E 242 How Do We Measure Spiritual Health?

How do we measure spiritual health

Chris: [00:00:00] Hello. It's great to be with you today. We are starting a series called A Blast From the Past. We are going to revisit some ideas that were part of our spiritual formation in earlier decades of our lives. And for those of you who are new to the podcast, Christine and I met in our early twenties.

Although our childhood and teen years had quite different experiences, our twenties and thirties and forties have included many shared experiences as it relates to our spiritual formation. So over the next few blast from the past episodes, we are taking a look at books or ideas or experiences that have shaped us.

And so today we want to talk about a book called The Making of a Leader by Robert Clinton. We were first introduced to this book in our late twenties when I think we were both eager to learn how to become [00:01:00] leaders. We were part of a cohort exploring similar ambitions, and this book became a key resource during that time.

And so the main idea is that God's primary work in a leader's life is not what they do, but who they become. Over time. Leadership isn't necessary a linear hustle driven path, but rather one that is formation slow and often hidden. He describes six stages of leadership and how many leaders fizzle out for various reasons, and that actually few leaders finish well.

Tina: Yeah, so maybe I'll just chime in here as a 20 something. I remember both enjoying this book and it was really helpful and at the same time frustrating because Clinton described the six stages that you're naming Chris that tended to loosely correlate with decades of our lives. And I think at the time as a 20 something, I thought maybe I was further ahead or [00:02:00] hoped that I could jump ahead and skip some of the stages.

But it's been interesting revisiting the material decades later. Because now I do see the wisdom and perspective much differently now. And I'll say too, as a coming from a contemplative lens, one of the ways I've appreciated this book is thinking in terms of decades or even partial decades in some cases, has been very compelling.

And you and I both have participated in retreats or situations where we've done a spiritual autobiography. We've used a timeline, and if you've never done this, it's actually quite powerful to write your time, your life out in a timeline format and to notice various parts of the timeline where one might have experienced a transition or a key moment.

So maybe something like moving to a new school, or if your parents were divorced or there was a death, or maybe your parents received a promotion and that caused a bump in your socioeconomic class, maybe you lost a job. Anything in between like that. And so I have [00:03:00] found that spiritual timelines have been really helpful to give language and to allow us to notice nuances in our, our journeys, in our lives that otherwise we may have missed.

And so with that framework, I wanna offer us the six stages of leadership that Clinton describes, just to kind of give you an overview of what he's talking about. And so the first one is called Sovereign foundations, and this roughly correlates with our childhood and adolescence. And these are experiences that include what family were born into.

Again, significant moments, perhaps teachers, mentors, coaches that we had that shaped us and it shows us that God was at work in our lives long before we had the language for it of like my calling, my leadership, who I'm gonna be, and that much of our sovereign foundations. Are out of our control, right? We don't know what family we're gonna be born into largely.

We don't determine where we're gonna live geographically or some of those foundational pieces of our lives, but just accepting and trusting that there was a sovereignty and a God involved even in those details. 

Chris: I love that [00:04:00] that, that term, that phrase sovereign foundations and, you know, just echoing the benefit of a timeline.

And, you know, I've, I've done a timeline a number of different times, and the timelines that have been the most impacting is when reflecting on, I would say the one that was the most. Impactful was reflecting on like zero to two. I didn't even get past two years old and like there was so much that was out of my control.

There's so many things that happened from zero to two in my life and the way that I once viewed the, the experiences from zero to two doing that timeline , and saying, where was God at? And, and maybe even looking at , , where was divine presence from zero to two, where, where did I see that?

And it had such a huge impact on my life. So I really love this first stage of, of [00:05:00] sovereign Foundations and looking at that from, from a spiritual formation viewpoint. 

Tina: Yeah. And even, you know, children that maybe were part of the NICU or maybe had health issues as they were kids or things like that, that that zero to, you know, that the childhood and adolescence has so much to offer.

Chris: Yes, absolutely. Next is inner life growth, which , it corresponds roughly to our twenties. And this phase includes training. This could be formal education, mentoring, apprenticeship. It's a time of input and spiritual formation that is happening inwardly related to our character. The motivations of why we do things, our capacity to be with God and ourselves.

It's the hidden parts of our lives that God is actively forming before the outward manifestation. So it's the idea that God is working on me more than through me, and this stage often feels slow, inward, and [00:06:00] frustrating to achievers. 

Tina: Yeah, and going back to what I said earlier, I think that's probably why I felt some frustration and tension around this book is because in my twenties I had all sorts of dreams and ideas and visions and plans of how I was gonna change the world.

And part of my sovereign foundations included grief and loss. And so I think that somehow I thought, oh, well, I have character based on that and I could maybe move on a little bit quicker. And, but I think recognizing that we iterate our entire lives. And so definitely I had some character building things going on in my sovereign foundations, and I still needed more life experiences to see how that would work out even further.

