by Clay Beery on February 20, 2010
One of the striking aspects about the past weeks of early morning quiet time has been the degree to which the disciplines of reading the Bible and prayer journaling can work together. Reading a devotional and/or the Bible as a lead-in to journal time enriches the experience of both disciplines. It seems that every day either my devotional reading, the Bible passage that it cites, or both, provide some teaching or concept that resonates with me and that I can include as part of the prayer that I want to take to God in the journal. That something in my reading– and it may be just a word like “encourage,” can be a spark for freely speaking from the heart in my prayer journal.
And speaking of “speaking from the heart,” starting a prayer journal itself has helped me to just put myself out there to God, with less and less self-consciousness about how I am articulating my thoughts. I have often thought about the Psalms in the Bible and how much they exemplify the revelation of the heart to God, without filtering out what may be perceived as “good” or “bad,” and with faith that God knows what’s in the heart anyway. As I practice the discipline of keeping a prayer journal, I find that I am doing less filtering, and as a result, being more open to what God has in store for me during the day. But I still catch myself sometimes trying too hard to say the right thing — in other words, I need a lot more practice, but that’s what spiritual disciplines are all about. In the time ahead, I look forward to sharing other perspectives on spiritual growth as experienced from these practices.
Stumbling In the Dark and Turning Out the Light – Clay’s First Post
The Wrong Side of the Bed – Clay’s Second Post
About Clay
by Hugh Russell on February 19, 2010
I have been asked several times about how the Spiritual Growth Productivity process (SGP) got started. Spirituality has always been a large part of my life. I became increasingly uncomfortable about the disconnect between my spiritual life and my business life. I kept asking myself the question: “How can I increase my spirituality during work hours?” I read many books, such as Brother Lawrence’s The Practice and Presence of God, that discussed how to combine spirituality and work. Yet my work as a project manager and process improvement director did not seem to lend itself towards spirituality. Then one day I had an “aha” moment when I realized that I was asking the wrong questions. A better question to ask would be: “How can I use the expertise gained at work to improve my spiritual growth?”
I quickly realized that a goal of improving my spiritual growth could be managed in the same way that I managed my business and personal goals. So I defined the SGP process to optimize my spiritual activities. While defining the process requirements, I determined that it would be more effective to optimize my ability to grow spiritually. More specifically, the SGP process was designed to identify and mitigate obstacles or distractions that were negatively affecting my spiritual growth.
I continually refined the SGP process as I personally used the process. After I was comfortable that the process had been “bullet-proofed”, I began using the SGP process with coaching clients. Their comments helped me refine the process even further.
I wanted to really understand why the SGP process worked so well. So I decided to use my graduate level Psychology classes to build an academic foundation to support the process. I used the material from each class, as well as getting feedback from my professor’s, to continually refine the SGP process. It is amazing how much help it has been to have PhDs helping me solidify the process. The SGP process became the focus of my master’s thesis is focused on how the SGP process can help improve the conditions for spiritual growth.
I am currently converting the SGP process into an electronic learning course that can be used by individuals to improve their spiritual growth without needing the help of a spiritual director or spiritual coach.
