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Mike, thanks so much for the opportunity to ask you some questions about your book and Dallas Willard more generally. From the perspective of a practitioner, one thing that has always stood out to me when reading Willard or watching old videos and audio recordings of him is that he seemed to have a very healthy God-image. So, I have a few questions for you related to God-image.   

 

SCD: In Chapter 11 you mention that Willard doesn’t have a view of total depravation, but instead he speaks of the human heart as deprived of God. In working with ministers, I find that the idea of being depraved can often stunt spiritual growth and promote unhealthy models of discipleship. I have found Willard’s imagery of a heart deprived of God, not depraved, helpful. It prepares the way for an interactive relationship with God. In your own work and ministry, do you see a connection between Willard’s sense that we are deprived of God, not totally depraved, and healthier models of discipleship?  

MSR: In my work I haven’t seen the same stunted growth or unhealthy Christian living coming from teaching on depravity. That may be a matter of a different context. I have seen some people who have been told by their culture, “You’re awesome” and “All you need to do is believe in yourself,” express relief to learn of depravity, as they could finally say, “Oh that’s what’s wrong with me!” Sin isn’t part of the contemporary culture’s vocabulary. And part of working in the soul health field is correctly diagnosing problems. Dallas wanted to produce a t-shirt for people to wear around the USC campus with the message “Practice Safe-Sin.” 

Now ministers may be an isolated case because they’ve been taught about the diagnosis “sin” in some less than helpful ways. I’ll skip the theology lesson but I do think that God is often less concerned about specific sins we’ve (recently) committed than he is about whether we are now seeking to live with and from him. As Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” So think of your current day’s schedule with that verse in mind. Are you going to do your regular life “through Christ who strengthens you” or are you going to do it on your own? 

So then building on that, what can you do to live this day more from the strength of Christ? You’re going to pray, talk to God. Ok, that’s a start. But then, how do you pray more? What kinds of exercises will you need to grow in your ability to live in the strength of Christ?  

SCD: Thanks Mike. If I am understanding you correctly, it sounds like you’re saying that Willard’s use of “deprived of God” is not so much about his trying to rethink “totally depravity” as it is about shifting the emphasis from one’s sin to a practice of “dependency” on God. I think what you’re saying is that for Willard healthy discipleship should emphasize practicing dependency on Jesus rather than “sin management?”  

MSR: Yeah, let’s flesh that out a little bit. Dallas thought that depravity or sin was a matter of corruption – your soul, your mind, your will, etc. are each dysfunctional and they don’t work together. We get into that state because we were built to live with God, built to live with a constant flow of God acting in our lives (aka grace). But we don’t live that way, we are deprived of God to such a degree that we are dead to Him, as the Bible puts it. Since Adam and Eve, it has been such that we are born into a life without God. And as innocent as a baby might be, that deprivation is going to lead to profound corruption. So everybody is going to be in need of regeneration, a reentry into life with God. 

So when Dallas points ministers or anybody to dependency on God, he is addressing the problem from a positive side. I think that’s our most powerful approach. We fill our lives with God and restore the connection. We may need some concentrated focus on sins, addressing the problem from the negative side. But I think too many people get caught up in not-sinning that they forget about God. And it’s like, “Maybe if I don’t sin, I won’t even need him.” Christian formation becomes a self-help program. 

SCD:  I primarily work with pastors and leaders who have suffered childhood trauma and who are living with a malformed god-image from too much emphasis on the “negative side,” as you say. As adults, this can manifest as compulsive performing that is driven by fear of disconnection from God. Childhood trauma survivors often associate a felt sense of disconnection from God, self, and others as punishment and evidence that something is inherently wrong with them. This can be due to how childhood trauma is internalized as shame; “It was my fault,” “I am bad,” “I am not enough,” etc. This can actually be a psychological defense mechanism of the child to maintain connection with their attachment figures (i.e. mom, dad, family system, and God). They learn to compulsively perform away the shame. 

As I have been working to develop a trauma informed spiritual (re)formation model that is based on 12-Step spirituality, I have discovered Steps 1-3 address the “god of my misunderstanding.” I come to understand a God whose goodness, depending on your theory of atonement and how you are reading Genesis, was never separated from me or dependent upon me internalizing an idea that I am depraved. Rather, I admit that I am powerless to fix the problem. It is the trauma, generational dysfunction, and sin that has buried the goodness of God that is at the core of my being, and has disconnected me from my ability to perceive it. Then, I am ready for Step 4 (fearless moral inventory). 

