 Good afternoon. Welcome to all who have joined us today for our third Thursdays. I'm Janine Bertie Johnson. I serve as director of alumni as well as director of campus ministries and admissions counselor. I'm very glad to have you all here today. Just a couple of housekeeping details before we get started. I'd love to have you introduce yourself in the chat. You can say your name and maybe what years you were at AMBS, maybe where you're from. But remember to send that to everyone, not just to the host and panelists. And if you have a technical concern at any time, you can send a note to the AMBS host webinar host. And if you have a comment or question for Dan, you can use the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen. Just hover over the bottom. You'll see Q&A and you can type that in there. I'll be watching for those questions and comments and choose which ones that I asked Dan. Please note that the webinar is being recorded, including that time of conversation at the end. So turning now to our conversation, Daniel Schrock is a core adjunct faculty member at AMBS teaching spiritual direction courses. He is also the curriculum specialist for the Doctor of Ministry program at AMBS. Dan is an alum of AMBS and received his MA in theology from Chicago Theological Seminary and his Doctor of Ministry in 2007 from Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia. He also completed a certificate in spiritual direction, and that was many years ago, and a supervisor training for spiritual directors. Dan started teaching spiritual direction courses at AMBS in 2013, and in 2022 was named as one of the leaders of the D-Men program. He served as a pastor for 30 years, beginning with one year at Lombard Mennonite Church in Illinois, then 11 years at Columbus Mennonite in Ohio, and 18 years at Berkey Avenue Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana. Dan will start by answering several questions that I have prepared for him, and then we'll have time for your questions and comments as well. So Dan, thanks for joining us again today. I know you and Joel joined us last year to talk about the D-Men program when it was brand new, but this is a time to learn more about you personally and not just the program. So what would you like to tell us about yourself as an introduction? Well, thank you for having me, Janine. It's good to be here. Some people might think I am a bit quirky, and they would be right about that for all sorts of reasons. For example, I love silence, solitude, and simplicity. I love contemporary Christian music, as long as it was written before 1750. I make my own granola. I am not a big fan of desserts, and amazingly, my best friend still seems to want to be married to me. I'm not really asking about other things. So I'll just say that I'm a spiritual director and supervisor of other spiritual directors. I teach the craft of spiritual direction. I also teach a course at Fordham University in New York City, and I help out here at AMBS with the Doctor of Ministry program. I used to be a pastor, but I'm retired from that. Actually, the things you shared earlier were exactly the kind of introduction we like to hear. We like to know a little bit about your life beyond AMBS, so that's great. Dan and I also happen to be neighbors, so we sometimes see each other out in the neighborhood. You like to walk a lot. I know that. We can testify there is indeed life beyond AMBS. Yes, yes. So we always start with this question. Can you tell us a story about a time or a couple of times when you experienced God in a powerful way? Well, the other day in class, this would be the introductory spiritual direction class, we were talking about spiritual direction in the life of congregations. And one of the things I said was that I experienced God more often in one with one spiritual direction or individual spiritual direction than I did in any other expression of pastoral ministry. In fact, I'm aware of God almost all the time while I am offering spiritual direction while I'm meeting with someone. In the spiritual direction, I get a front row seat to watch the drama of God doing great and wonderful things in the lives of other people. There's almost no other place in congregational life where that happens in the same way. There's Jeanine, those are confidential conversations so I can't give you a, or it would be very difficult to give you a specific illustration, but just to say that that's kind of an ongoing theme in my experience of being a director. So for me, God is most often a gentle ongoing reality. To use a musical term, the reality of God is like an ostinato that keeps playing under the surface of things. I love that. And what attracted you to be part of the AMBS community? And I know you did some of your studies here before you transferred so you can speak to that, what attracted you to be a student, but also what attracted you to work at AMBS? Or I mentioned that I'm quirky. Another example of that is when I was in high school. Somehow I don't recall how I procured a copy of the AMBS catalog, which back in those days was always in print form. In those days it's mostly online. I spent hours drooling over the professors I could learn from and the courses I could take and we just paged through that lovingly. I wish that I could just skip college all together and go straight to seminary. Well, as life turned out, I never did get a degree from AMBS, although I did take courses here and I am considered an alumnus. About 15 years ago when Arthur Bowers, who was then a professor at AMBS, suggested that maybe I could teach a little bit at the seminary. Perhaps he saw an interest in me or some gifts, I don't know, you'd have to ask him. But when he mentioned that, I hardly dared to dream of such a thing, even though in fact I had been dreaming about it for decades. Nevertheless, it all came to pass and here I am was much gratitude for the opportunity to have been teaching at AMBS. Teaching, for those of you who have done it, teaching takes enormous work. But it is essential for Anabaptist Mennonites to have a biblical theological center that nurtures our identity and mission. And I don't think