Conversatio Divina

About

We pursue spiritual formation through learning, application, and communion with Christ and others.

Our resources span the teachings of Dallas Willard, Ignatius of Loyola, and Ancient Christianity, as we seek to engage a ‘divine conversation’ on what it means to follow Christ. By this process, we become active participants in our spiritual lives.

Willard is renowned for his teachings on spiritual formation, and his presence has rippled through the lives of Christians worldwide. In seeking Christ through the spiritual disciplines, he has brought simplicity to a range of complex ideas, inspiring not only knowledge, but action.

Timeline

1919
1921
September 4, 1935
1935-36
1936
1938
1938-39
1939-40
1940
1941
1944
1946-51
1946-51
1946-51
1952
1952-53
1953
1954-56
1954-56
1954-56
1955
1956
1956
1957
1957
1958-59
1959-64
1962
1963-64
1964-65
1965
1964-65
1965
1965-69
1967
1969
1970
1971
1977
1969-84
1980
1981
1982
1982-85
1984
1984
1984
1984-2012
1985
1985
1988
1989
1989
1990
1990
1996
1996
1997
1998
1998
1999
2002
2002
2002
2003
2003
2003
2004
2006
2009
2009
2010
2010
2013
May 8, 2013
2018
2019
2020
Previous
1919
Maymie
1921
AA and Maymie
September 4, 1935
Birth: Buffalo, Missouri
1935-36
Lived in rented house close to downtown, Buffalo, MO
1936
Moved to a small farm on “Greasy Creek,” near Buffalo.
1938
Mom dies when Dallas was two and a half years old.
1938-39
Lives with Uncle Author and Aunt Bessie in Dora, MO
1939-40
Moves back to Greasy Creek and then to Wood Hill (“Myrtle’s farm”) after Albert marries Myrtle Green Fair.
1940
Starts school early to be with his brother Duane and his sister Fran. School is in Woodhill, MO.
1941
Moves in with JI and Bertha Willard in Rover, MO, and attends Bales Elementary
1944
Conversion under the ministry of Ross C. Carter at Buffalo Baptist Church
1946-51
Moves back to Rover, MO with JI and Bertha primarily, and also with his paternal grandparents Joseph and Susan Rhoda Spurlock Willard
1946-51
Dallas in Elementary School
1946-51
Dallas and classmates at Bales School
1952
Graduates from Thomasville High School at age 16.
1952-53
Migrant worker in Nebraska, Colorado and Idaho.
1953
Student at William Jewell College, Liberty, MO.
1954-56
Student at Tennessee Temple College, Chattanooga, TN; graduated in 1956 with BA in Psychology
1954-56
Tennessee Temple Basketball
1954-56
Dallas and Duane
1955
Marries Jane Lakes, Avondale Baptist Church in Macon Georgia
1956
Taught School and Pastored Thomasville Baptist Church, in Thomasville, MO
1956
Ordained
1957
Birth of John Willard
1957
Baylor University, Waco TX; BA in Philosophy and Religion in 1958 and completed some graduate classes.
1958-59
Warner Robbins, GA. Taught High School Literature and served as music director and associate pastor at Avondale Baptist Church.
1959-64
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
1962
Birth of Becky Willard
1963-64
Advanced Knapp Fellow
1964-65
Instructor in Philosophy at UW
1965
Received PhD from UW
1964-65
Served as the pastor of Arena Wisconsin Congregational Church and for a second smaller congregation
1965
Began career at the University of Southern California
1965-69
Assistant Professor USC
1967
Publication of first philosophy article: A Crucial Error in Epistemology
1969
Visiting Professor, UCLA
1970
Meets Richard J. Foster
1971
Studies in the Book of Apostolic Acts: Journey in the Spiritual Unknown
1977
USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching
1969-84
Associate Professor USC
1980
First major Christian Publication, “Discipleship: For Super-Christians Only?”
1981
The Disciple, the Disciplines, the Triumphant Life
1982
Dallas teaches a series on knowing the will of God at Woodland Hills Presbyterian Church which becomes his first book in religion In Search of Guidance, later retitled Hearing God.
1982-85
Department Chair, Philosophy, USC
1984
Metaphysics
1984
Visiting Professor, University of Colorad
1984
Publication of In Search of Guidance and Logic and the Objectivity of Knowledge
1984-2012
Full Professor
1985
Spirituality and Mission
1985
Deliverance from the Law of Sin and Death is a series given at Eastern Mennonite College that is directly related Dallas's new book on the theology of the disciplines of which he is in the middle of writing. It was later published as The Spirit of the Disciplines.
1988
Publication of The Spirit of the Disciplines
1989
Life Without Lack
1989
First Renovaré Conference in Wichita
1990
Apologetics in the Manner of Jesus
1990
A Series on What Jesus Believed . . . is the biggest catalyst for Dallas writing a companion volume to his commercially successful book The Spirit of the Disciplines which focused on Jesus' practices. By contrast, this new book will focus on Jesus' beliefs. It was eventually published as The Divine Conspiracy.
1996
Spiritual Formation is a series of talks Dallas gave as a member of a think tank (later called TACT) composed of evangelical pastors, authors and ministry leaders who had gathered at The Navigators' Glen Eyrie conference center to discuss spiritual formation. Though not exclusively, the material is an initial formulation of the ideas which NavPress published as Renovation of the Heart.
1996
From Forgiveness to Blessing
1997
The Ontology of Knowledge
1998
Publication of The Divine Conspiracy & Began Disappearance of Moral Knowledge research
1998
The Redemption of Reason
1999
Science and Our Knowledge of the Human Soul
2002
Publication of Renovation of the Heart
2002
Spirituality and Ministry
2002
Staley Lecture Series
2003
The Knowledge of Christ in the Contemporary World is a series which represents Dallas's increasing concern that followers of Christ did not know how to present their unique position to the Western world. It became the basis of Dallas' new book Knowing Christ Today.
2003
Publication of Dallas’s translation of Edmund Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic
2003
The Contemporary Belief System as Prison, and Jesus as Savior
2004
The Divine Conspiracy
2006
Publication of The Great Omission
2009
Publication of Knowing Christ Today
2009
Launch of the Renovaré Institute, a two-year immersive experience of training people in Christlikeness.