From the “positive side,” we find that we are unburdened from conditions of attachment that tie us to a core belief that we are utterly depraved, and we learn to receive his love as a free Gift in the parts of ourselves that have been deprived of connection to his unconditional love.  

For this reason I’ve appreciated Willard’s vision of deprivation, and this back and forth has really helped clarify my own thoughts on this. Now, on to another God-image (garden) question . . . 

 

 

SCD: Similarly, in Chapter 12, you mention Willard’s sense that God never denies or withholds knowledge of himself. Instead, Willard stresses our tendency to hide or to deny ourselves of God. I find some of the deepest formation and healing comes when we come out of hiding, and we are able to be honest with God, ourselves, and others. However, this process can be very scary, especially if the hiding has served to promote or protect the false self (ie. the minister hiding behind performance or perfectionism). Often leaders aren’t honest until their lives reach a point of crisis (moral failure, rock bottom, burnout, etc.). So, I wonder, does Willard (or do you) have any insight into how a believer comes out of hiding? A more direct question might be, is a person in hiding capable of initiating this process? 

MSR: I think in the ministry there is a lot of isolation that congregations impose on their ministers and ministers in turn impose on themselves. Why do I point the finger at congregations? Because often they are the ones looking for measurable results or at least for well-maintained programs that they can come to or send their kids to. So what they look for when they hire a pastor or leader is someone who can deliver those things to them. That sets up a situation in which performance is the bottom line. And ministers accept that when they take up these positions. I don’t think it changes much whether you’re in a more stage-style, Hillsong-esque church or in a more liturgical, let’s-hear-the-choir-now church, whether it’s 80 members or 800 members. 

Even for ministers in that performance-based situation, I think there are some things that can be done. One is to recognize it. Second is to recognize that your personal formation and healing probably isn’t going to come from that church or your work in it. Third is to find some ways to overcome the isolation which your job is imposing on you. This means finding some soul friends that you can be honest with, friends probably outside the congregation. If you can’t be honest with them, keep looking. Honesty means, among other things, you can confess your sins to others. It is good to get comfortable with those kinds of relationships as soon as possible in your career because sin, bad habits, weights and burdens of various kinds have a way of building up and getting so heavy that there isn’t any other option than to choose a different, less-demanding line of work. It is the same for lawyers, doctors and other professions as well. But the tie into one’s livelihood is what can create a vicious cycle involving more hiding, more isolation. Fourth I think the first step with a performance-based congregation is to explain that you need this kind of thing as a leader and need time for it. Maybe you even have to do it on your own time but the congregation should know that it’s important for you.  

I find that most leaders do have a sense that “their own stuff” (sin but not just sin) is something that they should deal with. But it can be difficult to find others who are going to be soul friends or even a spiritual father/mother (a pastor!). I’ve opened up to people who weren’t really capable of saying anything helpful but who nevertheless acted like they knew what I should do. I’ve heard some awful stories of misguided people trying to “keep others accountable” or “heal” them. Fortunately, I’ve been spared that. I think a little hesitance and a little trial and error is necessary. Just because one person wasn’t a great soul friend doesn’t mean you should wall yourself off and return to the isolation. Or give up on church! 

I know Dallas had some people that he could be honest with. Not many. And they died before anybody could interview them. So we don’t know much about that part of his life. 

SCD: Thank you, Mike. As a former full-time minister, I agree that the role of pastor comes with expectations of the congregation and also breeds isolation and the need to find healing and formation in safe spaces. I have seen some pastors proceed through the recommendations you have made in your response as a way to dethrone performance and sustain themselves in their ministry context. On the other hand, I have also witnessed leaders performing to the expectations of the congregation or leadership so compulsively that it requires the same kind of intervention as someone who is codependent with an addict. I know Willard has said, “Historically, the AA program was closely aligned with the church and Christian traditions, and now it has much to give back to a church that has largely lost its grip on spiritual formation as a standard path of Christian life. Any successful plan for spiritual formation, whether for the individual or group, will in fact be significantly similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous program” (Renovation of the Heart, 84-85). I’m curious how you think Willard’s theology or understanding of the 12-step model of spiritual formation might help pastors arrest a compulsion to perform, and encourage a congregation to remove the pastor from their center of worship? 

