Alan Fadling's Blog, page 9

Four Stages of Prayer: Where Are You on the Journey?

Blog by Gem Fadling

“A beginner must think of herself as one setting out to make a garden in which her Beloved Lord is to take his delight.” (St. Teresa of Avila) 

 

St. Teresa of Avila was a spirited and insightful sixteenth-century Carmelite nun. She loved using everyday imagery to explain the deep mysteries of the soul. I (Gem) like to imagine her walking beside me in a garden, her voice warm and encouraging as she shares her wisdom: Your soul is a garden lovingly tended for the delight of God. 

 

Over the course of her life, Teresa began to experience the richness of prayer more fully. Out of her experience, she wrote about a soul’s growth using a rich and practical metaphor: the Four Waters. 

 

These four ways of watering your soul are not merely stages of prayer but invitations to journey with God. Wherever you find yourself, God is tending to you with love.

 

Let’s explore these waters and see where God might meet us today. 

 

Drawing Water from the Well: When Prayer Feels Like Work 

 Teresa describes the first stage of prayer as drawing water from a well. Imagine the effort of lowering a bucket, pulling it up brimming, and then carrying its heavy weight to your garden. This is the season when prayer feels like work.

 

This first stage is labor-intensive, as it represents our initial efforts in prayer and learning to detach from distractions. We are reminded of the necessity of perseverance. Our efforts are more a cooperation than a cause, and we are transformed as we rely on God’s grace.

 

You might be forming the habit of daily prayer, learning to quiet your mind, or wrestling with distractions. This can feel like work, but try not to get discouraged. Your efforts here are watering the seeds God has planted in your soul. 

 

In this stage, the focus is on showing up. God is with you as you are praying through scripture, journaling, or simply sitting in silence.

 

Turning the Water Wheel: When Prayer Becomes a Joy 

 The second stage is like using a water wheel to draw water, and it may feel like a little less work. As the wheel turns, dippers scoop the water and pour it into a trough, gradually irrigating the garden. 

 

This is when prayer starts to flow more naturally. It may still take intention, but you’re beginning to enjoy the process. You might feel a growing sense of God’s presence or find it easier to focus your heart and mind. Prayer becomes quieter and you aren’t grasping for goodies so much in prayer.

 

In this stage, prayer becomes a source of refreshment. You may notice your garden is greener and your soul more alive. Teresa describes this as a time when the soul begins to collect itself, leaning into God with greater trust. 

 

A Flowing Stream: When Prayer Flows Freely

 In the third stage, the garden is watered by a steady stream. You don’t need to labor at all. The stream flows and you merely dip in to refresh yourself. 

 

This stage reflects a deepening intimacy with God. Prayer becomes less about what you say or do and more about resting in God’s presence. You may notice God’s grace flowing through your day, refreshing you in unexpected ways. 

 

And as refreshing as it is that you are no longer carrying your own water, this stage might still involve difficulties, inviting you to unite yourself even deeper with Jesus. It’s good to stand firmly in trust as your soul and spirit are strengthened in surrender.

 

It’s in this season that we begin to trust God more fully with the areas of our lives that need care. Like a gardener walking along the stream, you simply dip in when needed, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide your attention to the dry or weary places. 

 

Receiving the Rain: When Prayer Becomes Pure Gift

 Finally, we come to the rain. Like a Tuscan vineyard that is dry farmed, this is the stage where the garden receives water directly from the skies. No effort from the gardener is required.

 

St. Teresa calls this the Prayer of Union, a moment when God’s love overwhelms your soul. St. Ignatius of Loyola might call this “consolation without cause.” Grace rushes toward us without warning, warming and delighting the soul.

 

This stage reminds us that ultimately our souls belong to God. Just as a farmer who plants and tends a wheat field relies on God’s creative process to grow the wheat, so we tend our garden of prayer but God makes it flourish. Rain refreshes, renews, and brings forth beauty we can’t create on our own. 

 

This final stage, where the soul rests in God’s presence through no effort of its own, is pure grace. Such contemplative union is typically brief but quite transformative. Being embraced by divine love is its essence.