we can do that without a denominational seminary. Okay, well, I definitely have to ask you some more questions later about what made you drool over the catalog, because I would love to have some young people now who do that, but maybe we need to get that hard copy out in people's hands. So, tell us more about the spiritual direction practicum and the courses you teach that are part of that. Sure. At AMBS we have three courses on spiritual direction, I teach all of them. The spiritual direction practicum, and depending on how you take the course that might be called spiritual direction foundations. This is our introductory course for people who are interested in becoming spiritual directors. You can take that as part of a master's degree or a graduate certificate, or if you already have a seminary degree you can take it as a continuing education course. It's the same class, by the way. The best introductory literature on spiritual direction, you begin meeting with directees, you receive supervision for your work, and we explore important topics in class related to spiritual direction, like spiritual discernment, prayer, and so on. In this week's class, which happened on Tuesday, we talked about the dark night. We also offer two advanced courses, they are called spiritual direction wisdom and spiritual direction mystery, the wisdom course will be taught this coming year. And in these courses, you continue meeting with directees, receive supervision for your work, and we explore more advanced specialized topics in spiritual direction. For example, in the advanced course, one topic we will explore is creation spirituality, which many people are interested in these days. And in fact, in my own practice over the last, as a spiritual director over the past almost three decades, I see more and more directees who are, what sort I want, they are, they are getting life, spiritual life, because of their connections with creation. Now, you can take any of these three courses, wherever you live, as long as you are fluent in English and have a good computer with a strong internet access, it actually doesn't matter where in the world you are. We blend students together in the classroom on campus with students from other places. And so these days, most people in my courses are not in the classroom at all. They're at home. So just to clarify, you mentioned that next year you'll be teaching one of the advanced classes. Do these courses alternate or do you always teach the introductory course each year? The introductory course is offered every year, if something we have enough students. And then we offer the advanced courses in alternating years. So you could be teaching two courses at the same time, if you have enough students. Okay, I wasn't sure how that worked, so that's great. And we've already gotten a question ahead of time from Sally Shreiner-Youngquist. Thank you, Sally, for sending that in, but this seems like a good time to ask that question. And she's wondering, how has the world of spiritual direction changed since you... Well, no, this is a question you wanted to ask. We'll come back to Sally's question later. I'm sorry. You had suggested that you might speak to how the world of spiritual direction has changed since you became a spiritual director. I received my initial training in spiritual direction in 1996 and immediately started offering direction in my congregation, so I was a solo pastor in those days. Back then, the standards for becoming a spiritual director were comparatively low. You could complete a short training program, and if you wanted to, you could market yourself almost immediately as a spiritual director. Some training programs back then were just a week or so long, while others happened over the course of a year. This is a program that I took lasted for three years, but a lot has changed in the last 28 years. For example, in 1996, we knew more or less how to do individual spiritual direction. But frankly, we didn't know very much yet about how to do group spiritual direction. Some people were doing it, yes, but it had a kind of experimental quality to it. That's changed, and now we understand much better how to do both group direction and individual direction. So the quality of what we're able to offer is much better than it used to be. A second change that's happened is that the standards for being a credible spiritual director have increased significantly. In contrast to three decades ago, we now have a code of ethics to guide our conduct, which is a good thing. When I did my initial training, there were no codes of ethics. We barely talked about ethics at all, but now this is an important part of our work as spiritual directors. If we directors want to advertise our services these days, and yes, advertising is not, some people might cringe without word, but you can choose another one, but that's essentially what it is. We want to advertise ourselves. It's now almost mandatory that we have a website. Because when people are looking for a spiritual director, that's one of the places they look first on the internet. Another thing that's changed is that spiritual directors are setting up business structures that didn't used to happen. Probably the most common business structure now is an LLC or limited liability company that would be in the United States, and then buying insurance to protect themselves in the event of a lawsuit. Well, these things cost money and to pay for them we need to have more than just a handful of directees. The third switch or change is that the best practices for supervision have also gone up. Longer ago it was common for Mennonites in particular, but for many other spiritual directors as well, to meet in peer supervision groups with other spiritual directors. The advantage was that it was cheap. All you had to pay for was the mileage to travel to a meeting. The disadvantage was that probably no one in the group had any training in how to supervise, so the quality of supervision was low to average. That older model of peer group supervision is still being practiced. It's still better than nothing. It still is blessing people and helping us to be good spiritual