Spiritual Leadership in a Fragile World

Kelly >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast. I’m Kelly Arabie. I’m your host today. And our guest is Debbie Swindoll. Debbie is a spiritual director, Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Journey Community Church in Allen, Texas, and the Executive Director of Grafted Life Ministries.

As founder of Grafted Life, Debbie envisioned and coauthored ten studies for spiritual growth. And she currently writes and speaks and consults on issues of relational theology and spiritual leadership.

Debbie’s training is with the Talbot School of Theology’s Institute for Spiritual Formation at Biola University. And we are thrilled to have her with us today. Welcome, Debbie.

Debbie >> Thanks, Kelly. When you said all of that, I’m like, “Boy, am I tired!”

Kelly >> Well, you know of what you speak. So and today’s podcast is on Spiritual Leadership in a Fragile World. And so, Deb, I know you have a lot of experience, decades with spiritual leadership.

Debbie >> Yeah. You know, some let me just start by saying, what is spiritual leadership? I think we’re very practiced and maybe mind full of being good leaders. You know, how do we get leadership training? How do we develop our skills as leaders? To be better prepared to lead other people-whether that’s we’re in the pastorate or where some other kind of leader maybe we’re just a small group leader. But we’re mindful of skills to make us better.

We purposed to talk about spiritual leadership today because I think that there’s a maybe an under emphasis on the spiritual a part of leading in the church. What I mean by that is a life that’s really grounded in their own relationship with God and is very aware of God in the world, in their own lives, in the life of the church, in the life of other people. And they’re moving in that space all the time.

So in some ways, the skills that we get as a leader we may practice as a leader are only there to serve the awarenesses we have of God in our life and in others lives and how they’re serving that awareness.

So there’s this spiritual world that exists and are we attuned to that? Are we aware of it and open to it and moving in it? And that’s kind of the spiritual part. That’s kind of the extra thing that I think is a part of spiritual leadership.

So that’s kind of the context we’re talking about. In this topic, which actually spiritual leadership in a fragile world that’s kind of almost the special sauce, right?

That helps us to actually navigate in a fragile world.

Kelly >> So what are the issues that you think in our culture make it a fragile world today?

Debbie >> Well, what isn’t there I would highlight to think is there’s a lot that contributes, I think, to our human fragility. But the first thing I’ll mention is isolation.

A lot of like neurobiological studies now are looking at the effect of isolation, even on the human brain and how much isolation and disconnection from community makes us very fragile. It makes us open to depression. It increases anxiety, it does a lot of things. And our brain function is actually diminished when those things happen.

So there’s like a fragility that comes and we see this isolation coming in many ways. I think our relational capacities are diminishing. Some of this is the technologies that we have now— this thing right here, you know, it’s through our phones.

Right. I was driving down my street yesterday. I was coming into the neighborhood and I saw a man and a boy walking together, and they were kind of conversing. And behind the man was a woman on her phone. And I think I want to say a girl. I think that’s maybe a girl beside her. And this is what we see all the time now.

Go to a restaurant. If people are sitting at a table together, and two or three or all of them are on their phone. And you experience that in your own house, I’m sure. I mean, Curt and I have been known to call each other from another room or text each other from another room rather than just getting up and walking and going.

We are—our time in face-to-face connections is much lower and getting more and more like that. And more technology is coming where we can converse with A.I. rather than real person. So there’s that, and that’s very isolating to us, snd that causes a lot of fragility. So that that’s one thing.

I think the other thing that highly influences our own fragility is the amount of conflict that we have and how we’ve escalated conflict in our society.

So the political polarization is one huge example of our inability to actually talk to one another and be present with one another when we disagree about something. And our inability to just dialog with one another, to let somebody else have another opinion, to accept complexity in our world makes us very fragile.

Like now, if there’s any little thing that is pressing me some opinion that I don’t agree with, I’ve got to retreat. I’ve got to fight back. I have to go in some kind of combative kind of mode, and that’s really operating out of a very fragile position.