 

Wherever You Are, God Is with You 

 St. Teresa’s Four Waters demonstrates that prayer isn’t about perfection—it’s about relationship. Some days you may feel like you’re hauling water from the well, exhausted by the effort. Other days you might sense the gentle flow of the stream or find yourself surprised by a sweet rain. 

 

Wherever you are, know this: God is tending your soul with great care. He delights in every moment you spend with him, whether it’s in struggle, joy, surrender, or awe. 

 

So press on. Keep tending your garden. God is the Master Gardener, and he is faithful to bring your soul into full bloom. 

 

For Reflection: 

Which stage of the Four Waters best describes your current experience of prayer?
How might you open yourself more fully to God’s work in your soul, no matter your stage?
What small practice can you begin today to tend the garden of your soul with greater care?

UL #331: How to Achieve Great Productivity (Steven Lawson)

 

In this episode, Alan talks with Steven Lawson, creator of the Monk Manual, a daily planner inspired by monastic wisdom. Together, they explore how we can live with more purpose, productivity, and presence, moving beyond the chaos of busyness to truly engage each moment.

Steven shares how we can align our daily actions with our values, creating a life that is more intentional and deeply fulfilling. Rather than rushing through our days, he emphasizes that slowing down can lead to deeper productivity and stronger, more meaningful connections. Steven also offers practical strategies, like the Monk Manual and his PAR method (Prepare, Act, Reflect), that can help us live with greater clarity and presence, even in a fast-paced world.

 

What you’ll learn in this episode:

The difference between busyness and productivity and how to focus on what truly matters.
The importance of living intentionally and deeply, rather than just rushing through life.
Practical tools, including the Monk Manual and the PAR method (Prepare, Act, Reflect), to cultivate presence and find balance in a fast-paced world.

Knowing God: The Transformative Power of Contemplation

Blog by Alan Fadling

Two weeks ago, I talked about how there often comes a point in our journey with God when his invitation is more to unlearn than to learn. This is because growing to know God better is more than thinking abstract truths about God. It is more than feeling God’s presence in some meaningful way. These are good, but they are not everything.

 

In his book New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton says that “contemplation…is an awakening, enlightenment and the amazing intuitive grasp by which love gains certitude of God's creative and dynamic intervention in our daily life.”* I had to read that sentence a few times before it began to sink in.

 

Contemplation is a way of talking about relationship with God and is more than accurate theologizing about God. It is what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 3:18 when he says, “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” Contemplation is focused on God’s beauty and God’s presence. It is a loving knowing that transforms us.

 

There is such grace in deepening our interactive knowledge of God. It is more like seeing God than thinking about God. We sense the work of God’s Spirit deep within us, waking us up and shining his light in and through our lives.

 

In New Seeds, Merton continues to share his insights in a second chapter appropriately titled “What Contemplation Is Not.” He says that “nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ This is the declaration of an alienated being, in exile from his own spiritual depths, compelled to seek some comfort in a proof for his own existence (!) based on the observation that he ‘thinks.’”†

 

This remarkably insightful response from a Christian perspective to Descartes’ big and philosophically impactful idea was just what I needed at that time in my spiritual life. Because of this basic philosophy, much of Western knowledge has become very rationalistic, cerebral, and thinking-focused. We assume that thinking is the proof of and justification for our existence apart from God creating us in his image.

 

Another passage that spoke to me in Merton’s New Seeds was this: “Contemplation is no pain-killer. What a holocaust takes place in this steady burning to ashes of old worn-out words, clichés, slogans, rationalizations! The worst of it is that even apparently holy conceptions are consumed along with all the rest. It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply ‘is.’”‡

 

Abiding in God’s presence will, by its nature, involve a steady dying process in us, even as we experience God’s life at our innermost places. Dying never feels comfortable, and unlearning is a kind of dying to ideas of God we’re attached to but that no longer serve us well. It sometimes involves sharp pain, and at other times long, drawn-out aches and weariness.

 

The hardest of all is the dying and death of dearly held “spiritual” ideas and practices. What I believe of God is refined in the presence of God. There is a way in which the presence of God starves that which is unreal in me. This is agonizing because so much of these things have felt like the “real me,” when in fact they are a mere shell of my true identity. I am more than my roles, more than my current convictions, more than my ideas about myself.

