Episode 27 - Navigating the Spiral of Faith: Understanding Stage Three
Summary
The critical journey of faith is a multifaceted process, and in our discussion, we delve into the intricacies of the third stage, which is characterized as the productive life. This phase emphasizes the temptation to equate one’s self-worth with one’s productivity in ministry, a notion that often leads to spiritual burnout and disillusionment. I articulate the importance of recognizing that true spiritual development transcends mere activity and is rooted in intimacy with the divine. We must confront the perilous inclination to engage in ministry prematurely, thereby risking our spiritual maturity and connection with God. Ultimately, this stage calls for a profound reassessment of our priorities and values, prompting us to navigate the delicate balance between serving others and nurturing our relationship with the divine.
As we continue your spiritual journey, we find ourselves at "stage" 3. The choice we have to make is our relationship with God or being productive FOR God. Listen in find out how to deepen your intimacy with God rather than your usefulness.
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Show Notes
The latest episode of the Outpost podcast, hosted by Dr. Ray Mitsch, offers an in-depth examination of the stages of spiritual development, particularly the transition into what is referred to as the 'productive life.' Dr. Mitsch emphasizes that this stage, while often celebrated, can be fraught with peril if one has not adequately traversed the preceding stages of the spiritual journey. He warns against the temptation to leap into productivity without first establishing a solid foundation through spiritual mentorship and discipleship. This approach, he argues, not only risks personal burnout but also dilutes the effectiveness of one’s ministry, as it is driven more by external expectations than by genuine spiritual growth.
Throughout the episode, the host articulates the critical importance of self-awareness in one’s spiritual journey. He posits that the inability to accurately assess one’s current spiritual state can lead to misguided attempts at advancement that result in frustration and disillusionment. Dr. Mitsch also reflects on the societal pressures that promote a productivity-centric view of faith, which equates worth with accomplishments rather than genuine connection with God. This cultural critique invites listeners to reassess their motivations and the true essence of their faith journeys, steering them towards a more profound intimacy with the divine.
In a poignant moment, Dr. Mitsch recounts the recent passing of a close friend, a reflection that adds depth to the conversation about grief and its interplay with faith. He announces the forthcoming mini-series 'A Window Into Grief,' aimed at providing listeners with tools and insights to process their own experiences of loss. This personal narrative not only humanizes the discussion but also underscores the importance of community and vulnerability in navigating spiritual crises. The episode ultimately serves as a powerful reminder to prioritize relational depth with God over mere performance, encouraging listeners to cultivate a spirituality that is rooted in authenticity and connection.
Takeaways:
- Dr. Ray Mitsch emphasizes the importance of understanding one's current position on their spiritual journey before attempting to progress further.
- He warns against the tendency to prematurely engage in ministry without adequate spiritual maturity, which can lead to burnout and disillusionment.
- The podcast discusses the critical stage of the spiritual journey known as the productive life, where individuals may confuse productivity with spiritual growth.
- Mitsch highlights the need for intimacy with God as opposed to mere service, as true spiritual health stems from a deep relationship with the divine.
- A crisis often prompts a reassessment of spiritual priorities, leading individuals to evaluate the foundation of their relationship with God.
- The episode encourages listeners to embrace the journey of faith as a non-linear process, reminiscent of climbing a mountain in a spiral rather than a straight path.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- SGI
- Stained Glass International
- Janet Hagberg
- Robert Gulick
- Ed Smith
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
You're listening to the outpost podcast with Dr.
Speaker A:Ray Mitch.
Speaker A:Well, I don't know about any of you, but I am not all that thrilled about the daylight savings time nonsense that we put ourselves through twice a year, I believe.
Speaker A:I think that's what it is.
Speaker A:So welcome to that.
Speaker A:Losing 11 hour of sleep in the night.
Speaker A:And so that's where we start, for lack of a better way to start this.
Speaker A:Welcome, Everybody.
Speaker A:I am Dr.
Speaker A:Ray Mitch, your host.
Speaker A:You are tuned in to the Outpost podcast and I'm so glad that you've taken some time out to join me and to take some time to consider some of the issues that we're talking about here on the podcast.
Speaker A:What my effort has been in trying to put this thing together has really been to develop a podcast that looks at the intersection of faith, psychology and spiritual formation.