And I also have to say that as I entered into the next phase which is called ministry or work maturing, I think it took pressure off of me feeling like I had to achieve results because I was open and attentive to this really deep inner work in my life in my twenties that I'm so grateful for. And so in my thirties did come and oftentimes [00:07:00] the thirties open up doors of opportunities and your gifts are called upon.

You have more responsibilities. And I think now when I look back on that, I'm like, man, the energy that I had back then and the desire and the passion that I brought to my vocation in life is amazing. You know, I kind of stand, stand in awe of that now. But I think it's interesting too, 'cause in this, the, the thirties phase, the, the phase of ministry or work maturing, there's actually sub phases that Clinton names and I can see that that rang true in our lives.

Our early thirties were without kids. And then our latter thirties, we became parents. We relocated. And so that decade looked quite different from the beginning of the thirties to the end of the thirties, but again, filled with very lots of rich experiences and opportunities that come with that, that stage that Clinton describes that third stage.

Chris: Yes, absolutely. Ministry or word maturing. And I think whenever I think back on my thirties, it was definitely a lot of maturing. You know, I was, [00:08:00] I was being thrust into leadership. I was. Forming teams that went to different countries. I, there was a lot of maturing that happened and I was moving to different locations, starting new things, and, you know, a lot of it was, was good things that happened, but there were a lot of, there were a lot of things that there were a lot of failures in, in that thirties as well, that I actually, I don't think you could mature without failures. So I definitely relate to the thirties as being a maturing time.

So I really appreciate that context. I think. N Next is life maturing, which is, it roughly corresponds with our forties. This stage often invites midlife discernment and pruning. We have some work and life experience, and then we begin to evaluate what feels aligned and what does not.

And this phase, we might begin to say no to opportunities [00:09:00] you would've jumped at 10 years earlier. You know, we choose depth over overreach fewer people, deeper presence. And this is a time in life we may experience a loss health. Different role identity that clarifies what actually matters. And so feeling less interested in proving and more interested in integrity of who we are.

Tina: And I think it, it's interesting, you know, having walked through forties and then companioning others in their forties. I think a lot of times that's when people maybe get interested in spiritual direction and contemplative is maybe that late thirties, you know, forties kind of period. Not always. I will say though, too, again, while a lot of the decades do match what Clinton's saying.

Chris and I both had a surprise pregnancy, so we adopted our, our kiddos and became parents in our thirties. And then I was pregnant for the first time in my forties. And so it was interesting experiencing something in the decades of my [00:10:00] forties where one piece of my life was experiencing what you're describing of kinda that midlife discernment, pruning.

And at the other time it was like this brand new experience of being pregnant and giving birth and kind of starting all over again with child rearing. 'cause our other two were a little bit older at that time. And so. I think point being that these aren't like neat, like, oh, okay, I'm 39, turning 40 now it's time for the life maturing stage or whatever it is.

And that there's overlap and I think that we can go back into some of these different experiences as well. And so while I think it's helpful to have some of these descriptions that he's naming that quote unquote roughly correlate with these different decades, it's not always cut and dry and straight as well.

So I, I do wanna name that 'cause I think our forties definitely, I experience a ton of discernment and. Vocational changes at the end of my forties. Some new education that I pursued, but also kind of a revisiting of some other pieces of decades with, you know, parenting. So again, lots of different things happening at the same time.

Which then brings us to convergence, which is [00:11:00] stage five and roughly corresponds with our fifties and beyonds. And this is where things just kind of begin to click. Your gift mixes, your experiences. Your wisdom trials, all these things come together and align and they, they integrate. There's convergence and I think this is where a lot of times we stop comparing ourselves to others.

We feel comfortable in our own skin. Our work feels spacious. Maybe it's not as demanding, but there's a. Spaciousness. And often we've talked on this podcast about our zone of genius, where kind of our unique abilities meets what the world needs in, in some just really unique ways where we feel like, Ugh, such a time is this.

Like I was created to offer this in this way. And I think people begin to wanna connect with you for who you are and not necessarily for what you do because you've brought all these other experiences with you into the convergence stage. And so again, it's less flashy, if you will. It's often more grounded and looks simpler than the [00:12:00] earlier stages.

But I think there's a real beauty, and again, Chris and I are just on the precipice of this and so don't have as much experience, but have certainly seen and desire. I, I think I desire, and I, I hear people talk about that and that's something that we're kind of working towards in our own lives. 

Chris: Yeah, absolutely.

I love that word convergence and. I, I appreciate you naming that. We're just on the cusp of that. I think right now I'm looking at where, you know, what have I done in my life so far, and then what possibility does the future have and just the convergence of all the different things. So I, I love that word, and I think it, it, it really describes the hopes , for future in this next season of life.

Tina: I will say too that I think as we're getting into these latter phases this is where Clinton talks about a lot of leaders fizzle out and we begin to plateau or we hit crisis and we aren't willing to keep going and doing the inner work and those sorts of things. And that's why he says that a lot of leaders actually [00:13:00] don't finish well and don't make it to the sixth stage, which we'll talk about in a moment.

