Table of Contents

An introduction 2

Six Lessons:
Stop: A shift in attention 6
Look: An open mind 8
Listen: An open heart 10
Receive: An open heart and will 12
Embody: Let go, let come, act 14
Forward: Continuing the process 16

Instructions on how to use the lessons

The underlying attitude 18
Facilitating a group 20
For your church or organization 23

This approach is designed to lead to:

A deepened spiritual life for individuals

Not in a dogged religious plod, but a living spirited dance.

1 Thess 4 (TM)

A church that has vital worship and a community recognizing Jesus.

Their eyes were opened. They recognized him.

Luke 24 (TM)

A mission inspired by God to, for, and with the world.

... what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and
to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6 (NRSV)
Staying In Touch
An Introduction

Relax.
Respond to God’s giving.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing now.
That’s what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.

Where we pay attention, there our energy flows.

That’s what a psychologist said.

God’s Spirit touches our spirit. Embracing what God does for
you is the best thing you can do for him.
That’s what the apostle Paul said.

There is new energy, vitality, as we pay attention to what the Spirit is

doing now. Staying in Touch is about a simple practice that encourages
us to be open to the Spirit’s leading as individuals, leaders, groups, and
communities. This series of exercises is for those who want to find a
practice that fits them. It can be a way of leading to transformation of
congregations, individuals, and the world. Suggestions for doing this are
found at the back of the pamphlet.

In Touch, Out of Touch

I remember being in touch with God as a boy in church:

My family was around me.

My relatives, teachers, neighbors were there.
There was music.
There were old, familiar words.
We did this thing called Communion.

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The minister touched bread and broke it.
He poured out the fruit of the vine into a cup.
We did this right in church.

At first I didn’t get it. I liked playing in the sandbox better.

Then Communion was a ritual we did together.
Then it became a means for being in touch with God.

I began to recognize this reality of being in touch with God and others at
other times:

Out at our lake,

By the ocean,
Looking at mountains,
Dancing,
Hugging my wife,
Silence,
Reading Scripture.

Despite this delight, I left “being in touch” again and again:

I got busy with my projects.

I paid attention to my thoughts and feelings alone.
I got bored.
I got worried.
I forgot communion with God and others.

This leaving is natural for all of us. We leave father and mother and God.
We focus on ourselves, but eventually get lonely, bored, or guilty. We may
remember being in touch and look for new ways to do this.

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A Story from Scripture
I’ve read and reread the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus,
found in Luke 24:13-35. It was on the first Easter, and they were convinced
that Jesus was dead, and with him their hopes. They would no longer
be in touch with Jesus. All of a sudden a stranger came up to them as
they walked. They didn’t recognize that it was Jesus. He asked what was
happening. He told them the message from Scripture about the suffering of
the Messiah. Not until they were in touch with the bread that Jesus broke
did they recognize him. It was communion, grace. And their lives were
changed. And so was the church and the world.

Therefore we use this scripture as the core of the exercises. Each exercise
has a quote from the story to begin with as a reminder to recognize Jesus
in our midst:
to receive bread and grace,
to hear the voice within and without,
to hear God speaking to us in Scripture,
to be in touch with others around us.

Sometimes the reminders come forcefully. In another road story, Paul was
knocked off his horse when Jesus appeared to him. We wake up finding
that we are burned out by trying too hard, or bored with our life. Our
congregations or families or work declines in vitality. We lose touch with
what God is doing in us, in community, in the world.

Simply Said
Staying in Touch is a way that works. It has been adapted to different
people, in a variety of cultures. This process is used to be creative:
in business, corporations, and international cooperation,
in the arts,
in sports.

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Basically, it is letting go, letting grace come, and embodying creativity.

Summary
Jesus continues to say to us in Scripture and all these other places:

Relax.
Respond to God’s giving.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing now.

We may continue to reflect that:

Where we pay attention,

there our energy flows.

Staying In Touch helps us pay attention to what God is doing now. We find
energy and vitality:

as individuals and leaders,

in families and groups,
in churches,
in mission and ministry in the world.

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Stop
A shift in attention

The two disciples stopped Jesus with the words: “Stay with us.”
Luke 24:29 (TM)

To the Point
A typical day for most is filled to capacity. Work, busy-ness, and
deadlines all consume great amounts of our energy and attention. They
also interfere with our ability to notice the important things. What we are
trying to notice is the working of the Spirit among and within us. When
wonder comes to us through the natural world, it is a gift of the Spirit.
When we sense that we belong and have communion, that too is the Spirit
working. “The Spirit prays in us with sighs too deep for words.” What
does your heart say? We are not so much asking the Spirit to be present, as
being present to the Spirit.