MSR: You’re right. It might not be the congregation that’s fixated on performance. And it might be a mutual co-dependent relationship.  

I think what Dallas had in mind with the similarity between AA and our plan for spiritual formation is that we need to isolate problems (places of corruption, see above) and deal with them in concentrated, structured ways. And I think he wanted to see small groups formed around character issues. Groups for negative character traits like envy and groups for positive ones like joy. There would be a leader who was further along and not struggling on the same level as the rest. He didn’t think these groups would need as long as AA to see results. For example, maybe a person could complete two such groups a year! I don’t know. 

So I can see something like that forming around performance on the pastor’s side and, on the congregation’s side, around celebrity-worship, leader-worship or liturgy-worship (which is a real thing). Of course, if it has gotten to the level of addiction and co-dependency, that will take more than the announcement that a small group is starting. That will take some serious whistle-blowing, longsuffering leadership and corporate confession and contrition.  

But assuming things aren’t quite that bad, we certainly need to talk more about this in sermons and seminars. That presupposes that somebody has gotten free of it and can talk about these things without hypocrisy. Eugene Peterson was always somebody like that for me. There will be a lot of hard work in just naming these thoughts, feelings and behaviors, in helping people catch them when they are happening. After that the small groups can start. But I think another strategy is to break routine. For ministers, there are some assignments in ministry which do not lend themselves to ego-stroking. I am in a pretty tough ministry context in Europe where accolades and attaboys are pretty rare. Spend some time in a place like that where nobody cares what you do for Christ and people are actively indifferent to it.  

There’s a discipline of secrecy that Dallas championed. We can and should find times when we can give our time to something good that nobody knows or cares about. 

SCD: Wow, Mike. I really feel you. I too moved to Europe and ministered in a post-Christian country. I brought missions teams over from America to serve the homeless, addicted, prostitutes, and abused. I found myself crumbling under the pressure to serve up an experience that was flashy and emotionally gratifying. The truth is, there was no measurable amount of change in those to whom we ministered. Root issues of addiction and trauma, and perhaps spiritual formation in general, doesn’t seem to work that way. At the end of our time together we were all faced with the question, is Love enough? For those we ministered to, for us, and for the people we shared our “results” with back home. I also think this question is at the root of what we are talking about here. If pastors want to break free from performing to meet the expectations of their congregation and the world around them they will have to confront that question for themselves as well. 

“Is Love enough?” is a question I was introduced to, but wasn’t really ready to process at the time. Like the Anglo-Irish poet and philosopher David Whyte speaks of in his poem Denial, perhaps we can only hear and confront those deeper questions of our soul when we are able to bear the weight of them psychologically, spiritually, relationally, vocationally, and even physically. A question like that can reveal that I actually do not believe God is in control, or that he cares enough to be involved in the details of my life or in the lives of those I serve, so I must perform to earn my security, self-worth, and purpose. Coming to terms with why I believe those things about God and myself is a process we have to be ready to embrace. 

This leads me back to my original question, “Can a pastor initiate a process of coming out of hiding from behind performance and perfectionism?” All I can say is, there was a time when compulsive performing kept me alive in full-time ministry. My performer persona kept the pain of my unresolved trauma hidden behind my performance so I could do my job and provide for our family. Until, a new traumatic event blindsided me and it was beyond my capacity to deny or hide the pain any longer. I was in crisis. I could finally see how insufficient my efforts really were at performing away my pain, and that trying to perfect my life was actually making it “unmanageable” (Step 1).   

It is beautiful to look back and see that it was Jesus that initiated that process three years prior when he first asked the question, “Is Love enough?,” and how he prepared me to look deeper when the time was right. That brings me so much relief moving forward in my own spiritual (re)formation journey and in my ministry. His Love is enough to find us on the road to Emmaus going seven miles in the wrong direction (Lk. 24:13). It is enough to rescue us in the belly of a whale when we demand our own way (Jonah 1:17). And, it is enough to bear with us as we process our regret and failure in light of his resurrection on the shores of what could have been (John 21). 