Speaker A:And ultimately that is in the service to create a place where the doubters, the wounded, the confused, the beat up and beat down, the bent and bruised who feel like their lives are a disappointment to God, to feel safe enough to be known and accepted enough to be known and know others.
Speaker A:And so my hope is that we can create a space, even if it's by monologue like this, to bump into and meet the biblical Jesus, not the one that has been caricatured in so many different ways.
Speaker A:So, anyway, pull up a chair, get comfortable, relax.
Speaker A:We're going to talk about, hopefully, the issues that are the most important when it comes to your spiritual journey.
Speaker A:And that's really what we've been talking about.
Speaker A:You are joining in a series that I've been doing on the spiritual journey.
Speaker A:And so if you're feeling like you're entering into the movie in the middle of it, you are.
Speaker A:Merry Christmas.
Speaker A:So go back three more, three episodes.
Speaker A:Because I did an introduction and I did stage one and stage two.
Speaker A:We're here at stage three.
Speaker A:Just one caveat, one warning about that is that these stages annoy me.
Speaker A:I don't like the stage language because it tempts us into thinking that it's linear when it's not.
Speaker A:One of the things I mentioned during the introduction is that it's probably more accurate to consider a little bit like a metaphor of climbing a mountain that you climb it in a spiral.
Speaker A:You don't climb it as a straight up line, which makes no sense, right?
Speaker A:I mean, if you're going to climb a mountain, then just go straight up.
Speaker A:Which really, technically, when you climb a mountain, you don't.
Speaker A:You're snaking your way up the side of the mountain.
Speaker A:But in this case we're talking about a spiral and that these stages actually can collapse in on each other.
Speaker A:We can be in one, we can be two at the same time.
Speaker A:And so they're not distinct.
Speaker A:There is not a clear bright line between them.
Speaker A:And so some of the characteristics that I'm talking about today in stage three, you see elements of it in stage two.
Speaker A:A lot of times people love to jump by stage two and jump into stage three, which, which is really quite dangerous for a lot of reasons.
Speaker A:Hopefully I'll explain that.
Speaker A:So, so before I get into that, let me, let me just make a, a quick comment, I suppose.
Speaker A: And at: Speaker A:And that bright light was a friend of mine who we have been friends for 30 years and his name is Dr.
Speaker A:Ed Smith.
Speaker A:And he took his last two breaths and passed into the embrace of his Abba to enjoy eternity with him.
Speaker A:And that doesn't negate the sense of loss that I think so many of his family members feel.
Speaker A:I certainly feel having been friends for that long.
Speaker A:And so I, I am, I'm probably going to do a short mini series of sorts which will be concurrent with this particular series called A Window Into Grief.
Speaker A:And last month, well, January, early in January, I released my seventh book by the title, Seasons of youf Grief.
Speaker A:And it follows two young people through the journey of grief.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And here I am, here I am in the middle of it myself.
Speaker A:And so I thought in order to perhaps benefit a few people that might want to listen in to see what a window in grief looks like.
Speaker A:And I'll do my best to describe where I've been coming into this day, this fateful day, and be able to not going to attempt to give any insights.
Speaker A:You can draw your insights according to what you need and what you want and whether it's even applicable.
Speaker A:It is not prescriptive.
Speaker A:It is just one person's journey through grief that you get an opportunity to hear about.
Speaker A:And most of the time our grief and our grieving process is very private and hidden.
Speaker A:Some of that is trying to spare people.
Speaker A:I don't know why sparing people from the emotions of grief.
Speaker A:But that's a topic for another time.
Speaker A:I will pick that up in the miniseries itself.
Speaker A:So we have been on this critical journey of the stages in the life of faith and I mentioned that I'm borrowing a lot of the concepts and things from Janet Hagberg and Robert Gulick.
Speaker A:That wrote the book, the critical stages in the life of faith.
Speaker A:And there are two key principles that I add.
Speaker A:They're not in the book.
Speaker A:And the first one is you can't move anywhere if you don't know where you are.
Speaker A:And that just makes intuitive sense.
Speaker A:It makes just very common sense sense that if you're going to chart your course to someplace, then you better know where you are.
Speaker A:And otherwise it's just fruitless goose chase for guessing from where you are.