A Story
I remember an experience I had after leading a retreat for men in the
Arizona desert. They were having a great time, and told me that God had
spoken to them in the silence, through the words of Scripture, through
each other. I felt jealous because “nothing” had happened to me.

I went to a workshop where an “expert” taught listening skills, and I

volunteered to be the guinea pig who was listened to. I said that “nothing”
had happened to me. When she asked me about the “nothing,” I said I was
pleased that the others seemed open to God, and that there was a blessing
in meeting together. I talked about sensing the beauty of the sandy hills,
feeling open and relaxed. I felt at home in a mysterious place that I found
out later was a site that the Native Americans believed to be a holy place.

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As she asked me questions, I felt like Jacob, awakening from his dream,
saying, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. (Gen. 28:16,
RSV)

I needed help to recognize God for myself. I couldn’t recognize what God
was doing in me because it wasn’t an encore of what had happened to
me before or a duplicate of someone else’s experience. God’s presence
was not a “big” event. I needed to drop my expectations of some out-of-
the-ordinary experience. When I let go, and let come whatever the Spirit
was doing, I was able to recognize the Spirit working in me. We often
recognize God’s Spirit only in retrospect.

The Five-Minute Daily

• Stop, put everything down and relax for a moment.
• Breathe.
• Consider where wonder, or belonging, or connection happened today.
Consider their absence.
• Remember, we are trying to notice the work of the Spirit among and
within us.
• Make a few notes about what happened.

The Questions
Personal
Leadership
What helps you shift attention to
what the Spirit is doing? What helps people shift attention
to what the Spirit is doing?

Group

How have we stopped what we were doing

and paid attention to what God is doing?

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Look
An open mind

“Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road?”

Luke 24:32 (TM)

To the Point
Most all of us are quite able to pause for a moment, look back over the
course of our lives, and name a half-dozen big events, or choices. The
kind that significantly shape our lives. What is suggested here is that
life-shaping events and choices are happening each day - certainly not to
the same scale as “the big ones,” but with an open mind, we can begin to
notice the more subtle nudges.

If the only prayer we said was “thanks,” it would be enough, said one
theologian. Why? Because we begin to appreciate grace and gifts, and
recognize that the generosity of life is there all the time. Jesus is offering
us bread and love, not just at the moment of Communion, but all the time.
Even in the midst of suffering, we can be in communion with Christ, our
neighbors, communities, countries, and world.

Sometimes the pain we carry and the pain of the world motivate a cry for
help. These pains help us to know what we are responsible for. Help us
ask for forgiveness and remember we are forgiven. Help us shed toxic
guilt and step forward to make amends.

Sometimes the hurt inflicted upon us requires time for grace and healing
to emerge. Time to examine the nature of the hurt. Time to notice what
is really about us, what is really important, and what is out of our control.
And in all of this examination and sadness, time to let love enter in, for our
good and for the good of those around us.

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A Story
Recently a colleague of mine and I were working with a local congregation.
We asked the members what was good about their life together, and
what they thought their mission was. My colleague asked, “So where is
God?” The abrupt question was a bit of a shock for them, but after a little
thought, they could answer us that God was in the midst of them, and God
was inviting them to do outreach. Then they said, “We ought to ask that
question more often.”

The Five-Minute Daily

• Stop, breathe, relax.
• What was good about today?
• What was not so good about today?
• Pray, noticing God’s movement or absence.
• Make a few notes about what happened.

The Questions
Personal
Leadership
Where do you experience God?
How do you encourage people to
notice God in both the big and the
ordinary aspects of their lives?

Group

How do we notice God in our midst as well

as in our call?

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Listen
An open heart

And Jesus said to them “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all
that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should
suffer these things and enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and
all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself. Luke 24:25-27 TM

To the Point
We are like the disciples. We are caught up in the drama of our own lives.
Like them, we see tragedy alone and miss God at work doing something
new. Our feelings are caught up in what happens and we can’t see what
is really going on. We have our own self-centered point of view, which
is quite limited. We have trouble learning other perspectives, seeing the
whole truth, seeing from another’s perspective or from God’s point of view.