 

The real me is created in God through Christ. The contemplative journey is about becoming who God has actually made us and unlearning all that this world has distorted in our identity formation. Contemplation destroys the idols that remain, making the temple of my inner life a place of simpler worship and adoration.

 

Consider your own journey of knowing and unknowing, of learning and unlearning. (Much of the talk about deconstruction is, I believe, another way of talking about these necessary losses.) Contemplation is not a quick fix or a comforting spiritual exercise; it’s a continual process of letting go of the clutter of ideas, expectations, and assumptions that obscure our view of God.

 

It’s about embracing the mystery and grace of being fully seen and known by the One who created us in Christ. We can learn to release our grip on the familiar but false notions of ourselves, allowing God to reshape us in the light of his presence. And even in the pain of letting go we can experience the deep joy of being transformed by his love.

 

For Reflection:

What familiar but false notions about God or yourself might God be inviting you to let go of?
How might focusing on God’s presence rather than your ideas about him transform your relationship with him?
What would it look like to embrace the mystery of God rather than striving to comprehend God fully?

 

(Purchases made via the links may provide an Amazon Affiliate commission fee to Unhurried Living. This adds nothing to the cost of your purchase).

 

*Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions, 1961), 5.

†Merton, New Seeds, 8.

‡Merton, New Seeds, 13.

 

UL #330: How Following Jesus Transforms the Way You Lead Others (Mandy Smith)

 

"We do Kingdom things in Empire ways. What might it mean to do Kingdom things in Kingdom ways?"

Mandy Smith poses this powerful question, inviting us to reimagine Christian leadership—not as coercion or burnout, but as a life deeply rooted in the ways of Jesus. In this episode, we explore why so many Christian leaders are exhausted, losing faith, or misusing power, and how confessing our limitations might be the key to rediscovering the true heart of ministry.

Mandy, a pastor and author, doesn’t offer quick-fix strategies. Instead, she calls us back to the simplicity of followership, integrity, and sharing our lives with God in ways that bless the world. Together, we unpack the pressures of modern church culture, the hidden desires that overwhelm leaders, and how we can make space for God amid ministry demands.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How cultural tendencies like efficiency and control are shaping (and distorting) church leadership.
Why embracing our limits can lead to deeper faith, healthier leadership, and renewed joy.
Practical ways to make space for God and soul care in the midst of ministry demands.

Join us for a conversation that will renew your vision, refresh your soul, and remind you of the invitation at the center of it all.

________________________

Mandy Smith is a pastor, author and speaker who, after living and ministering in the US and UK, now ministers in her homeland of Australia. She is a cohort co-leader for the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination and regular contributor to Missio Alliance.

Her books include:

The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry (IVP)
Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith Beyond the Baggage of Western Culture
Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God.

Mandy and her husband, a New Testament professor, live in the parsonage at St Lucia Uniting Church where the teapot is always warm.

Living the Fruit of the Spirit: How to Cultivate Joy, Peace, and Love

Blog by Gem Fadling

A new discovery was recently made in the ancient city of Petra, Jordan. Beneath the Khaznah, or Treasury, archaeologists found an undisturbed chamber with at least twelve skeletons and items made from iron, bronze, and ceramic. This unearthing provides insight into the Nabataean kingdom, which dates back from the fourth century BC to AD 106. What an astounding discovery!

 

This news reminded me of the time we visited Petra many years ago. As we climbed the hill behind the Treasury, we came across a group of Bedouins.

 

We couldn’t speak their language or communicate with them, but I (Gem) do remember their spirit. There was a kind of joy bubbling up from within them. I remember well the way their voices lilted and how they laughed as they spoke. They were quite social and engaging even though we didn’t share a language. They were delightful.

 

At another nearby location, we met a shop owner named Abu Ali, who offered us some sweet tea. He had the same effervescent vibe and hospitable nature.

 

Back on our own continent and quite a few years later, we interviewed Father Albert Haase for our podcast. Although Father Albert is American, he evoked a similar joyful presence. He reminded me of the lively nature of the Bedouins, and it caused me to think about the way we experience people.