So the isolation and then the just the nature of our very polarized and competitive society, I think both of those things contribute There’s other things, but I think those are big right now in our world that’s progressing our fragility.

Kelly >> I would agree. I think we’ve lost an ability to connect relationally. The longer we go, the less we have that capacity and that capacity is diminished for sure.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> So what does it look like to lead people spiritually in a context of isolation and relational disconnection?

Debbie >> I think that we need to, first of all, understand how important good relationships are to us. Like, good relationships are really the foundation of how we were formed as human beings. I think that this is what’s so fascinating, about the time we live in because we have all this neuroscience and interpersonal biological information now that we didn’t have 20, 25, 30 years ago was just beginning that field.

And good relationships, attached relationships, actually form our brains. They help our bodies to develop.

But bad relationships also cause us to be unhealthy like they, they can form our brains in very dysfunctional ways, but it’s also relationships that transform us. And relationships are kind of the bedrock of how we function as people. And this is why the Scriptural Record will say that, you know, we were meant to be in relationship with God and in relationship with others in a loving way. And this is the foundation of the entire law. This is the foundation of our life.

So we need to be mindful that if we’re going to become more resilient and stronger, we are going to need to develop our relationships. We’re going to need to work on our relationship with God and with other people.

And all that relational building starts with one concept, and it’s trust. There really isn’t good relationship healthy relationship, certainly not attached relationship without the foundation of trust.

So I think as leaders, we need to think about, first of all, what are the concepts that help us trust God? So what are the concepts that we need to be highlighting. God’s love for us. The fact that God knows us perfectly, the fact that we’re clothed in Christ. So no, we shouldn’t have any experience of shame because of this clothing and Christ.

We could come to God. We can talk about anything. He’s the most trustworthy place we’re ever going to find. So maybe highlighting and inviting people to work through some of these God image things I think is really foundational.

And then I think, how do we start creating relationship with one another that are more trusting and have like a foundation of trust? I’ve been thinking about this the last probably six months, maybe a year. And there’s like five things that I think are interesting to like highlight on this.

I think the first thing is how do we give people an experience of joy?

And by that, I mean because joy in a relational sense is when I experience that someone else is happy to be with me. So it’s this exchange of we’re happy to be together, whether I’m in a bad mood, whether I’m in a good mood, whether I’m sick, whatever, that person is happy to be with me. So how are we welcoming people in a space where we’re giving them an experience of joy?

That builds a lot of trust and attunement with us as human beings. I think of felt safety. In attachment theory, felt safety for babies is like a really good thing. How do we create felt safety? Like when they have a need, we show up. You know?

I think with us as adult humans like things like listening with empathy or sensitivity to people signals. Like if someone’s across the room from me and crying or sitting in a group with me and crying, I’m going to pay attention to the fact they’re crying. Like, I’m just not going to ignore that and give them a fix it thing. I’m going to be like, “Oh, I see that you’re hurting.” How can I be present with you? So sensitivity to the signals that people are giving.

Welcoming their voice, listening, giving them space to talk, to express and all of that.

And then providing that emotional tune that when they’re happy, I want to be happy with them. When they’re sad, I’m going to be sad with them. And I want to receive that from others in that place.

And then the experience of grace. I’m on your side. Mm. Yes. I wish that was more ubiquitous in the church, but it’s really not. It’s like sometimes it’s like. And again, we’re so almost habituated it in our society now. Like, you’ve got to choose sides.

But in the church, we’re always supposed to be on their side. Christ is always on our side. He’s always for us. So when we’re on somebody’s side, we’re. We’re not here to correct them. We’re here to connect them. So we’re not here to correct their behavior. We’re there to connect them with God. So we are their advocate, not their adversary.

And then a space to just hold people, just making room. How do we make room for people? Give them the space for things to get messy, and we’ll still be together with them watching for how God’s going to work that out.

And I think the last thing is just having faith that you may not get better or you may not be everything you want to be in the next 60 days.

And New Year’s is coming up. We’re all going to make those New Year Resolutions.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> And in 60 days we’re going to know we fail, you know.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> That’s going to be the tipping point.

