Quotes from Ruth Haley Barton

The truth is that spiritual transformation takes place as we embrace the challenges and opportunities associated with each season of our life.

The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. HENRI NOUWEN, THE WOUNDED HEALER

When it comes to transformation or deformation, organizational cultures are rarely neutral. For the most part cultural norms will support and catalyze or work against the process of spiritual transformation. Cultivating a culture

At times the strength of spiritual community lies in the love of people who refrain from getting caught in the trap of trying to fix everything for us, who pray for us and allow us the pain of our wilderness, our wants, so that we may be more deeply grounded in God. ROSEMARY DOUGHERTY

Mi corazón no es orgulloso, ni son altivos mis ojos; no busco grandezas desmedidas, ni proezas que excedan a mis fuerzas.

waiting on God to move or to shift something inside me while at the same time still needing to lead in the public arena.

There are times when a leader's deepest longing is to hear a word from the Lord. Beyond the muddle of all of our thoughts and ideas and brainstorming sessions, we long for an encounter with God that will penetrate all of that and bring some clarity to our situation.

Mi corazón no es orgulloso, ni son altivos mis ojos; no busco grandezas desmedidas, ni proezas que excedan a mis fuerzas. SALMO 131:1

The practice of "turning aside to look" is a spiritual discipline that by its very nature sets us up for an encounter with God.

spiritual transformation is central to the message of the gospel and therefore central to the mission of the church.

Hasta qué punto necesitan nuestras mentes aprender a descansar de la forma en que lo describe el salmista!

None of us exists in this world apart from being one gender or another, and in fact our existence as male and female is one of the most complete ways God has revealed the diverse aspects of his own being.

At some point in our Christian life, many of us realize no one ever told us how to deal with our wounds that are still there—buried deeper than ever—but still there.

El silencio nos ayuda a bucear por debajo de la superficialidad de nuestras construcciones mentales hasta el lugar de nuestro corazón, que resulta más profundo en cuanto a su realidad, que cualquier cosa que la mente pueda captar o expresar en palabras.

Intense conflict is an invitation to turn to God, who wants to lead us forward into restored relationships and into new organizational processes. JAN WOOD, LON FENDALL AND BRUCE BISHOP, PRACTICING DISCERNMENT TOGETHER

Although I wouldn't have known how to talk about it then, slowly but surely the Scriptures were becoming a place of human striving and intellectual hard work. Somehow, I had fallen into a pattern of using the Scriptures as a tool to accomplish utilitarian purposes rather experiencing them primarily as a place of intimacy with God for my own soul's sake.

What shapes our actions is basically what shapes our desire. Desire makes us act and when we act what we do will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds, and bodies - and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others, and the world. The habits and disciplines we use to shape our desire form the basis for a spirituality.

In silence our speech patterns are refined because silence fosters a self-awareness that enables us to choose more truly the words that we say.

The real surprise was not that this happened but the fact that the shift was so subtle. After all, the purposes for which I was using the Scriptures were not bad in and of themselves. It's just that over time, without my awareness, those purposes had trumped the greater purpose for which the Scriptures have been given: to allow my own heart and soul to be penetrated by an intimate word from God. My mind remained engaged, but my heart and soul had drifted far away.

El permitirnos desear con desesperación algo que no estamos seguros que podamos obtener, nos atemoriza; especialmente cuando se trata de algo esencial, como la presencia de Dios en nuestras vidas.

Discernment, in a most general sense, is the capacity to recognize and respond to the presence and the activity of God—both in the ordinary moments and in the larger decisions of our lives.

Amamos a Dios porque Dios nos amó primero.

there is a way of doing life in leadership that is not so complicated and heavy—a way of making decisions that does not have to rely on our own brilliance and ability to think hard, a way of being involved in God's work that ends up being more about God's work than our own.

it is possible to hang around other Christians a lot, meet regularly for worship, study our Bibles, join a church and even call ourselves a community but not change at all in ways that count.