 

Maya Angelou famously said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That was certainly true for the Bedouins as well as Father Albert. I can still recall their buoyant, joyful presence.

 

So today I’d like to circle around this idea of vibe. Whether you have a bubbly or dry nature, whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, whether you are technically or artfully minded, we are all putting out a vibe. When people walk away from you, what feeling will they have experienced?

 

Of course, you are not responsible for how others receive or perceive you. And I’m not talking about putting on a persona as if you could manage this perception. On the contrary, I’m talking about the spirit, life, and way we express ourselves in the world.

 

How do people experience your presence? What is your way?

 

All of this pondering led me to the fruit of the Spirit. At our best, people would experience the nature of the Spirit when they encounter us. No matter our personality type or bent, we have access to the fruit of the Spirit within.

 

This might be stretching it a bit, but we could ask, “What is the vibe of the Holy Spirit?” and follow that up by asking, “How might I exude this vibe?”

 

Since the fruit of the Spirit is a fruit, it is not possible to manufacture or force. It is possible to make space within ourselves for God to express himself in and through us.

 

Communion with God is how we experience the Holy Spirit’s vibe. We learn to trust that the one in whom we live and move and have our being can transform us and our way of being in the world. God is more hospitable than Abu Ali and even more delightful than Father Albert (and I’m sure Father Albert would agree with me).

 

Are you enjoying God as loving, joyful, peaceful, kind, and gentle? If not, it might be good to discern what is blocking you from receiving God as such.

 

Isaiah 30:18 says, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.”

 

This is what God is like.

 

We can also find the ways of God in the person of Jesus. Jesus was present to all who came to him. He listened. He invited. He instructed. He mentored.

 

Jesus might have been busy, but he was never hurried. He always moved in God’s timing, and he shared and acted in ways that were informed by his interactions with the Father.

 

Jesus’ vibe was so engaging that even little children loved to be with him. Broken people and those who missed the mark found love and healing in his presence. And this same vibe is ours as well.

 

Colossians 2:9-10 says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.”

 

How might the reality of this fullness affect your vibe?

 

Again, you don’t have to micromanage your behavior or change your personality, but it might be good to take notice of how people feel around you. Are they receiving the best of what the Spirit has to offer when they experience you?

 

In this often noisy and contemptuous culture, it is good to be an intentional person of peace, joy, and love. I pray the idea of vibe will grant you another way of thinking about your influence.

 

For Reflection: 

What aspect of the Holy Spirit do you experience most readily? How might a more regular awareness of this influence the way you move through your daily life and interactions?
In what ways do you feel Jesus inviting you to experience and share God’s compassion? How might you create space for this compassion, letting it flow from you as a natural expression of God’s love?
In what ways might you create more space for the Holy Spirit to move in and through you? Rather than striving, what does it look like for you to rest in God’s presence, allowing fruit to emerge?

UL #329: The Christian Life Simplified

 

What is the Christian life really about? Is it prayer, church involvement, ministry, justice, or evangelism? These are all meaningful aspects, but is there something deeper at the heart of it all? In this episode, I reflect on a question my mentor, Chuck Miller, often asked: “What is the Christian life?” His answer offers a profound simplicity—one that shifts our focus from what we do to who we are with. Together, we’ll explore how Jesus as our Good Shepherd transforms our faith from a list of tasks into an ongoing, intimate relationship.

If you’ve ever felt like the Christian life is overwhelming, like a growing list of commitments, this conversation is for you. We’ll look at Jesus’ words in John 10, where he calls his sheep by name and leads them out—not just in the past, but in the present moment. You are not alone in this journey of faith. Jesus invites you into his life, guiding you, speaking to you, and walking with you every step of the way.

 

In this episode, we discuss:

How shifting our focus from “what” to “who” can transform our faith.
The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd and why it still matters today.
Practical ways to listen for and recognize the voice of Jesus in daily life.