We’re in the long game and we need to be able to hold faith for one another. And to know that we have a God as eternity to work all this out.

Can we stay with each other? Can we stay and say, “I trust God’s doing something and I’ll wait here with you while we figure that out.”

So that’s just some ways there’s other ideas, but that’s some ways that we can start to build trust. And when we have trust in relationships, it brings a whole lot of resilience to our life.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> And those relational connections are so important in a covenant community, in a small group environment, in a, you know, in a faith environment. I think many churches are lacking that today.

Debbie >> Yeah. Well even think about a leadership team.

Kelly >> Right?

Debbie >> Like, you know, what’s the fragility on the leadership team? Are they able to have open and honest communication with one another?

I mean, I think the pastor is possibly one of the most lonely places because there’s this pressure like, I can’t have problems. I can’t be messy. And where do I bring my stuff because people are expecting me to have all the answers?

And this is a little backlash of being in a leadership position. And yet we’re the same everybody but just the same. We have problems. Our family fall apart. We get sick. You know, we have weakness. We have the same limitations everybody else has. We need space and trusting relationship just to just let that stuff out.

Oh, yeah.

Kelly >> How has that worked for you personally?

Debbie >> Well, I’m an introvert, so I don’t need quite as many, but I have I have the core. I mean, I have to have the core. And for me, it’s it is a feeling of I have a sense of when I’m careful. To me, it comes out in that word. Like I said, I have to be careful. Like, I can’t be all of who I am today in this situation.

But I have to have places where I don’t have to be careful. Where careful isn’t on the table. And God’s provided those, but I have to be willing to lean into them and nurture them and give them time in my life because I need that.

I mean, I have a spiritual director, I’ve had therapists, I have very close friends that I fall apart with. And, I’m truly honest, even when I’m discouraged in my relationship with God, or some other close family relationship where, you know. So the real stuff, I have to take somewhere and I have to keep nurturing those relationships and making that really a spiritual discipline in my life.

Kelly >> You’re able to give to others and minister to others out of what you yourself have in your own capacity, attending to your own spiritual life, attending to your own journey, in your own relationships. Really, before I think you have any sort of capacity to lead others. You can’t lead others into a place you’re not able to go yourself.

Debbie >> Right. And what I found, especially in my own spiritual direction in ministry, if I’m not processing something, if I am not aware and dealing with what’s in my own life, I become fragile when other people are giving me their stuff. Like I have much more vulnerability to act out rather than to actually be able to be present.

Like, I’m going to get jerked around by my own issues I’m not dealing with.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Now, people as leaders really don’t want that to happen. And trust me, people that go to leaders really don’t want that to happen.

Kelly >> Well, and if you don’t attend to it, it’s going to come out. It’s just going to.

Debbie >> Come when you think, if I ignore it, it’ll go away. But it never goes away. Yeah, right.

Kelly >> That’s true. That’s true. So we’ve talked about a few things that create good relational connection. How do you think leaders create that space in small groups practically? You’ve mentioned the five things that are components of that. What does that look like in trying to create that in a small group environment or just in close relationships?

Debbie >> You know, I think that one of the things that we need to just come to grips with in reality is that it’s an incremental journey. It’s not like you’re going to go in with people that have never known each other before. They don’t have any history with one another. Or maybe in the church they have some history with one another and it’s not good.

So you’re going to have to start small like in our life with God curricula, Grafted Life. We just start with listening. First of all, we make a covenant with one another about and we kind of expose in that covenant process like, well, what’s gone wrong before when you’ve been together with other people. And what would it feel like or what would you imagine it is to have a safe community? And what would you want to be present?

That’s always a really nice way to kind of get the cards out on the table at the beginning of what you want, and what would serve you. And then you just start by simple things like really practicing listening to one another without fixing, without having responses. We’re so bad at listening, but most of the time our head is going with like how we want to respond rather than just being present and just hearing.