directors, better spiritual directors. But now, but it is no longer the gold standard. The current gold standard is to join what we call a facilitated supervision group where one person is formally trained in supervision and then leads or facilitates every group meeting. The other gold standard alternatively is to meet with an experienced individual supervisor who also has formal training. And then the fourth thing, and this is the last thing I'll say in response to this question, the fourth major change is Zoom. 30 years ago we met direct ease in person while we were sitting together in the same room. The only exceptions to that, and they were rare, was to meet someone on the phone or to correspond with them by letter, or if you were an early email adopter, maybe by email. And we still do those things, of course, but then the Internet Zoom and COVID came to town. And now it is perfectly ordinary for spiritual directors and directees to meet each other, regardless of where they live. My own spiritual director and my own supervisor both live in California, and obviously we don't meet in the same building. That's pretty amazing to think about all those changes. Now tell us a little bit about your role with the Doctor of Ministry program. Well, I began in 2022, as Jeanine said earlier, as the co-director of the this degree program, along with Jules Gehrich-Lominecker. Last fall I asked the seminary to change my role. I recognize that Jules, unlike me, surly knows competency based education, which is the pedagogical model that we are using for this degree. Jules knows competency based education really well because the PhD which she completed at Andrews University in Michigan used that same approach. So she kind of knows this from the inside out. So we agreed that AMBS would make me more of an assistant to Jules. And then the academic dean gave me the title of curriculum specialist, and then Jules became the director of the degree. So in this modified role as curriculum specialist, I do a variety of things. Last summer, for example, I did some conceptual writing on being, which along with knowing and doing are crucial for every leader to grow in. So at AMBS we talk about leadership having the necessary components of knowing, doing and being. And I worked a little bit more to think about the being part of that. Last fall I revised the demon student manual in light of things we've been learning over the first year of the program. And right now I'm reaching out to selected persons across the United States and Canada to see if they might want to apply to the program. So you do a little recruiting too. I do. All right. Say more about the work you did to develop the being aspect of that. What, what all did you draw on to, to expand that beyond just knowing about being. Does that make sense. Oh yes, sure. So one of the things we notice, Joe and I is that in the master's degree programs. Probably we are emphasizing more the knowing and doing and this is for really good teaching reasons because this these are for these courses are for people at the front end of their ministry careers and they need to know some things, right. There's just no way to get around that you need to know how to do good exegesis. You have to know something about the history of Christian theology and so forth. And we are in the business of training pastors and other leaders. So they also need to know how to do some things like how do you preach. The knowing and the doing get a lot of air time in the master's degrees for really good reasons. Not so much the being part. And it's just a hunch genie is that the being, most of us in most of us in ministry are become more interested in the being parts at about mid life. It is about ethics. It is about character, but more fundamentally it is about an ongoing relationship with the Trinity. And so one of the things we started working on last summer was to say, hmm, we are a biblical seminary. How about we go to the Bible. Yeah, I know. Let's go to the Bible to find out more about being. And so we landed on the fruits of the Spirit that Paul names and Galatians and the Beatitudes in Matthew five. And we're using those as kind of foundational guidelines, if you will, for what being is all about. Of course, I'm using my own work as a spiritual director to work on these notions of being because, frankly, that's one of the big things we talk about in spiritual direction. Your life was God. And this year, for both the second year cohort and the first year cohort, you did an introductory teaching session that kind of grew out of that, I believe, and it was focused on desire. Can you share a bit about, I don't know, why you landed on desire as the theme that you would address and what kinds of, what kinds of things did you learn as you prepared that session for the demon students and maybe as you led them through it. So the Western Christian tradition and the tradition of Western Christian spirituality, I should say, so this is a European Western European spirituality since the fall of the Roman Empire will say a number of key Christian leaders, including Augustine and many others whom we could name, have tagged desire as the engine of the spiritual life, the engine that takes us into a deeper relationship with God. So this desire, of course, starts from God, it originates in God, is given to us as a gift, and then we respond to God's desire with our own desires. So in spirituality, one of the, and again, this is Western spirituality, one of the things we have often said is that when we can identify our deepest desires. So let's think about the layers of a casserole. We've got the superficial layers on top, you know, the things we want some food we want, we might want a nice yard we want a car that works decently and that we can rely on. Superficial things. But as we dig down, we get into more substantive desires. And somewhere there at the bottom is the heart of God's desire for us. So when we can identify that, then we can start to engage God in mission, in relationship and in mission, more freely in the ways that God wants us to engage more often. Now the caveat here is that this is a Western, a Western