Knowing by Unknowing: The Grace of Holy Subtraction

Blog by Alan Fadling

I love books. I don’t imagine that surprises you. I’m writing this little article in my home office, where most of the wall space is taken up with a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. I’ve enjoyed reading for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I used to hang out for hours at our local library in Carmichael, California. My parents put books in my stocking in hopes that I’d read instead of pestering them too early on Christmas morning.

 

As a young pastor in the fall of 1994, I remember one of many bookstore visits. It was a Barnes & Noble in Pasadena, California, and I was browsing the faith section. There I saw a book by an author I’d heard of but never read. That author was Thomas Merton and the title was New Seeds of Contemplation. I’ve enjoyed reading portions of it many times since.

 

I’d been on a fresh spiritual formation journey for a few years by then, and Merton’s book felt like a divine appointment. For a long time, my way of engaging a meaningful book that meets me at just the right time has been to capture quotations from it and reflect on them in my journal. I’m drawing today’s article from a journal passage from that first reading of New Seeds over thirty years ago.

 

In his first chapter Merton posed a question I had found myself asking at the time: “What is contemplation?” There weren’t many among my fellow college pastors who were using that sort of language when talking about their spiritual lives, but I was finding it increasingly inviting in my own life with God. (I had been labeled a mystic in my previous college pastor role, and it wasn’t meant as an affirmation.)

 

One of Merton’s insights that spoke to me then was that “in contemplation...we know by ‘unknowing.’”* Up until then, my experience of growing in Christian knowledge had mostly involved learning more and more about God and God’s ways and God’s counsel. But I was coming to a place in which God was inviting me to unlearn a few things. I would grow by subtraction rather than addition.

 

I had some less than helpful assumptions about who God was and what God expected. I had some expectations about the nature of my ministry that weren’t serving me well. And I had some perspectives about myself that were doing more harm than good.

 

These ideas and perspectives that I needed to unlearn about God and myself weren’t nurturing my soul. I held expectations about my ministry that were subtly wearing me down rather than enabling me to live and serve sustainably. And the views I held about myself, though familiar, weren’t reflecting the truth of who I am in God’s eyes. These were the things God was inviting me to unlearn.

 

I had been reading other spiritual writers at the time who were speaking to the same places in my soul. It wasn’t so much that I needed to unlearn one set of ideas and replace them with another more accurate set of ideas. It was that I needed to unlearn my habit of settling for knowing about God rather than knowing God relationally in love.

 

God wasn’t inviting me to be an expert in God ideas. He was inviting me to grow deeper in communion.

 

God invites us into the knowledge of experiencing him rather than just knowing and reading about him. It is a knowing that encompasses not only my God-given mind but also my God-given heart, soul, and strength.

 

My experience of God through Jesus Christ that was growing in me at that time seemed to be increasingly hard to describe. There was an element of mystery in my experience of Christ in me. Knowing Christ more deeply was about more than just fine-tuning my doctrines, my devotions, or my theology. These had been important and valuable to me up until then. I was being invited into an encounter with God in Christ, experiencing his presence in me by his Holy Spirit. I was being drawn to gaze on him as David describes in Psalm 27:4:

 

One thing I ask from the Lord,

this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord

and to seek him in his temple.

 

Seeking. Dwelling. Gazing. These are a little different from talking about, thinking about, believing about. And it is this contemplative vision that has refined my knowledge of God, grown wisdom in me, and deepened my confidence in God. It has been the engine of necessary and holy unlearning for me.

 

For Reflection:

What might God be inviting you to unlearn about him, yourself, or your life today?
How might your spiritual life deepen if you focused less on knowing about God and more on encountering and experiencing God?
What does it look like for you to seek, dwell, and gaze on the beauty of the Lord in this season of your life?

 

(Purchases made via the links may provide an Amazon Affiliate commission fee to Unhurried Living. This adds nothing to the cost of your purchase).

 

*Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions Books, 1961), 1-2.

UL #328: Finding God’s Presence in Grief and Loss

 

Have you ever found yourself in a dark, overwhelming season, wondering if God could hear you? We explore the healing power of lament as a way to express grief, open to God’s presence, and find rest for your soul. Lament isn't about having all the answers; it’s about allowing space for God to meet you where you are.