So we practice listening. And then you then you might add down the road when everybody’s feeling like they’re heard and they’ve been seen, maybe they’re known a little bit more and then, “Oh! Well, I can actually share something and I won’t get something back that causes me to feel shame or to feel like I’m not enough.” Whatever that thing is that will pull this isolate us back out of community.

Then maybe if you just you just start with some simple kinds of ways to respond and I always think, you know, the best response is when I thought I wonder what God would want to say. Like, I know what I want to say, but that might not be helpful at all.

Like, I just seem to take a pause and say, “I wonder what God might be doing here.” That’s beyond what I feel is the right thing for that person to do.

And so it’s incrementally over time practicing these kinds of relational skills with one another. That begins to just slowly open people up and help them risk a little bit that, “Oh, maybe there is something more. Maybe we can have better relationships with one.”

It’s practice. It’s a lot of practice. And it’s and honestly, it’s probably a lot of repair because we’re not going to do it well. But can we go back and say, Wow, I didn’t do that very well, or can we evaluate what we did and be able to hear, “Oh, that didn’t go over so well when I did that. I’m sorry, I’m going to take that in.”

I better be willing to change the way I relate to other people and hope that they’re willing to change the way they relate with me.

Kelly >> Yeah, this way of being with each other and safe community that you’re describing really feels foreign to a lot of people.

Why do you think it’s so difficult to be in relationship with others in small groups together? And the compulsion that we feel so often to fix, advise and rescue?

Debbie >> I think that this is a symptom of our fragility. Mhm. Like we’ve been hurt. So like I said, we were formed in relationship and we were formed by broken people. Now we, some of us have had very warm and loving and cared for experiences as a kid and growing up, and we get a leg up.

But it doesn’t make us perfect right. Somewhere along the line someone has betrayed us, someone has hurt us, someone’s gossiped about us, someone has shamed us, we’ve had experience is that we’re all bringing into the room. I always like to say we have tablets that are already written on. And so that’s the stuff we’re actually acting out of. And that creates those pockets of fragility that when we go into the room, we’re careful.

We’re careful that we’re wary. Well, what is going on? So I’m going to hold back. I’m not going to bring my whole self. I’m going to be self-protective, We see this in the garden as kind of the end of the creation story is that once the fall happens and relational brokenness enters, self-protection begins. Self-protection is now the mode, and self-protection will always keep us isolated.

So we’re afraid! That’s the bottom line to your question. We’re afraid. We’re just afraid. And we don’t want to be hurt again. We don’t want the vulnerability. Relational vulnerability is a very risky business.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> And, and so we, we hedge your bets as much as we can to make sure that we’re not hurt again. We don’t want to be disappointed. We don’t want to feel shame. We don’t want to feel exposure.

That thing that happened in the garden where Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. The road back to that you know! Because after the fall, they were naked and ashamed. And that’s what we live with most of the time. Whenever we’re vulnerable, we risk shame.

Kelly >> Right!

Debbie >> And shame is a very difficult thing to feel.

Kelly >> Yeah. So how do we move past that fear? What is the possibility of a healthy, small group experience in moving us beyond shame and fear?

Debbie >> God! I believe we can try. And, you know, we can go to therapy. We can get better at relational thing. We can work that all on our own. And there will be some success. But ultimately, in the church, we don’t have to do it alone. Like we have the ultimate opportunity to heal both central relationships in our life at the same time, heal our connection with God. And heal our connection with others and experience those things almost simultaneously.

One of the concepts that I learned from a gal named Lisa Miller, who wrote a book called The Spiritual Child, is she talks about a shared spiritual experience and how protective this is to us as human beings, how resilient it makes us. And I’m going to just give you my explanation of that.

In the body of Christ we are invited into a shared spiritual experience, which means I can be in relationship with you, Kelly, and we can be talking. And if we have in our moment of communication and awareness that it’s more than you and me, it’s also God. It’s also God present with us. We can listen for God together. We can look to God together. We can do the most obvious thing. We can pray together, we can talk to God together.