And I can see how that's reality like with our peers and even in our own lives because. We do have all these experiences and I think sometimes it's easy to wonder what was it all for? Did I waste time? Am I behind all sorts of different things that I think we have to wrestle with in these stages.

But I think when we can press through that and also have kind of a longer term view of our life versus I've gotta get through these next decades and retire, and then it's kind of this downward hill versus no. God still has some wonderful things for me to contribute in this world and to receive from this world.

And so I think that idea of plateauing and, and and leveling out feels really veal real in some of these latter stages.

Chris: Next is the sixth stage, which is called afterglow. And afterglow is the, this phrase could sum it up. I no longer need to be central. And I think some examples of that is, you know, [00:14:00] mentoring people without managing being a quiet presence in a community rather than a visible leader letting others do things differently than you would and blessing it finding joy in prayer.

Relationships and availability more than productivity. I think this is elderhood wisdom keeping spiritual grandparent energy. 

Tina: Yeah. And you know, Chris, you often talk about a, a poem that you love that talks about being around someone that has ease of presence. And this is what I think of for those that are after Glow.

And, and Clinton will say, very few people actually reach this stage. But that's sort of the, the, the hope is that more people would, as we're sort of learning and engaging with this. And I love this because again, people come to you not because of a title 'cause oftentimes we don't have that anymore.

Right. But because of your way of. Being, and to your point, it's, it's companionship. It's a quiet council. It's holding stories, it's holding [00:15:00] memories for the community. It's you know, often when people are entering into maybe empty nesting retirement years, these life transitions and. Our legacy isn't so much about institutional things, is what Clinton says, but it's about people that we've formed, different leaders that we've been able to bless and, and, and, and pour into wisdom that's passed along, faithfulness that's remembered.

And so I, I really appreciate this phase that he's naming. 'cause again, it's that quiet in the corner in the fabric, but. People that help with meaning making, I think is part of the afterglow situation. And you know, and again, we have podcast listeners from all over the place and we don't know all of you.

But I would imagine that, you know, as we're kind of talking through these different decades that it's like, oh yeah, I can relate to maybe I'm a young adult seeking clarity on my vocation. And you know, Chris naming that those. Twenties are, are, are a time of training and education and maybe seeking that out.

Maybe you find yourself in that midlife leaders sort of situation where it's like, [00:16:00] okay, I'm, I'm reevaluating, what can I prune? What can I let go? What do I not need anymore? Where does ego go into all of that? And maybe I have a, a shift happening that I can't quite name and I feel in between some of these phases and there's pieces of my life that are.

Kind of hanging out in this part and other pieces that are in another part. And so again, we just did a, a, a brief overview of the book. Obviously he goes into much more depth and different examples and lessons and whatnot. But I really have appreciated this book in my own life. And even thinking back through and, and watching others that have journeyed with us and it's like, oh yeah, there, there's some real wisdom here that we hope you've gained today as well.

Chris: Yes, absolutely. And , we appreciate being able to have this conversation and hope that you have enjoyed the wisdom from the making of a leader by Robert Clinton.

Now is the part of the podcast where we talk about what we are into. So what are you into Christina? 

Tina: I am into mocktails. [00:17:00] So we recently had a gathering at our house and I asked someone if she would be willing to bring some stuff over for a mocktail bar. Our 15-year-old like loves that idea and oh my gosh, this person came through.

She had multiple you know, she brought special glasses for it and all sorts of different juices. Seltzers and Izzy and cut up fruit. And we had a muddle out where we were muddling fruit and making fancy dipping the glasses and sugar rims and it was just so fun. So I am definitely into mocktails and looking forward to the next time we can have that at our house.

Chris: Yes, it was lovely. I am into outdoor fires. I've been reading a book and it's. A beautiful book talking about being in the wild and what nature has to teach us and one of the. Inspirations that I got from this book is doing outdoor fires and like speaking, speaking blessing into the fire [00:18:00] whenever you're doing that.

So it's, it's been a wonderful, reflective experience for me building a fire and then. Sort of engaging in a, in a contemplative prayer way. And the weather has really cooperated. We are in the north in Wisconsin and we've had a reprieve from winter for the most part. And so outdoor fires are. Are just lovely right now.

But I want to continue, even if the weather gets colder and there is elements involved, I I've been into outdoor fires and speaking blessing into the fire as I, as I sit outside and in, in nature. 

Tina: Very cool. And I think it's, it's liturgies of the wild is that the book. 

Chris: Yes. I've been listening , to podcast.

I haven't got to that part in the book, but I've been listening to podcasts about liturgies in the wild and some reflection on liturgy in the Wild. But yes, liturgy in the Wild is a, a book that I think promotes this [00:19:00] idea. 

Tina: Very cool. So we'll link all of this in the show notes. 

Chris: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

It was so good to be with you. Until next time, make it a great week.