Speaker A:So that's the first thing.
Speaker A:And I think that applies in our spiritual journey as well.
Speaker A:And then secondly, you can't lead someone someplace you've never been.
Speaker A:And particularly in the particular stage we're going to be talking about today, this is the huge temptation is to try to lead somebody someplace you've never been.
Speaker A:And we've got a lot of leaders today that certainly are doing that.
Speaker A:They haven't been there, but they know something, quote, unquote, know something about it.
Speaker A:And because of that, then they.
Speaker A:They end up, I think, probably burning out.
Speaker A:But I'll get into that in a second.
Speaker A:So the first stage is.
Speaker A:Is referred to as the converted life.
Speaker A:And the second stage is nest next one, which we finished last week, was a discipled life and the importance of digging deep into our faith and also the intense need that we have for good Bible teachers and mentors who can speak into our lives, who have been down this road before, and they know what it really is like.
Speaker A:So the third stage is referred to as the productive life.
Speaker A:Now, one of the things I will warn you about this is kind of a teaser of sorts.
Speaker A:But the way that Gulick and Hagberg have structured this is it moves from life making a life to engaging in a journey.
Speaker A:And there's a critical turning point that is coming in the next.
Speaker A:And it's not really a stage, it's kind of an interstage that I think is really, really quite critical in the spiritual life.
Speaker A:And we will talk about that soon enough.
Speaker A:But this particular stage is really a rolling up your sleeves and getting the busy for God stage.
Speaker A:And in a lot of cases, like I said, we are very tempted to move from the converted life, the first stage, where we need spiritual milk, we're not ready for meat yet.
Speaker A:And to jump over the discipled life or the mentored life and jump into the productive life.
Speaker A:Because our temptation is that we judge our worth by our productivity.
Speaker A:And that certainly is a very Western thing of us to do.
Speaker A:And so because of that, then the discipled life takes too long and we want to be able to contribute, all for good reason.
Speaker A:I'm not besmirching anyone's motives here, but we want to be able to contribute, to feel like we're worth something.
Speaker A:And that is an extremely dangerous impulse because we need to be adequately grown or developed for whatever way you want to look at it.
Speaker A:So the efforts in stage three, and this is why it is so tempting, is to strive to succeed in ministry, in vocation, in anything, really.
Speaker A:And I think that's certainly as big of a part in the Western faith as it is anywhere else.
Speaker A:So it is very much a part of the stage three.
Speaker A:And usually in a lot of cases, people, even in.
Speaker A:In some churches, people are pressured into doing ministry before they're ready or mature enough to handle it.
Speaker A:And I've seen this way too many times.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Where we.
Speaker A:We get.
Speaker A:We want to help, right?
Speaker A:We feel some sense of obligation or some sense of returning to the people that have been so generous to us.
Speaker A:And so all the motives aren't all bad, but they're there, and they tempt us into getting into ministry way before we're really ready to do that.
Speaker A:And just because we have faith doesn't mean that we're ready to communicate that faith to someone else.
Speaker A:And that's particularly true for the journey part of it.
Speaker A:So sometimes, and again, I have observed this more times than I count anymore, really, is people being pressured into being in ministry, in leadership, in ministry, before they're really spiritually mature enough to handle it.
Speaker A:And then they crash and burn and they assume there's something wrong with them, when in fact they have been tempted, even pressured, because the need is so great.
Speaker A:And believe me, I understand.
Speaker A:I have been in small churches before, and people that are doing vocational ministry are tempted to do everything because it's just part of their serving attitude.
Speaker A:But at the same time, there is a huge, huge risk for burnout.
Speaker A:So ultimately, what ends up coming up is an emphasis on the horizontal serving other people.
Speaker A:And success is measured in terms of the number of people in the pews and the amount of money coming in and the viability of the ministry itself.
Speaker A:And I can tell you, having just started up a nonprofit, SGI is not that old.
Speaker A:And there is a huge temptation to measure the success or failure of the ministry by how much money we bring in, because it takes money to do things.
Speaker A:And whether that's a platform to base your website on or whether that's another platform to do the digital devotional, we do.
Speaker A:All of it takes money to be able to do that and our temptation here is to actually be tempted into thinking that that's the measure of our success.