This frees me from the idea that I am a “Higher Power” for my congregation or myself. Since you brought up Eugene Peterson, I heard him say once, “We are not our own spiritual director.” This right-sizes the performer part of myself, and orders my ability to perform around Christ which in turn allows me to pastor in a way that is in alignment with how Christ pastors us, and that is actually Good for God’s people. 

Lastly, your suggestion of a “mutual co-dependent relationship” between the congregation and the pastor, with groups forming around performance on the pastor’s side and, on the congregation’s side, leader-worship, really sums up the overarching vision for the ministry work that I do. I appreciate you helping me assimilate Willard’s ideas of what might be helpful for us moving forward and for your ideas as well.  

Now, I’d love to transition to a question about sustainability in leadership, and how we are meant to care for our humanity in the example of Christ. 

 

 

SCD: In the conclusion you say that the gospel according to Willard is a person, Jesus himself. In working with ministry leaders, burnout happens when we “spiritually justify” a lack of care for our humanity. Perhaps it is a stretch, but do you see a connection in Willard between Jesus’ personhood and the affirmation of human dignity and or care of self? 

MSR: There are two sides of this, are there not? There are times when it seems like the world is on top of us, when it seems like God has forgotten our humanity. The Psalmist in Psalm 118 says, “They surrounded me on all sides.” And later, “I was pushed hard so that I was falling.” And finally, “The Lord has disciplined me severely.” And it is in those times that the personal nature of the gospel is important. I mean the idea that Jesus himself comes to us and asks us to put our trust in him. I talk about this in those last chapters of the book, about, for Dallas, how Jesus comes to us not, as he did in Galilee, with an eye color and a shoe size but in his ascended reality. I want to say “spiritually” instead of “ascended reality” but we sometimes hear “spiritually” as not really. No, he really does come and meet us. “For he knows our frame,” says another Psalmist, “He remembers that we are dust.” That’s the gospel. 

But then the other side of this is when we forget our humanity. We are “pushed hard” but the one who is doing the hard pushin’ is we. It’s like we don’t have any hardship coming at us so we start to make some up for ourselves. And we become our own enemy. I think this can come about in ministry leaders for a number of reasons. I think there is one angle that can see this in ministers as a striving for immortality. We are dust but we’re trying very, very hard to make our dust live on forever. You see that in pagan leaders, right? Caeser, Pharoah, Babel? And that’s something Dallas thought was embedded in the human soul – a longing for transcendence, for higher things, for more. There’s one answer to this which is to say, “Hey, you’re not immortal. So chill out.” That’s the message of Ecclesiastes, is it not? “For all is vanity and a striving after wind,” so sit down and enjoy what you have.  

But Jesus comes to us personally with another answer in which he says, “Give up striving for immortality. You can’t make your dust immortal. Come with me and I’ll make you live forever. Immortality is a gift. I’m giving it to you. So relax. We have eternity to get work done and enjoy life.” That’s the gospel. 

I’m sort of vacillating here between channeling Dallas and giving my own answer. But this is something which Dallas really helped me with and is really, really good on. Better than almost anyone. 

SCD: Thank you, Mike. I like the idea of bearing in mind that we are dust, and remembering that our striving could actually be “meaningless” (to use your Ecclesiastes reference). What a challenge for us ministers to balance this perspective with the reality that we were created out of dust in the image of God, and that Jesus thought our dust, or our humanity, was eternal enough to embody for himself. How might Willard encourage ministers to “remember their humanity” in their active lives of ministry? Perhaps there are more passive spiritual disciplines Willard would suggest to help balance or order the active life of ministry? 

MSR: Agnes Sanford, a loose and distant mentor for Dallas, would sometimes say after one of her healing missions (i.e. multi-day seminars), “Well, we’ve worked hard here. I, for one, am going to go home and work in the garden.” And she would, straightaway. Gardening was her hobby and not really work for her in any sense of the word. Dallas did gardening too in his younger days but he also liked to work with wood and build and fix things on his property. He didn’t really have a classic hobby unless you count singing (which he did in a choir for a while) or reading. He read for his job but he also loved to read and study. That’s how he became such an autodidact – just out of a love for reading.   

