to re-coup? That’s a problem!

400 years ago, Ignatius of Loyola crafted a genius way of prayer. His method helped  a person reflect back upon their day and their life in terms of how one experienced God.  He developed a prayer called, The Daily Examen. It is both a challenging and comforting way to trace the movement of God in one’s life. After having spent a solid year in study, reflection and prayer using Ignatius’ method of prayer, I’ve come to the conclusion that Ignatius was a genius. I only wish now that I had known about this decades earlier. Never before, had anyone in the history of the church, shared such a bold new way of spending time with God, ourselves and our own hearts.  This Great Annual Examen is based on Ignatius’ way of reflection and prayer.

We need a new way to live. We have mistakenly believed that we can set more goals and by achieving our goals, we will arrive at this “new way of living” which promises to be better, more efficient and more rewarding.

It may not be as much about setting new goals as it is a whole new way of learning to live.

The great need at this juncture of world wide violence, cataclysmic events and disturbing addictions to busyness is one that no material thing can provide and no human leader has the capacity to offer.  It is for men and women to accept God’s invitation to sit quietly with themselves and alone for some time to reflect, ponder and experience the love of God.

In my work with leaders in ministry and the marketplace there is a dire need for us to learn the spiritual discipline of solitude and the other spiritual gift of silence.  In a noisy world and living at feverish speeds, the soul’s great need is for some slow time and some quiet time.