Denver Cohort
Atlanta Cohort
2010
Spiritual Formation and Soul Care
2010
Dallas and Family
2013
Living in the Presence Conference
May 8, 2013
Death
2018
Experiencing Life with God Conference, built around the work of Dallas Willard.
2019
Publication of Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23
2020
Publication of The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge
Next

Content Development Team

Gary Moon

Gary Moon

Gary W. Moon, M.Div. Ph.D. has served as the founding Executive Director of the Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture and the Dallas Willard Center for Christian Spiritual Formation at Westmont College, the founding director of the Renovaré International Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation and as a Founding Editor of the Conversations Journal. He presently directs resource development for the Martin Institute through Conversatio Divina; directs the DMIN program in spiritual direction at Fuller Theological Seminary and writes in areas such as the theoretical and practical integration of psychology and theology and has published and presented over 300 professional and popular papers.

He recently completed a biography of Dallas Willard, Becoming Dallas Willard: The Formation of a Philosopher, Teacher and Christ Follower. His recent books include: Eternal Living: Reflections on Dallas Willard’s Teaching on Faith & Formation (IVP, 2015) and Apprenticeship with Jesus (Baker Books, 2009). Other books include: Falling for God (Shaw/RandomHouse, 2004), and Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls (IVP, 2004). Homesick for Eden (Servant, 1997) and a four-volume family devotion series, The Bible Ride (Servant and LifeSprings).

Gary and his wife Regina reside in Atlanta. They have two grown children.

Lacy Finn Borgo

Lacy Finn Borgo

Lacy Finn Borgo, DMin, teaches and provides spiritual direction for the Renovaré Institute, for the DMin. in Spiritual Direction at Fuller Theological Seminary, Portland Seminary, and the Companioning Center. Lacy has a spiritual direction and supervision of spiritual directors ministry, and provides spiritual direction for children at Haven House, a transitional housing facility for homeless families. She is the author of Life with God for Children, A Curriculum for the Spiritual Formation of Children, Good Dirt: A Devotional for the Spiritual Formation of Families and the forthcoming Spiritual Direction with Children to be published by IVP. Lacy also blogs at GoodDirtMinistries.org. She is a member of the Renovaré ministry team. Lacy holds a DMin. from George Fox Evangelical Seminary and is a graduate of the Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation. She has a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from Portland Seminary. Her supervision training is from the Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA. Lacy lives on a small farm on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains. The rhythms of the earth have formed and shaped her. She currently worships with an Anglican community, but finds something of God in many spaces and places.