To listen with our heart is what the philosopher Martin Buber called
“Thou.” A kind of listening that is a relationship. It probably started when
our mother sang to us and we heard a loving heart. Or we cried, and we
were picked up. Heart spoke to heart. We listened to stories and loved
them. How do we make friends and tell someone we love them? Not just
by thinking about them as though they are a problem to be solved, but by
being in a relationship, a process of give-and-take.

But we often read the Bible as though it were a problem to be solved, to

look for the right answer, to discuss what the right answer might be, and to
hear the teacher say what it is really all about. Jesus didn’t teach that way.
He told stories and parables. You never get a story or parable “right.” There
is an ongoing process of discovery, like a relationship, like prayer. God’s

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story and our story are interrelated. When we get a bit of an insight into one
story, the other story lights up.

Consider This
There are many ways to hear God. Take the Christmas story, for instance:
Shepherds needed to hear angels shouting.
Wise men used thinking and followed accordingly.
Mary felt it deeply as she pondered these things in her heart.
Simeon’s intuition was right on after years of waiting and praying.

The Five-Minute Daily

• Stop, breathe, relax.
• Ask the Spirit to help you hear, think, feel, intuit.
• Read a short passage of Scripture and/or pay attention to your life,
slowly and reflectively.
• Notice what stands out and pray with that.
• Make a few notes about what happened.

The Questions
Personal
Leadership
What helps you listen for God in
your life, nature, Scripture? How do you help others
differentiate between knowing
about God and listening to God?

Group

How does God speak to our community?

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Receive
An open heart and will

Taking bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them.

Luke 24:30 (TM)

To the Point
God isn’t just giving us words. God is love. Jesus gave the bread, himself,
his love.

Have you listened to music and felt connected? Have you been at an ocean
or mountain and felt moved? We can know the grace to receive when we
can say “yes” to God’s love.

Jesus invites us to abide in him, and him in us.

By “love,” we usually think of romantic love or at least our tender feelings.

But perhaps “compassion” or “care” or “belonging” better translates the
words that the Bible uses. Usually we have to receive love before we can
give it. That’s what happens to babies. And when we are critical to others,
it is often because we cannot show compassion for ourselves. This is why
Scripture says that we need to receive grace in order to respond gracefully.
“We love because God first loved us.”

The mystery of receiving and giving love cannot be explained so much as

experienced.

In our story, Jesus is invited into the home of the two in Emmaus. Then
some mysterious things happen. He is no longer the guest, but now takes
the place of host. He takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to

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them. It is the same thing he did at the Last Supper, and at the miracle of
feeding the five thousand. A sacrament? A miracle? He gives himself and
his love to the disciples. We, too, can receive God’s love.

Consider This
Love comes through painful circumstances as well as good ones. We know
love in childbirth, and through the promise to love each other in sickness
and in health. We may scream at God and wonder where God is. But after
we hear Jesus on the cross feeling abandoned, suffering with us, perhaps
in time we may receive God’s love in suffering, even though we may not
understand it. This does not mean being stoic or denying the reality of
pain, but to drink the cup of suffering.

The Five-Minute Daily

• Stop, breathe, relax.
• Ask the Spirit to help you hear, think, feel, intuit.
• Consider one of the questions below, slowly and reflectively.
• Notice what stands out and pray with that.
• Make a few notes about what happened.

The Questions
Personal
Leadership
When have you received love,
community, grace, friendship? How do you deal with shame,
compulsive perfectionism, resistance
to being loved?
Group

How does the congregation, your group as a whole,

acknowledge God’s gifts, grace, love?

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Embody
let go, let come, act

They didn’t waste a minute. Luke 24:33 (TM)

To the Point
After recognizing Christ, receiving love, and hearing the big themes in the
Bible to orient them, the disciples immediately went back to Jerusalem
from Emmaus. Sometimes it’s like that with us. We know immediately
what to do after we receive love. Sometimes we do this more logically: we
see the mission God has called us to, and then we can figure out the next
step. More often, though, the deciding what to do is daily, hourly, being
led, deciding.

In all the moments for decision, there seem to be two patterns: let go, let
come.

We let go of our being the center of it all. We let go of insisting that our
thinking, feeling, deciding are the center of the universe. We have an open
mind, heart, and will. That is a gift and we can pray for it. Often breathing
in to receive grace, and breathing out our tension, will help provide some
openness throughout us. Often when we let go, the Spirit of God inspires
us. We let grace come. We know intuitively the next step to take.