Speaker A:And some of that is because of immaturity, just flat out immaturity.
Speaker A:People need to have enough miles under their feet, so to speak, before they are less tempted.
Speaker A:I'm not saying anybody is not tempted by it, but they're less tempted by it.
Speaker A:And I've seen that certainly in my own walk, spiritual journey as well.
Speaker A:I have gotten involved in ministry.
Speaker A:I've done a lot of ministry over the years.
Speaker A:And I think, I look back on that and think I am not sure I was ready for that.
Speaker A:And I paid a price.
Speaker A:I'm sure the people around me did as well, because it was not placed in the appropriate context and priority where it belonged to be.
Speaker A:So we get very taken, particularly at this stage with the praise we get is commensurate with the accomplishment we've achieved.
Speaker A:And that's a hard one to fight off.
Speaker A:It really is very hard.
Speaker A:Because I think we are all, myself included, looking for evidence that we matter.
Speaker A:And just being told that we matter because we exist is not enough.
Speaker A:Not in this culture it isn't.
Speaker A:I think for vast majority of us it isn't.
Speaker A:So we get tempted into the same kind of motivation that leads people to climb the corporate ladder in the secular world, to climb the ministry ladder in the religious world and in churches and more people and more praise and more accolades and all of that.
Speaker A:That is very much a part of.
Speaker A:Of the success perhaps of the ministry.
Speaker A:So we end up melding together our identity in ministry with our identity in terms of who we are.
Speaker A:And that's dangerous, obviously.
Speaker A:It's very dangerous.
Speaker A:And the other part of it is that we measure it that way.
Speaker A:And so it bolsters our own ego.
Speaker A:And I have been in the position of being tempted by that and on the other side of trying to help pastors try to recover from being defined by what they do rather than who they are and what they're developing.
Speaker A:And so what ends up happening ultimately is our life and ministry is driven by our old self, not the one that is driven to intimacy with God.
Speaker A:And we think that we end up thinking that our Bible study and our exposition of scripture and everything else stands in for our spiritual development.
Speaker A:And it couldn't be farther from the truth.
Speaker A:I've had too many people, myself included, again, where we have ended up being in a position where we can't discern the difference between our spiritual development and what we teach.
Speaker A:We teach it, but we don't necessarily Experience it in our own lives.
Speaker A:And so we're not necessarily talking from experience, we're talking from the study that we've done.
Speaker A:And needless to say, that is extremely dangerous.
Speaker A:So life and ministry ends up being driven by the old self and instead of being driven by intimacy with God and then the overflow of that being available to people.
Speaker A:In a lot of cases I have mentioned at this time, you know, I had a friend of mine ask me many years ago, and it wasn't necessarily Ed, I think it was somebody else that I was around.
Speaker A:And they said, so which would you rather be, a ditch or a reservoir?
Speaker A:And a ditch, the water flows in and the water flows out, and the reservoir, the water flows in, it is cared for, it is cultivated, it's protected.
Speaker A:And the overflow of the reservoir is what benefits everyone else, even downstream.
Speaker A:And I think that same thing is a temptation.
Speaker A:During this particular stage.
Speaker A:There is oftentimes in looking back, a disconnect with God that occurs that results in spiritual dryness and a dissatisfaction in our relationship with God, in our relationship with the people around us, in our relationship even with ourselves.
Speaker A:Not a selfish self, but just taking care of ourselves.
Speaker A:Burnout, that would be the word that we would typically use.
Speaker A:So I have a quote I'll never forget from a pastor that once said, I'm a production driven person.
Speaker A:I hate the ministry practice monster that has mastered me.
Speaker A:And that's very much a part of what we're talking about here.
Speaker A:Ultimately, in a lot of cases, I think the American church today, and this is the only time I'm going to comment on this, but the American church oftentimes gets very stuck on stage three.
Speaker A:Stage three is about being productive for Jesus.
Speaker A:And that's sharing the gospel with people, that's getting them involved in ministry, that's developing them spiritually, all of those things, those are all good things, granted.
Speaker A:But it can literally be a spiritual black hole that gobbles up everything that comes close to it in any way, shape or form.
Speaker A:So a lot of times what happens is we get stuck in this, where we view the Christian life and ministry in terms of our performance, and we get angry.
