S3 Episode #19- Lori Shoults
THE ONE WITH LORI SHOULTS
This week we are excited to welcome Lori Shoults to the show! Lori is passionate about gathering people, curating resources and creating spaces for people to journey into deeper knowing of self and God. Lori has served on the Practice team at Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, IL for the past six years. She helped to create and for three years served as the program coordinator for the Spiritual formation Certificate Program through Moody Bible Institute.
Lori is trained in spiritual direction and the Enneagram-- both things we love to chat about here at Collected! For the past few years she has been working to develop The Ignatian Journey: A Contemporary Approach to the Spiritual Exercises, a 32-week online experience that launches this Fall! In this episode, Lori shares some powerful truths about who we are in The Lord!
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Questions to ponder in spiritual growth
Where does your strength come from? Where does that lead you with The Lord?
You have a story and your story matters to the Kingdom of God.
You may know a lot about God, but are there things that are keeping you from connecting with Him on a deeper level?
Spiritual growth takes place when both God and self are deeply known. It is knowing in your head that God loves you and experiencing it in your heart.
Often there is a disconnect between holding joy and pain together.
“You can’t numb emotions selectively.” - Brene Brown
When you are attempting to numb your pain or disappointment, you will also numb the moments of joy. Shutting down the negative can also keep you from recognizing the sin patterns in your life and inhibit full healing and freedom.
Digging deeper
Start with these questions…
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
How are you going to get there?
What stands in the way?
Collage work-- create a collage to represent each of those questions
Read Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Hailey Barton
Lean into new practices like solitude and silence . Don’t run from the silence, even when it feels uncomfortable.
The Ignatian Exercises - a path for spiritual growth (self-discovery + God discovery)
Recognize God’s unconditional love for you.
When you encounter the true love of God, you tend to feel unworthy. You recognize your limited response. You see God’s grace, love, and mercy as you move through the life and ministry of Jesus in the Gospels.
The journey to the cross allows you to partake in the suffering of The Lord.
The resurrection life.
Sharing in His Suffering + Seeing God’s Goodness Through Pain
God gently woos us into trusting Him and His goodness. When things are painful, how does it fit with God’s love for me? God is inviting us to trust Him is all of the good and all of the hard. God shows His love in all things-- even the painful and hard things that we wouldn’t choose on our own.
The painful things can allow us to recognize His love in deeper ways.
The Paschal Mystery (Ron Rolheiser, The Holy Longing)
Good Friday = The loss of life
Holy Saturday = The waiting
Resurrection Sunday = The reception of new life
After the resurrection, Jesus says to Mary, “Don’t cling to me.”
Sometimes we have to let go of where we have been with The Lord in order for Him to take us to a new place.
40 Days between Easter Sunday and the Ascension/Pentecost-- Let go of what has been to make room for what God is doing that is new. This is a time to readjust for what is new and grieve letting go of the old. A time for learning how to grieve well.
The Ascension= Letting go of the old and allowing it to bless you, the refusal to cling to what has been
Pentecost= The reception of new Spirit for the new life that you are living
Final Thoughts
We are all broken, but we can spend most of our lives avoiding our own brokenness. Don’t shy away from coming face to face with your own brokenness. This could be the very thing that God uses to take you to new places and show you new parts of His character and His deep love for you!
Take time to grieve what was and hold space for receiving what is new.
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Thank you, as always, for listening! Please remember that everything we do is funded by those who benefit from our ministry, whether they be Patrons or event attendees. Our ministry a 501(c)3, so your contribution is tax-deductible.
Our events are centered on worship, restorative creativity, and designated time for reflection, evaluation, and setting intentions.
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know who they are in Christ + understand their purpose as Kingdom cultivators can do!
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The Collected Podcast is a production of Collected Ministries, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping disciples of Jesus discover and live from their true identity in Christ, recognize and walk in their divine purpose within the Kingdom of God, and experience growth in their capacity for mature, healthy relationships.
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The Collected Podcast is produced by Jes Biondo and edited by Jacob Early. Cover art designed by Ben Biondo.