And even when we make a mistake, we can correct the step after that. We
are not frozen forever trying to make the right decision. We are walking
in the right direction.

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Consider This
We find that we are invited to become a community as the disciples did
with the others in Jerusalem. The Risen Lord had appeared to them as
well. They confirmed each other. They began something new in the history
of the world, and continued to listen to Christ through the Holy Spirit.
They did utterly new things as they had open minds, hearts, and wills.
They made a radical change of direction:

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. Acts 15:28 (NRSV)

The Five-Minute Daily

Stop, breathe in Grace, relax.
Let go as you breathe out.
Let the grace of the Spirit come.
Consider what choice presents itself.

The Questions
Personal
Leadership
What emerges, comes, from the inside
or without? How do you help the group
Where are you invited to be with others? let go and let come?

Group

How do we keep doing this?

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Forward
continuing the process

They spent all their time in the temple, praising God. Luke 24:53 (TM)

To the Point
Can you find a daily practice like Staying in Touch? What works for you?
A practice can change your attitude for the whole day. Some small practice
during the day, like intentionally breathing and relaxing and realigning
your mind and heart, may help you be open to God. I hope that trying the
Five-Minute Daily has given you a clue for yourself. But some people
seem to find this impossible. For them, the daily practice is like a child
reluctently practicing piano, or like remembering to floss. But practice
for adults can be more like “practicing” medicine or law. What is it that
helps you relax and be open, to be filled with the Spirit? Can you at least
pay attention to love, receive it, and ask where the invitation comes from?
Can you take an inventory of your way of life, asking for help from an
individual or group? What is giving you life? What isn’t? Who supports
you? Where is life, God, inviting you to grow?

Consider This
The way to grow muscle, relationships, minds, souls, is to stretch, push,
and then rest. How do you take Sabbath time more intentionally? What
nurtures you? What depletes you?

Where do you feel that your life or the Spirit in your life is nudging you
to pay attention? To grow? To grow in your ability to love those close and
those at the other end of the religious or political spectrum?

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Whom will you ask for help in discerning whether what you are hearing
is really the Divine? This is critical. Many people find a coach, mentor, or
spiritual director. Some find a group of two or three. Without support, we
usually give up something that is hard and life-changing for the easier way
that leads to slow death.

This booklet may help you and leaders for use with the whole congregation.
It may be just for you right now, or lead you to a support group. Remember:

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing now.”

“What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax.”

The Five-Minute Daily

• Breathe in the Spirit’s life, love.
• Observe with the eyes of love.
• Notice the interior hints of love.
• Let go of your personal agenda.
• Take the action that embodies love.

The Questions
Personal
Leadership
What practice do you follow to
nourish your relationship with What kind of support do you have
God on a regular basis? outside the congregation?

Group

What kind of practices do you have for the whole

system, culture, of the congregation to recognize
God at work?

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Staying In Touch
The underlying attitude

As you work through the Staying In Touch exercises, you will notice a
mindset, a perspective, an underlying attitude - receptivity. This trusting
openness is pivotal in moving from exercises to be completed to significant
encounter with the Living God. Jesus summed it up well:

What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied

with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. Matt. 6:31-33 (TM)

Receiving God’s Giving

With Our Minds. We hear the truth of the story and we reflect on it. We
hear the words and let them shape our attitude. We take in the facts and
ideas in a way that moves us off our ordinary ways of viewing reality.

The capacity to receive deepens when we breathe and wait in some silence.
We ask for the Spirit to inspire us, and the Spirit of God inside and outside
meet. We receive the wisdom deeper than knowledge. We become God-
taught rather than ego-taught.

In Our Hearts. We listen more deeply, past the words, to the heart behind
the words. We listen to music, passion, stories. Our hearts are touched,
moved. We experience receiving and giving compassion.

Compassion deepens when we consider, feel, and live the truth of who we
are: beloved. Our breath and our heartbeat become in sync. We run, dance,
and move our bodies that are helping us be alive and present.

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With Our Wills. We say and mean “Thy will be done.” This may mean
realizing our powerlessness and turning over the care of our lives. This
may move us from surrendering to a Higher Power to surrendering to a
Greater Love. This may be receiving love and grace at Communion and
in life.