Speaker A:Quite honestly, this is where at the tail end of this is where a lot of times people will sink into a lot of depression or increased anxiety.
Speaker A:Either one, the depression is pointing the gun at themselves for what they should have done, what they could have done, how there's something wrong with them that they can't do it.
Speaker A:Or on the flip side of that is that God has got it against them.
Speaker A:He's got it in for them.
Speaker A:And so he's doing everything he can to foil their best attempts to serve him.
Speaker A:I mean, after all, we're serving him.
Speaker A:How bad can that be?
Speaker A:But if that service is instead of intimacy with him, then he'll probably blow out the service part.
Speaker A:And so we tend to burn out and feel unappreciated and resentful and angry and feeling like we're unappreciated by the people and by God himself.
Speaker A:Last night we were just watching an episode of the Chosen where the interaction between Jesus and Peter, while Peter is attempting to walk on water, is added in.
Speaker A:This is a fictional show.
Speaker A:This is not the exact quotations from the Bible, but Peter is feeling very underappreciated.
Speaker A:He said, I left everything to be with you and you won't even bother to heal the people closest to you.
Speaker A:And I think a lot of people feel that, particularly in the time of grief, they feel that.
Speaker A:And there's this mixture of anger at God, anger with God, and then anger at ourselves about what we should have or could have done.
Speaker A:So we can get very easily stuck here and we can continue on.
Speaker A:This is something that happens in a lot of people helping professions is we can continue on and do things, but we're slowly but surely burning out and we're emptying the reservoir of resources that people used to benefit from.
Speaker A:And now they're really just getting the dregs of the bottom of it.
Speaker A:So what is needed at this point in the journey is to reassess spiritual priorities and values of some sort.
Speaker A:And that usually takes a crisis.
Speaker A:In a lot of cases it takes a crisis.
Speaker A:And that crisis is a necessary crisis that pushes us to reevaluate and look at what our relationship with God is actually built on.
Speaker A:And is it built on my service for him or my intimacy with Him?
Speaker A:And that is very much a part of the reassessment that goes into it.
Speaker A:It is not easy.
Speaker A:It is not a one time deal at all.
Speaker A:It won't ever be a one time deal.
Speaker A:As a matter of fact, once you begin this process, this is going to continue for the remainder of your spiritual life.
Speaker A:There are always opportunities to reassess spiritual priorities and values.
Speaker A:And we will wander away from engaging in an intentional journey of the heart.
Speaker A:And oftentimes I'll talk about this in terms of wandering the landscape of our heart and where is it dry and parched?
Speaker A:In a desert, In a wilderness?
Speaker A:Where is it vibrant and very alive?
Speaker A:Because it's never one thing, it Feels like that partly because we land ourselves in some areas of our hearts that are parched and dry and weary land, as Psalm talks about.
Speaker A:But it is very much of a part of our progress.
Speaker A:And what you'll see in the upcoming episode is where this leads us into, is that you end up experiencing some loss of certainty that you once had.
Speaker A:It was so clear at that time.
Speaker A:And so a lot of times people will experience a faith crisis or a personal crisis at this point in time.
Speaker A:And what shows up is our attachment styles that I talked about earlier.
Speaker A:Feeling abandoned and looking for some direction from somebody, or looking for a playbook, or looking for some ladder that I can continue to ascend, to get closer to God, rather than offering my heart and all of its nastiness and all of its wonder and being there, being present.
Speaker A:The Catholic Church has a much richer, it seems to me, at least, traditions of contemplation in sitting in God's presence.
Speaker A:And we get so taken in the evangelical world with believing the right thing that we don't take care of our hearts.
Speaker A:And you can easily make that distinction by three different words.
Speaker A:One which has been very much of a stalwart pillar in the evangelical world is orthodoxy.
Speaker A:In other words, believing the right way, believing the right things.
Speaker A:Those are all built on biblical doctrine, built on practice, built on tradition, all of those things.
Speaker A:The second thing is orthopraxy, which is right practice, practice of taking the things that we believe and then engaging it and putting it into some applicable form or some seeable form of whatever.
Speaker A:The only thing that is left out in our conversations is what I would call orthocardia.
Speaker A:In other words, a right heart.