Now we have a shared spiritual experience. Now we are not dependent on just our ability as human beings, broken as we are, and fragile in our places to come together we are held in an encounter with God who brings the foundation for our relationship. When this grows, then true resilience has a chance to blossom.

And now it’s like, it’s okay if I don’t have the answer. As a spiritual director, I often have someone go, “And this is my problem,” and I’m like, “I got nothing for you. I don’t know the way out of your problem, I have no advice. I’m not blessed. Be advised anyway. But you know, I have no advice for you. Like I have nothing. But I know God. And I am willing to travel with you while we look for God together and see what God’s going to do.”

And now we have a very secure thing we’re doing because we’re connected now with the God who knows everything and has a plan and is the Good Shepherd. And all of those things loves us so much and is inviting us to the more now we travel that road together, not just fixing each other or gaining or depending on our own wisdom as human beings, even though we have that and at times it’s very good.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> But now we have this ability to be present with God and one another. When you get that place in a relationship, when you get to that place in a small group, when you get to that place on a leadership team, now you have something really special.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> You have something incredibly spiritual that brings a whole new level. It levels you up significantly.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> But again, that takes practice. How are we going to be with a person and with God? How are we going to grow our awareness that big? Yeah, and so but again, it’s incremental. It’s just a journey. We just keep moving toward it. We keep the mess up and we go back and we say, “Okay,” maybe it’s after the meeting and we say, “I wonder where God was in that?”

And then after a while in the meeting we ask, “I wonder where God is in this?” You know? So it’s just we continue to grow and massage this thing with one another and inviting our awareness of God in it with us.

Kelly >> Yeah. This is a really different way of being in relationship with each other, with God and that shared spiritual experience. I think is what we’re all longing for when we come to a small group experience, a Bible study. Even at church we’re longing for that shared spiritual experience and it’s wounding when we maybe bring our authentic selves and we don’t find love, or we don’t find safety, or we don’t find trust.

I think that’s why a lot of people move away from faith communities because they haven’t found that. But it’s worth it. It sounds like you’ve had some experiences that have been very positive and the research is there for moving towards one another in these, in these places.

Debbie >> Yeah, I mean, it is transformational. I mean, the first time I really experienced it was when I was in seminary. And we had a cohort model and this was practiced we were taught how to actually be together in this way. And I had never experienced. I was in my forties, I’d never experienced anything like that before. And I thought, Where’s this been all my life?

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> But hopefully you don’t have to go to seminary to have that. You don’t have to go out somewhere that we can learn to do this in the local church where we are.

But we might need a little training. We might need someone to hold that in some experiences to help us to learn these kinds of skills, not only better relating with one another, but better relating with others and God at the same time. Right?

Kelly >> Yeah. And that really was your vision how many years ago when you felt like God gave you really the vision for the curriculum that you created, the studies that you created?

Debbie >> Yeah. And it really was because we’d had this—I was with a bunch of colleagues who had been in the program at Talbot with me, and we’d had this incredibly life-changing experience.

When I say life changing, there were comments at the end of the program like, “You don’t look the same, like your face looks different.”

Like, I mean, it was like the first time I was there, I thought, Oh yeah, they do. They look softer. Like some of the hard edges in their countenance have kind of been like softened and rounded out. And it was incredible. Like, they literally changed like the Scripture says, “You’re a new creature.” They start becoming like new creatures. Right?

But we hadn’t had that experience in our local church. And we’re like, how do we get that? Like, how do we do something that’ll help people experience real life change in their local church?

So, yeah, so we wrote a journey that would hold people in a similar way that we’d been held in our seminary program. And help them to have the time to look at Scripture and what it says about relationship, to practice being in deeper relationship with God, to know themselves better and, to then practice in community how they could share, how they could listen, how they could learn over time to notice God in their midst and to lean more into that than just their own ability to fix or advise or rescue another person right? Yeah.

Kelly >> And what did you see? What have you seen happen with that?

Debbie >> The same kind of thing that happened to me in seminary. That’s what’s so amazing to me. And it’s not it’s not that the curricula is like the secret sauce. I mean, this is the thing that always it’s so great for me.