What to Expect as you Listen:

How lament can deepen your connection with God during times of grief.
Practical steps to process loss through honesty, community, and restorative practices.
Reflection questions to help you engage with lament in your own life and leadership.

 

Recommended Resources:

Psalm 116 Scripture Reference

Resources from Unhurried Living - Explore more resources on spiritual practices and personal growth at Unhurried Living: Unhurried Living Resources

Prophetic Lament by Soong Chan Rah

From Worn Out to Refreshed: How to Escape the Weight of Hurry

Blog by Matt Fogle, Unhurried Living Associate

Have you ever woken up with a strange question on your mind? Just recently, I (Matt) woke up at two in the morning wondering, “Why did ancient Near Eastern fishermen have to dry out their nets?”

 

Perhaps you’re chuckling at that like I did. I tried going back to sleep, only to wake up again a half hour later with that same question on my mind.

 

For the record, I had never thought about this before. I had never heard anyone teach on it. I didn’t even know if fishermen actually did need to dry out their nets. But it turns out they do. So, I decided to ask perplexity.ai, which informed me of the following consequences if fishermen left their nets in the water all the time:

 

The nets would grow bacteria that would carry diseases.
The fibers that the nets were made from would start to fray and break.
The nets would become unbearably heavy.

 

As I spent time praying through all this, I was drawn back to Matthew 11:28-30 and Jesus’s invitation to rest:

 

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (The Message)

 

Like me, are you in a season where you could use a real rest?

 

When I had that thought during the night and then prayed the next morning, it was obvious that the Spirit was grabbing my attention.  I need to dry out my nets.

 

If we don’t learn to dry our nets, our lack of rest will affect those around us. Hurry sickness is contagious. If we’re doing the work of God anxiously, our anxiety will spread to the people we’re serving. 

 

If we don’t learn to dry out our nets, our lives will become frayed and we will burn out. We all have limits. We need sleep. We must have margin. And this won’t happen without fierce intentionality and accountability.

 

If we don’t learn to dry out our nets, our souls will become waterlogged and all our work will be heavy. The joy and wonder of being co-laborers with God will be lost.

 

Take a few minutes and prayerfully journal through this one question:

 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, what does it look like to get my nets out of the water in this season?

 

Remember, just as ancient fishermen knew the importance of drying their nets to prevent disease, maintain their equipment, and lighten their load, we too need to regularly “dry out.” This isn’t just about personal refreshment; it’s about being better equipped to serve others and live out our calling. To bear fruit that lasts we must learn to rest.

 

As leaders, we have the opportunity to model this “real rest” for others. By creating a culture that values rest and renewal, we can help those around us experience the “unforced rhythms of grace” that Jesus promises.

 

So today I encourage you to get your net out of the water. Find your drying spots. Allow Jesus to show you what real rest looks like. It’s in this place of rest that we often find ourselves most ready for the work God has for us.

UL #327: How to Recognize God's Voice (Tyler Staton)

 

Who is the Holy Spirit to you—an intimate friend or a mysterious stranger? In this episode, Alan Fadling speaks with Tyler Staton, lead pastor of Bridgetown Church and author of The Familiar Stranger, about rediscovering the Holy Spirit and stepping into a more experiential, Spirit-led life. Tyler shares practical insights and biblical metaphors that invite us into deeper intimacy with the Spirit and a greater awareness of His presence and power.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

How the Holy Spirit is like a tabernacle, a river, and living water.
The dangers of over-intellectualizing or misusing the Spirit, with lessons from Nicodemus and Simon the Sorcerer.
The power of discernment as a gift of recognizing God’s voice amid the noise.
A practical, grounded approach to prophecy and speaking on behalf of God.

 

💡 Guest Bio: Tyler Staton is the lead pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, and a passionate advocate for prayer and honest spiritual exploration. He’s the author of The Familiar Stranger as well as Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools and Searching for Enough. Tyler lives with his wife, Kirsten, and their three sons, Hank, Simon, and Amos.

Tune in to explore how growing in intimacy with the Spirit can transform your faith and life.

 

Resources:

The Familiar Stranger by Tyler Staton
Tyler Staton website