Speaker A:And David talks about all you have to do is go to Psalm 51.
Speaker A:And David talks about the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart.
Speaker A:And that's the very thing that leads to this orthocardia that I'm talking about.
Speaker A:So this is.
Speaker A:This is at the front end, this stage is very exciting.
Speaker A:It's very productive.
Speaker A:It feels like we're making a contribution.
Speaker A:And at the back end, we end up potentially not always.
Speaker A:I'm not saying this happens.
Speaker A:Everybody, a lot of people, it does.
Speaker A:We get burned out by ministry.
Speaker A:We would never blame God for that.
Speaker A:But then we don't deal with the emotions that we actually have about contractual thinking.
Speaker A:And that's usually what at the tail end of this stage starts showing up, is we have created an if, then with God.
Speaker A:If I serve faithfully, if I obey correctly, if I do things, the way you want God, then you need to come through.
Speaker A:There needs to be blessings.
Speaker A:I need to see some evidence of that.
Speaker A:I'm being rewarded in some way.
Speaker A:Now that surfaces.
Speaker A:That's underneath there.
Speaker A:And quite honestly, I think we would rather choose productivity over presence because at least then I know that God is rewarding me for what I do in productivity presence.
Speaker A:God says, I won't save you.
Speaker A:He doesn't quite say it that way, but Jesus basically promises, we are going to have tribulation in this world.
Speaker A:Hearts will still break, bones will still break, but in the kingdom of heaven you will have my presence.
Speaker A:And that for most of us, if we are being bluntly honest, we would say, well, that's not a enough.
Speaker A:I need proof your presence isn't enough and you need to do better.
Speaker A:And we'll never say that out loud.
Speaker A:I'll say it because I'm one of those people, but we'll never say it out loud.
Speaker A:And that's unfortunate because it's not like God can't handle it.
Speaker A:Not to mention he knows what you're thinking already and the point of saying it out loud is to drag it into a relationship with him.
Speaker A:It's just like prayer.
Speaker A:Prayer isn't.
Speaker A:Some people say, well, why pray?
Speaker A:He knows what I want anyway.
Speaker A:The point isn't you praying and God delivering.
Speaker A:The point is his presence and your intimacy with Him.
Speaker A:That's all.
Speaker A:And God knows that when we put things into words and we make them public, we are now in them.
Speaker A:When I study about things or I know something about things, I'm not necessarily in them, but I'm committed to them when I speak them.
Speaker A:And that's very much a part of this stage that we're talking about and the tail end of it.
Speaker A:It really creates a catalyst for movement and either a choice to redouble our efforts, which takes us back into stage three, or our willingness to accept the vulnerability that is ours in being human.
Speaker A:And that's very much a part of it.
Speaker A:So that's it for today.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker A:Sgi-net.org that's the home for the SGI community.
Speaker A:You have questions, feel free to DM me on Instagram or send me a comment from the website.
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Speaker A:And the only communication you will have from us is maybe a monthly ish newsletter that gives you an update on the things that are happening and the dates and times that our retreats are happening.
Speaker A:We are going to have two retreats this spring, not three.
Speaker A:I thought we were going to have three, but that's really not going to work out.
Speaker A:And so we will have three, two retreats this, this spring.
Speaker A:And perhaps there will be other things that come up during the summer.
Speaker A:And that's where you're going to find out about it is through that newsletter that comes out.
Speaker A:It's called Outpost Updates.
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Speaker A:I'm hoping to do a.
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Speaker A:Mitch M I T S C H so don't forget the S there.
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Speaker A:So there's that.
Speaker A:And that helps us in a lot of different ways to accomplish the goal and the vision of SGI or Stained Glass International.
Speaker A:There's also merchandise on the website.
Speaker A:It is sgi-net.com store and there are window stickers to promote what we're doing on the podcast here with a Latin phrase essay, quam videri, which means to be rather than seem.
Speaker A:And so we will continue our Spiritual Journey series here and probably have a little bit of a mini series within that as well.
Speaker A:If you prefer to send us a physical check, you can certainly do that.
Speaker A:Just send it to SGI, P.O.
Speaker A: , Eastlake, CO: Speaker A:So that is it for today.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for joining me and as always, love you later.