notion. I was recently speaking with James Cravel, who's a Missiologist, works at AMBS, lived many years in various places in Africa, mostly in East Africa, or is that West Africa, or Iber Coast. At any rate, James said, man, you know, the Africans that I know wouldn't talk about the deepest desires. They would say your deepest desires are the more evil, sinful ones. So, you know, we have some, some language issues here, but we might rephrase this to say the desires which are the most authentic, the most Godlike, we can find other language for that. Thanks. So what are some of your current research interests? Yes. This is again going to sound quirky, probably, but my current research is learning to read and pronounce Middle English, which was the variety of English spoken in England from about 1150 to 1500. In the 1300s and 1400s, England experienced a flowering of great spiritual writers, including Richard Rohl, Walter Hilton, Marjorie Kemp, the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and Julian Norwich. My immediate goal is to read Julian of Norwich carefully in her original Middle English. And then to prepare an article about her as a spiritual director. So far, I have not been able to find an article that anyone has done like that, at least in the English language. And I want to see what I can come up with maybe for publication. And after that, we shall see where this foray into Middle English literature takes me. That sounds really interesting. What is a dream you have for AMBS? When I began teaching at AMBS in 2013, people who wanted to take a spiritual direction course had to come to Elkhart and meet together in a classroom. Back then, teaching was actually easier. I gave students paper handouts, and we used chalkboards. The only technology I had to worry about was making sure I had enough chalk. Those days are long past. Now we use the technology of computers and internet to connect with people like we are today. So I might have class members who are sitting in any number of states or Canadian provinces all at the same time. And this means that before every class meeting, I have to set up the technology to make sure it's working correctly. And usually that means two computers, mine and the one that's in the classroom. And getting those computers to talk to each other can be interesting sometimes. We're distributed electronically. And in these days, this is a recent phenomenon, but these days I even have students who live in this area in Elkhart or Goshen, but choose to join class by Zoom. They never come to campus. Well, this is just one of the new phases of seminary education. Another new phase for AMBS is our high number of students in other countries around the world who never come to the United States. And again, this has happened since I started teaching 11 years ago. It's technology. So the downside of this one downside is that for teachers, that means we are always dealing with technological glitches, which takes extra time, can cause some aggravation. But I celebrate these things because now we can offer training to people who cannot come to Elkhart or to the US. And I hope this continues. That's I guess my dream is let's just keep doing this because I think it's blessing us. And frankly, we need to do it. Well, speaking of dreams. Now we'll get to Sally's question. Sally remembers you telling of a significant dream you had about caring for cows. Sally helped point you toward the ministry as a vocation. And she's wondering if you could say something about how spiritual directors work with dreams and helping their directives interpret them. Thank you, Sally. Sally Schreiner-Youngquist for that question. Yeah, and it's good to be in touch with you today, Sally. So, yes, I used to, I did not only have one cow dream. I had probably a hundred of them. I am not exaggerating. And yes, they did help point me to becoming a pastor about 40 years ago when I was still struggling with that question. In spiritual direction, the person's dreams can be one way that God communicates with us. This of course is something that the Bible itself testifies to. But one guideline about dreams is that they always point us to more life. God is always using them to invite us to take another step forward into more of the life that God wants for us. Even what we experience as a nightmare does this. So in dreams, there is always good news somewhere. It's like a good sermon. If you're going to preach a good sermon, you should tell good news somewhere. Well, dreams do something similar to that. However, a good director will not tell the person what the dream means because only the dreamer can really do that. A director can be a compassionate, contemplative companion and the director can ask evocative questions about the dream so that the dreamer is able to come to the meaning for themselves. And we almost always, when the dreamer gets to the core gift of the dream, there will be an aha moment, like a light bulb going off and they'll say, ah, yes. And dreams actually love to pun. They make puns frequently. So one place to kind of walk into a dream is to inquire, hmm, might there be an unhear somewhere that it's, that is trying to open up something for me. And I'm sure you can teach a whole course just on that, right? There'd be so many different ways people have worked with dreams and spiritual direction. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the advanced courses we do have a session on dreams. Okay. Here's another question from now on Serato. You mentioned that you experienced God in one to one meetings often. And he wants to know, do these encounters affect the way you see God and yourself and change sometimes the way you make decisions or teach a class. And he notes some of the spiritual encounters, like Peter and Cornelius meeting one another or Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman and declaring God is spirit or Job, saying my, my ears had heard about you but now my own eyes have seen you. Thank you now and for that question. Yeah, it's a good question now. What I would say is that yes, when God shows up in a spiritual direction session that I'm doing with someone else. Often, not always, but often, there will also be a word or a message or an invitation for me. It affects me, perhaps, over the long term. Now, I don't talk about that in while I'm meeting with this person. No, I just bracket that or if you will, I take that and put it on a shelf somewhere. Jeanine's got a shelf behind her. It's a great image. I put it up there on the shelf knowing that I can come back to it later. And I might talk about it with my wife. Not that I would talk about the direct D or the direct these issues with my wife but if it's my own material I can talk with her about it. Or I might talk with my supervisor, or my own spiritual director. So I don't do that in the session of the person but sure. I do talk about who taught the spiritual direction courses before I did used to say is something like the fact that one of the things you learn is a spiritual director is that the direct these issues will often touch your own issues. Thank you. And we're glad to have Marlene joining us today. Doug obstates is noting as a graduate of the CAC living school. I find we as Anabaptists have so much in common with the CAC slash Franciscan mystic contemplative practice and action. We're aware a way that ambias can collaborate with the CAC in spiritual teachings or collab cooperation. We're all part of the quote minority report in Christianity and I feel we need all the connection and collaboration we can get. Thank you Doug for that question. I don't know what the answer is I've never thought about that before, and I don't recall anyone else ever mentioning that possibility. So, yeah, maybe, but I have, I don't have much to say about that right now. How much have you engaged with the materials that they put out and do you feel like that like Doug does that they are. There's some things that we can learn from one another. So that part sure. Absolutely. I have read Richard war some, not all these books. And of course he's coming to. He's getting quite elderly at this point. And I do sense, yes that there is a great deal of overlap or affinity that we would have with an organ with a group like the Center for action and contemplation. I think it's not just the Center for action and contemplation. It would also there are also other groups in the US and Canada that we would have some affinities with. I, for example, have decided to join. Tom, I should say a come all the leaves Benedictine oblate. I'm attached to the monastery of the risen Christ and Christ in San Luis Obispo, California. And in the Maldives tradition we talk about three values three core values. And solitude and service. Well the first and the third ones of course sound very very comfortable for a good and a Baptist Mennonite. We believe in community, we believe in service, but it's the solitude part that is not, it doesn't quite get so much attention in our tradition, but it certainly is in the come all the leaves tradition, and I'm learning from them. That's why I joined. That's why I became an oblate. So I am looking to see if there's any final questions from the group that's here. One more has come in so theology seems to be a subject with unlimited expansion in terms of the different practical applications that communities find in the biblical text. This reflect on the practice of spiritual direction and does this expansion anyway increase the need for direction. Thank you Friedbert August for that question. Ah, Friedbert. Okay. Yes, yes. All right, well, um, when I went to seminary the first time so this was a Chicago theological seminary which is loosely in the reform tradition. One of the things we were taught how to do is constructive theology. Meaning that we construct a theology that we know some things about the history of theology and the themes of theology like creation and salvation and redemption and all that sort of thing. But the constructive approach is to take what we know about theology and apply it to this current situation. You could also call it incarnational theology if you want to, but you, you construct a theology that is meaningful for the situation with the context that you are in. And absolutely, that is sort of what we do in spiritual direction. The caveat of course is that spiritual direction is not about not about we don't talk. The purpose of spiritual direction is not to talk extensively about theology, but I and the director can use what we know about the Bible and theology to inform and enhance our conversation and make it. Incarnational for this person. Well, thank you so much Dan for answering these questions for giving us some windows of insight into what you're doing at ambias and we're so grateful for both of your roles here. Thanks to all of our alumni who joined us today for your ongoing support of ambias. I say this all the time, but it really is true that you are most important influencers, both in terms of identifying others who might come to ambias. And if you think of someone you'd like to suggest that to please let us know so we can be in touch with them. And also in your financial and prayer support of ambias. These, these things are so critical and to remember to stay in touch with us via the church leadership center and its offerings. If you haven't checked out yet the practical leadership trainings, those are just really wonderful opportunities as well as the short courses and next week is pastors and leaders and I know many alumni are coming for that. So we're grateful for your ongoing participation. Remember that as a graduate of ambias if you're graduate you get the option of having a discount on audits. So if you're interested in taking a class this summer or next fall, you can talk to me about that as well. Next month on March 21 our third Thursday conversation will be with Deanna Risser, who's our chief financial officer. So hope you can join us again to hear some of the things that you might not be aware of in terms of what goes on in the behind the scenes roles at ambias. Thanks again for joining us today and thanks to our student Janet McGarry for being our AV technician. And I hope that you have a wonderful day. This concludes our third Thursday program for this month. Thank you.