It’s not like, hey, every question is exactly perfect. It’s more like, no, the questions just provide space for you and God to have a conversation. And the group time provides kids space for you and others to have conversation, to practice the relational dynamics, to understand what’s holding you back from being in relationship with others, to explore some of your own vulnerabilities to and to and over time for attachment to grow, for you to feel like, oh my goodness.

I heard someone say recently like, they got into a Life with God group and they’ve been in it for a while, and then they went back to their old group and it was like shocking to them because it didn’t feel safe at all. Like the way they were doing community in this other kind group that they had been in was like a it’s a very pronounced difference.

And that’s where we want people to get a taste. We want people to get—you said earlier, like, you know, how do you get people to do this?

You know, they need a taste of it so they can go, “Oh, wow! There was more here. Like, wow!” It’s like the light bulb goes on. Like, “This is different, and I like it and I’m getting stronger. I feel less fragile because I have people and a relationship with God in my life is giving me a much firmer foundation for just living my regular life with my regular problems. I’m not isolated and alone. I have community that is beside me.”

Kelly >> Yeah. And creating that takes a little bit of time.

Debbie >> It takes a lifetime.

Kelly >> It’s incremental. Like you said, you start in.

Debbie >> One plateau, but we’re all still we’re all still doing it. We’re deepening, and we’re finding new places in our own hearts that want to pull us out, you know? So there’s always new terrain to explore over time. About what is the what’s the trigger that pulls me out of that, that that yanked me back to one as self protect and not just enter in and be present and known and seen.

Kelly >> Yeah. Yeah. So I have I guess one final question. We’re talking about spiritual leadership in a fragile world. What is it like to be a spiritual leader in a covenant community like that? How has that been different? If I’m a leader in my church and I’m willing to go into this small group and I want to I want to offer this small group experience to others, and yet I’m participating in that small group experience as well myself.

What is that experience there?

Debbie >> Yeah. And I’m going to lean a little bit into what it felt like to be a spiritual director, too, because there’s a lot of similarities when you go into relationship with other people. I think in the past, because I led a lot of Bible studies earlier in my life, and the mantle of leader sits a little heavy sometimes.

What if I get this wrong, you know what if I tell them the wrong thing or whatever? I would say that for me, spiritual direction and being a Life with God leader is free. It’s lighter. It’s not a burden because it’s not up to you as the leader. You’re just try to like hold the space for people, to be mindful of what the covenant is, and remind people and bring them back and say, look, “This is how we want to be together. Let’s stay here together.”

But the weight of what is happening is on God.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> And so you don’t have to have all the answers. You have to just be willing to stay in, sometimes the waiting place with other people.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> And to say, I’m here with you to practice joy. I’m happy to be with you even when we don’t have the answers today, or even when you continue to wrestle with this issue with God. So it’s more like staying power than it is like some great wisdom or something you’re supposed to have as a leader.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> Can I say consistent? Can I stay present? Can I stay? And see, but what’s incredible about it is it’s so humbling because God does more well. Some of the stories are so amazing. And you get to witness it, to be a witness to what God is doing is should be the joy of every leader.

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> Because it is unspeakable joy like it is. I’m going to have to weep kind of joy because what God just did, I could have never done. But God just put together all the things he wove together. And that person just put it all together and they just shared their story and you’re like, unbelievable.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> It’s an incredible journey to watch that happen in other people’s lives.

Kelly >> Well, how do people find your studies?

Debbie >> They can go on a website, GraftedLife.org, and there’s a there’s a Grafted Life studies area. They can explore them. They can certainly reach out to us. And we’re happy to talk with them about it and introduce them, answer their questions. So we really invite you to contact us. And, you know, we have a lot of people that they could actually talk to that have done and get some firsthand testimonies and yeah.

Kelly >> That sounds great. And we have information for you here on the podcast at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and we have information about the Life with God Journey as well. So thank you for being with us today, Debbie. It’s been great to talk and I look forward to next time.

Debbie >> Great. Thanks so much.