Jean Nevills

Jean Nevills

Jean Nevills has been a Spiritual Director for more than 20 years. An occasional adjunct in the Master of Arts in Spiritual Direction at Portland Seminary, she is an instructor at the Companioning Center (companioningcenter.org), and serves on the board of Her Worth International, a women’s economic empowerment ministry.  
 
Jean earned her M.A. in Christian Education from Western Evangelical Seminary, completed Supervisor Training through Together in the Mystery, and is a graduate of the Renovaré Institute for Spiritual Formation, and can now play 6 chords on her ukulele.
 
Northwest trees and terrain ground her in God’s creation; marriage and mothering, business, and community life are her arenas of spiritual formation for living with God in a Jesus way

Regina Moon

Regina Moon

Regina Moon lives in Atlanta, Georgia. For the past 7 years she has assisted her husband Gary with the operation and ministries of the Dallas Willard Center for Spiritual Formation. Her career has primarily been spent at Emmanuel College as Director of Counseling, Director of Service Learning and Vice President for Student Life. She has also served as adjunct faculty in Old Testament and Spiritual Formation and spent a large portion of her time journeying with students, faculty and staff as they walked with God.
Her work with the Willard Center includes leading spiritual formation small groups, recruitment, training and support of group leaders, assisting with retreats, serving as spiritual director for students and staff, and serving as a staff spiritual companion with the Fuller D.Min. in Spiritual Direction. She holds an M.Ed. in Counseling and an M.S. in Practical Theology. Their two daughters, Jesse and Jenna, and their son-in-law, Tom currently live in Athens, GA.

Michael Stewart Robb

Michael Stewart Robb

Michael Stewart Robb is a writer and researcher, living with his family in Munich, Germany. His life’s first academic interest concerned how churches can holistically educate and edify the people in their midst. This interest led him to Dallas Willard’s pentalogy, his five theological books, but also to long-term ministry in European churches where questions of formation are often not discussed. An avid reader, he went on to study systematic theology at Aberdeen, where he later finished his doctoral research on Dallas Willard. Though a theologian by training, he holds that Willard’s philosophy is more valuable and more worthy of attention than his theology.

As of 2022, he has authored two books The Kingdom Among Us: The Gospel according to Dallas Willard (Fortress Press) and Something to Say: A Comprehensive Bibliography of Dallas Willard (Sanctus Press). He is the director of Sanctus, a European institute for theology and spiritual formation and the host of the institute’s video channel and podcast, the so-called Sanctus Forum. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he dreams of playing the guitar really well and touring the world, not necessarily at the same time.

Avo Adourian

Avo Adourian

Avo Adourian picked up his first copy of The Divine Conspiracy when he was twenty-one and has devoured everything Dallas since then. For him, it was a reawakening to Christianity.

Avo is a graduate of the Renovaré Institue: London Cohort.

His roles for conversatio.org include creative direction, branding, UI/UX, and content development.

Avo is a creative director who lives in Orange, California with his wife, Nathalie, daughter, Ella, and son, Paul.

Pam Stewart

Pam Stewart

Pam Stewart is in a part-time research assistant role for Conversatio Divina, working with the organization of audio/text files and transcription efforts for the website. Before this, she served a similar role for the Martin Institute and was the Research Assistant for two years and then Program Coordinator for the Renovare Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation for 8 years. Pam was raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in a Pastor’s home and is a graduate of Emmanuel College with an A.A. in Business. She has worked in ministry as a Pastor’s wife, a College President’s wife, and also in the areas of Accounting and Administrative Support over the past thirty-five years while raising two boys. In her spare time she enjoys reading, cooking and traveling with her husband, Mike.

Ville Kavilo

Ville Kavilo

An ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, Ville is a pastor in the Kronoby municipality in Ostrobothnia. While a theology student at Åbo Akademi University, Ville tested many formational practices while living an intentional Christian community (“Palace of Humility”) and while co-pastoring a church in the Evangelical Free Church of Finland. His master’s dissertation was on Dallas Willard & the Formation of the Body by Love.
He is a graduate of the Renovaré Institute (Santa Barbara Cohort) and has a vocation qualification in entrepreneurship. In addition to working as a parish priest, he works as a photographer (Kavilo Photography), brewer (Kalakka Brewery) and business coach (Grow Business Coaching). He is the creator of the photography magazine WNDRNGS, focusing on pilgrimage and aphoristic art.

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