In his two-week retreat for Fuller Seminary’s DMin he gave a lecture or two on the importance of work and play for ministers and by work he meant something other than your ministry job (see here). He meant things like building stuff around the house, making good things or helping children. I once asked Jane Willard about how Dallas played and she humorously said, “That’s one where Dallas thought you should do as I say and not as I do.” He didn’t really play. Or at least he didn’t play as some people need to play. Reading a 500-page book outside of his discipline might have been play for Dallas. For other ministers, they better leave the 500-pager at home and go out and play golf. Or hang out with the youth group. 

The young Dallas who believed “it is better to burn out than rust out” and the mature Dallas aren’t exactly role models for us. I’m divided, as I said in The Kingdom among Us, about how the mature Dallas spent his time. A friend of Dallas’s was trying to get him to exercise regularly. Dallas thought he didn’t need it because he regularly would do physical work around his property. And this friend challenged him, saying, “Dallas, work isn’t exercise!” Well, yeah, if you are a full-time construction worker, work probably is exercise and you can skip the treadmill at night. For the rest of us, maybe we need a different rule of life. 

So I think Dallas was striving for the right balance; he was teaching about its importance. There is a notable difference in his messages when he is well-rested and was actively enjoying the Lord. But I think there was room for improvement. Eugene Peterson tends to be a much better role model for pastors. 

Let me, however, add this as a person who isn’t a workaholic, who has always been more of a type-B personality and who doesn’t find play difficult. Having that kind of personality won’t make the discipline of solitude easy. You still need to clear your schedule to spend time with the Lord. You have to shut off the series you want to stream or cancel the bike trip with friends in the mountains. Just because you’re not going to “burnout for Jesus” doesn’t mean you’re going to live a life with your mind filled with God and be able to do the right thing when it needs to be done. 

SCD: Thank you, Mike. You mentioned how difficult it is to hold to the practice of solitude as a type-B, non workaholic, personality. I think those who are predisposed to compulsive performing can also find it difficult to practice solitude, stillness, etc. because of the emotions that tend to come up. In the earlier stages of spiritual maturity there can be a lot of emphasis on manipulating the exterior life to effect change in the interior life. Emotions like anger, grief, sadness, and anxiety can be indicators that something needs to be done on the outside to change or fix them on the inside. This can look like “religious scrupulosity,” “spiritual bypassing,” and ultimately “spiritually justifying” violence against one’s own humanity. Active spiritual disciplines, in this case, can perpetuate compulsive performing. I think it is better that I “burned out rather than rust out,” as Dallas put it, and that my crisis became the catalyst for my journey of spiritual (re)formation.  

In hindsight, I think my “crisis” was simply an invitation to go deeper with God into intimacy with him. Which is nothing more than what Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and more modern writers like Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich, Gerald May, and Barbara Brown Taylor illustrate as the journey to more mature stages of spiritual growth. They all talk about descending into a season of darkness or a “dark night of the soul” where we are stripped of our ability to control our spiritual outcomes. We can’t think, strategize, or manipulate our way out of darkness, we must learn how to feel our way through the dark.  

For my ministry demographic feeling can be scary, overwhelming, and sometimes difficult to do without intervention. Trauma has a way of altering the nervous system and inhibiting our ability to feel and establish a sense of connection with God, self, and others. Thanks to trauma experts Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Francine Shapiro, and Stephen Porges, to name a few that have impacted my work, we know that trauma is “stored in the body.” Therefore, emotional regulation, balancing the nervous system, and re-establishing a felt sense of connection with God, self, and others needs to happen through the body. 

Play, like you mentioned, nature, yoga, walking, pottery, spending time with a pet, cold plunging, and massage are all useful in helping us process the emotions that are stored in our body. Over time, passive spiritual disciplines like silence, solitude, stillness, simplicity, contemplation, spiritual direction, praying the hours, and receiving communion can help arrest a compulsion to perform. I love yoga classes, monastic retreats, and hiking pilgrimages in particular because you experience the benefits of co-regulation, amongst other neurological miracles, while also practicing the passive spiritual disciplines. 

In conclusion, I’ll harken back to the quote you mentioned by Dallas’s mentor, Agnes Sanford, “Well, we’ve worked hard here! I, for one, am going to go”…play in the park with my dog now (I really am!). Thank you so much, Mike, for the privilege of this dialogue and all that I have gleaned from your hard work and study of Willard’s theology and spirituality. God bless you in the “secret” ministry (referring to Dallas’s discipline of secrecy) you are devoted to in Europe and beyond.