Photo by Unsplash / Priscilla Du Preez
When a pastor and his congregation found that their practice of daily Bible study was not working for them anymore, they adapted their spiritual formation.
Female divers off the coast of Korea often hold their breath for several minutes at a time. When they emerge for air, they first exhale, emitting a distinctive cry, and then breathe in. Image from LisaSee.com/Financial Times
Korean sea divers exhale before they inhale, modeling a crucial pattern for sustaining the Christian life: exhaling for rest before inhaling for work.
Sister Jane Meuse, Elandria Williams, Rachel Plattus and Sister Lorita Moffatt gather for conversation during a residency in which young adults lived at the Sisters of Mercy's convent to learn about their way of life. Photo courtesy of Nuns & Nones
A six-month convent residency in California gave a group of millennials a window into communal living and discipline.
Cover detail from "Tracking Down the Holy Ghost" by Frank T. Griswold
An ancient prayer helps today’s Christian leaders remember that God is already with us in our work, blessing, guiding and teaching us, writes a managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
Before reciting her vows, Sister Joanna kneels before Sister Anne Marie, superior of Valley of Our Lady Monastery. Photos by Kevin Clark
After years of discernment, a young Catholic woman enters the monastery -- and a life of prayer as a cloistered nun.
Bigstock / Illad Papp
When the author doesn’t have words for prayer, she pulls out flour and leavening. Her hands transform the ingredients and express to God her lamentation and her hope, her fear and her joy.
Bigstock/De Visu
Becoming a certified yoga teacher has deepened her connections to her evangelical Christian faith, writes the director of campus access initiatives with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA.
The Last Supper fresco by Leonardo da Vinci. Circa 1490s in Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
Arranging people in a room is holy work that requires managing power dynamics, cultivating crucial conversations and caring for people’s comfort, writes a managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
Bigstock/PHOTOCREO Michal Bednarek
Reframing the pastoral sabbatical as a journey for the entire congregation can diminish resentment and help make regular periods of renewal a part of the Christian life, writes the director of the Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Programs.
The author's prayer beads are crafted out of blue stone beads from New Hampshire, a Russian bead from a friend and beads from one of her mother’s old necklaces. Photo by Jessamyn Rubio
Praying with beads provides a steady discipline -- a shape and a frequency for a life of prayer -- and a tangible tool that fixes our attention in a world of so many distractions, writes a managing director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.