This receptivity deeps as we experience it. A sculptor wrote:

There comes a given moment when things are changing. When this
moment of change happens, it is no longer me, alone, who is creating.
I feel connected to something far deeper and my hands are co-creating
with this power. At the same time I feel I am being filled with love and
care as my perception is widening. I sense things in another way. It is a
love for the world and what is coming.

C.S. Lewis says we can do that daily:

That’s why the real problem of the Christian life comes when people
don’t usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each
morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild
animals. And the first job each morning is just shoving them back; just
listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that
other, stronger quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. But from
these moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system.

It is interesting that religious practices usually begin well and then become
formalized. Ideas become dogma, heart becomes formalized devotion,
will becomes moralism. It takes courage to shift from the traditional ways,
intention to shift from one part of our brain to another, spiritual gifting to
move beyond our comfort zones. Frequently it is when we let go that we
can receive the gift of communion and grace, which then illuminates the
other areas.

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Staying in Touch
FACILITATING A GROUP

You are to help model and facilitate a process that may be quite different
from what you and your people have experienced before. This is not a
discussion group or a Bible study class. Its purpose is for individuals
to learn how to pay attention to their own experience and reflect on the
presence of the Spirit in their lives. The method is like a laboratory course
in which people try things out and then share what they have discovered.
As you lead in a new way, people may learn a new attitude for prayer,
reading the Bible, and looking at their lives. They will learn from and with
each other. Go light on teaching, long on helping people experience for
themselves the grace and communion of Christ.

It is helpful in the first session for people to write down what they hope to
learn. During the last session, invite them to reflect on this list. This may
help them to be clearer as they write about what they intend to do next,
and who might help them.

Here are some suggestions: For those inexperienced in leading this sort
of group, you probably ought to use the general pattern below until you
and the group are used to it. Then you may adapt it to your circumstances.
Every group, community, and leader is unique. But gather continual
feedback, by asking one way or another, “What is working?”

The Opening
Invite people to sing or pray together. Introduce a brief moment of silence,
inviting them to breathe in the breath of God. Then ask people to share
who they are and why they have come, and what they hope to learn. Then
remind them that this group is not going to listen passively to an expert,
and that there is no “right” answer. They will learn together.

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The Teaching
Read or tell the story in Luke 24:13-35. Emphasize that the two disciples
didn’t recognize Jesus until they invited him into their home, relaxed, and
became open. Tell a parallel story or two from your life as illustration.
Have any of them had the experience of recognizing God’s activity in
retrospect? You may suggest that they talk in the “middle range” between
superficial exchanges and their deepest feelings.

The Exercise
Make sure that participants have paper and pencils ahead of time. Tell
them what you are going to do. Begin with a prayer inviting the Holy
Spirit to come within and among you. Ask that you all might be open to
the Spirit. Invite them to relax as they breathe, inviting the Spirit of God
in and breathing out their tension. Allow a minute or two for them to do so.
Do not use a soft voice when you lead, because some people cannot hear
and a quiet voice connotes something “special.” Then ask the exercise
question, “What helps you relax and be more open?” Encourage writing.
Begin the sharing yourself when you see that everyone is finished.

The Conclusion
Ask for their reflections about how the session went: what was difficult,
what seemed to work, what they learned. Encourage them to do some
“stopping” exercise for at least five times this coming week. Encourage
them to experiment with what works for them. End with some sort of
action like praying the Lord’s Prayer or singing.

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Following Weeks
1. Opening prayer. This can include time for silence, breathing in the
Spirit, reading a short passage of Scripture or listening to music. You
may be able to gradually lengthen this time. Check in. How are they?
2. What have they experienced or learned as they did the exercises
through the week? What resistance to the daily time have they noticed?
Have they found other ways to engage in the practices that are helpful
for them? This part probably will expand as trust develops.
3. Summarize. Lead or share the teaching for today. Ask if it is clear.
4. Do the exercise. People learn this best by experiencing it and sharing.
5. End with some final reflection such as what happened as you went
through the exercise? What happened as you shared your experiences?
What did you discover?
6. Use some kind of closing: prayer, music, silence.
7. Afterwards, for you: Give thanks to God. What has the Spirit taught
you in this process?

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 Staying In Touch
for your church or organization

Getting started with any new practice is often easier with a few tips from
others who have done it before. We hope that these will be just enough to
start the process and leave plenty of room for making the practice your
own. The material will affect congregational culture, cultivate the ability
of individuals to discern where the Spirit is at work, and encourage vitality
because parishioners are not just recipients but co-creators of mission and
ministry.

Notes for Individuals

It is vital to try to find a time in your daily life to do each exercise, to
make a note about it, and to share what happened with others. I strongly
recommend that you find a group to go through the exercises with you, if
only two other people. It usually helps to find someone else to share your
experience with, to hear the experiences of others, and in the process find
affirmation in discovering how your spiritual practice fits you.

I have found that in teaching this, it is helpful for people in each session
to do an exercise instead of just reading or talking about it. Each session
can include some kind of exercise where you “let go, let come.” This may
be as simple as:

breathing for a minute or two in silence,

singing softly,
letting Scripture speak,
saying “Thy will be done,” or “Your design prevail.”

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Notes for Leadership Groups
If you are going to introduce Staying in Touch to your leadership group,
I suggest that you try a retreat. Then participants won’t be so concerned
about getting things done. The general format might be:

What has God been up to? (exercise one and two)

What is God doing now? (exercise three and four)
Where is God opening doors? (exercise five)

In each exercise ask about individual, leadership, and congregational

questions. Then you may discern together where and how to do the
exercises in subsequent meetings. One practice will not work forever.
Keep getting feedback about what is working. Here are some questions
church leadership groups have used:

• Where was the Spirit last Sunday?

• Where was the Spirit generally?
• What’s going on in your life?
• Where is the Spirit now?

Congregations and Parachurch Groups

I recommend that you choose a slightly different approach. Instead of
issuing a general invitation to a beginning group, invite a cross-section of
people individually:
• one or two core leaders
• one or two spiritually mature people
• one or two newcomers
• a range of people in different generations or backgrounds.

They will give you feedback about a wider range of experience in your
congregation, and clearer discernment about where you might introduce
the practice of listening to God in the church or the whole group. In all
of these areas you can continually ask for feedback, stories, outcomes, to

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answer the question “what works?”

Consider using Staying in Touch in worship:

• How about a sermon or two?

• A handout bookmark?
• Offering a group that meets afterward?
• Designating places in the service where you give silence for people
to recognize blessings or pain experienced during the week?
• Asking God to show what these experiences mean?
• Looking for God’s invitation in the experiences?

Missional Churches*
I have found that leaders of missional churches are just as likely to suffer
burnout as other leaders, perhaps more so. This material has been inspired
in part by missional leaders in South Africa who wanted it to be translated
into Africaans because it had helped them. I have also found that missional
leaders as well as traditional leaders often fail to get continual feedback
from the recipients of mission as to “what works.” Continual discernment
is necessary in all three areas of ministry:

• mission inward
• mission together
• mission outward.

For pastors, it may be helpful to meet with a whole group of pastors, so

that it is possible to share a little more clearly what God is doing internally
as well as externally. It should be helpful for leadership at many places,
particularly for spiritual deepening, enabling leaders and parishioners to
find their own unique path and reduce burnout.

* The term “Missional Church” is twenty years or so old. It refers to an

attitude of mission, purpose, and focus.

25
“We in South Africa find that Staying in Touch is a very usable tool in
Missional Churches.”

Dr. Frederick Marias, church consultant

“Staying in Touch is the best entry into a life of integrity. It is short,

inspiring, and can be easily done by congregants individually and used
by leaders for groups.”

Pastor Chris von Wyck, Synod leader, Dutch Reformed Church,

South Africa

“This booklet provides a pattern of daily renewal for leaders in

congregational ministry.”

The Rev. Dick Beckmen, former Lutheran pastor, now seminary

teacher, church consultant

“This little book would be very helpful for leading a congregation in

spiritual formation.”

Dr. JoAnn Nesser, founder/retired director of Christos Center for

Spiritual Formation

“John Ackerman gives us a good introduction to spiritual practices. His

counsel is both simple yet life-changing.”

Janet O. Hagberg, spiritual director, co-author of

The Critical Journey
Notes
 Join the conversation:
www.staying-in-touch.org

• Connect with others who are using these practices.

• Watch videos that demonstrate the process.
• Find spiritual direction and congregation development
services based on these practices.
• Read additional materials to deepen and expand the
practices.

No permissions have been received from authors or publishers, so you

cannot sell this. You may make copies for free use of church members.