Unhurried Living

The greatest priority in the kingdom of God is simple and straightforward. Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:30).” That sentence will not surprise a single one of you listening.

But, in my own experience of the Christian life, it has often felt like we majored on loving God with our minds over loving God with our souls, or hearts, or physical strength. We’ve often valued the right ideas over the right sort of heart or fruitful practice. Today, we’ll talk about how we might experience a more creative way of living our lives in God. 

Our guest today is Amy Pierson  and we're chatting about her recent book Makers in a Thinkers’ World. She writes at the intersection of neuroscience, spiritual formation, creativity and lived experience. She speaks from a long journey with Jesus in these practices and disciplines. 

AMY PIERSON is the founder of Burning Heart Workshops (a soul care ministry) and former executive director of the Spiritual Formation Alliance. A writer, speaker, artist, mom, and Gamma of two, Amy lives in the Denver area with her hilarious husband, Bill, and their ridiculous golden retriever.

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

In Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies, she shares the story that led her to take the leap into her own faith journey. It was the story of Abraham and Isaac that caught her attention. The reality and authenticity of Abraham's belief and trust in God's provision compelled her. It led me to ponder and process that moment in Abraham's life. This is where we’re headed today on the Unhurried Living Podcast.

And these are some of the questions we will be addressing: 

If we place ourselves in Abraham’s place, what level of trust might emerge from our own deep place? How far would I go in sacrificing that which I hold most dear? 

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

Sometimes, anxiety rises in my thoughts, emotions, and body as an overwhelming wave. I’m tempted in moments like that to let myself be overcome, whether by allowing anxiety to immobilize me, to chase me away from what God has given me to do, or even to drive me to ways of working that seem to be only thinly aware that God is with me as I work. 

I’ve been learning that over time that anxiety became embedded in my mind, my emotions, even my body. But I’ve also been learning that the peace of Christ can displace anxiety in me. I can learn to let the peace of Christ protect me from anxious worry in the midst of my many concerns. And I wanted to share with you what I’ve been learning, and more about what I wrote in A Non-Anxious Life. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

Spiritual growth is often sparked by great love or deep pain. But so much of our world conspires to keep us too busy to feel loved or to pay attention to our deep feelings. We want to grow, but we aren’t always aware of the points at which God is inviting us forward. We need mentors and tools that will help slow us down to notice God with us, and to see where we may be welcoming the grace of God in our lives and where we may be resisting God’s initiative and work. 

One tool that has helped me immensely over the years is the Enneagram. It’s become rather popular in the church in recent years. My guests today, Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, have written an important book that unpacks this tool titled Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith: Growing Emotionally and Spiritually through the Enneagram. I really appreciate how they make the Enneagram understandable as a tool for growth. 

Bill and Kristi have been counseling and ministering to people for thirty years. Bill is a psychologist who has served in private practice, co-led a New Life psychiatric day hospital, and pastored churches. Kristi is a marriage and family therapist who has also served in private practice and church ministry. Together they are the founders of Soul Shepherding, a nonprofit ministry to help believers discover their next steps for growing in emotional health and intimacy with Jesus.

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

One-third of our waking lives is spent at work. Work is where we make culture and come into contact with our world. Work is central to God's mission to redeem souls, systems, and structures. And God works through our work to bring hope to the brokenness of our surrounding culture.

The way of Jesus Christ is good news for the world, and that includes the transformation of our ordinary work into a sacred calling. Ross Chapman and Ryan Tafilowski show how work is a way to love God, serve our neighbors, and live the ways of Jesus. With a broader understanding of God's work in the world, we are able to engage our daily work as part of how God makes all things new.

Ross, co-author of Faithful Work: In the Daily Grind with God and for Others, invites you to reflect on the meaning and purpose of your life's work and to transform your work into service to those around you.

Ross Chapman is the CEO of Denver Institute for Faith & Work. He previously founded and served as president and executive director of For Evansville in Evansville, Indiana. He holds a doctorate of ministry in faith, work, economics, and vocation from Fuller Theological Seminary. He lives in the Denver area with his wife, Candace, and their three sons.

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

We’re living in anxious times. I don’t hear anyone saying otherwise. And many feel utterly overwhelmed and powerless against the flood of anxiety that fills our hearts, our minds, our news feeds and our social media communities. 

Two weeks ago my latest book, A Non-Anxious Life, was released. The more I talk with leaders about soul hurry, the more I realize that a very common variety of it is anxiety. I know anxiety has driven a lot of my own work over the years. That kind of busyness may look impressive, but it hasn’t born good, lasting fruit. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

1990 was a momentous & tragic year for me. Sadly, it was the year my dad passed away. His was a traumatic and life-altering death. I was just 26-years-old. 

Unfortunately, my dad’s death was just the beginning of a five-year season of loss. So much to experience by one so young. 

Today, I’ll be sharing with you my journey of loss and how God met me with great grace.

Abiding video referenced in episode.

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

At the turn of the century, Billy Graham said, "I believe that one of the next great moves of God is going to be through believers in the workplace.” In the last few years, I’ve witnessed a powerful work of God’s Spirit in and through men and women who are living their faith in their places of business. 

We are always leaning into the question, “How do I integrate my life of faith and the work of my life? How do I lead from deep-rootedness in God? How do I learn to receive from God all I need to do my work well?” Today, I’m speaking to Barry Rowan, author of The Spiritual Art of Business. It’s the fruit of a life lived in deep communion with God in the context of significant business leadership. 

Barry Rowan is a Harvard Business School graduate who spent his entire career serving in C-Suite roles. He has been instrumental in building and transforming eight businesses, primarily in the technology and communication space, with one selling for $10 billion. His leadership experience spans both private and public companies, including Gogo (the inflight connectivity company), Vonage, Nextel Partners, and Fluke Corporation.

Deeply immersed in Scripture and the classic spiritual writers, Barry is deeply committed to contemplation and prayer which led him to complete a month-long silent retreat immediately following his retirement from a full-time executive career. His friends have dubbed him a “corporate mystic.”

Barry is married to Linda, his wife of over forty-two years, and they have two adult sons. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

I love every part of our church's opening prayer and today I share about the importance of this prayer as well as the multiple sermons that emerge from the truths tucked within. 

Eternal God, heavenly Father, with great joy we thank you for graciously accepting us as living members of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and for feeding us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace and mission, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you and others with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Specifically, I want to focus on the ending. Particularly this phrase: “…grant us strength and courage to love and serve you and others with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord.”

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

“Anything you could do in anxiety, you could do a lot better in peace.” That’s something Dallas Willard said. And it became one of the seeds that grew into my latest book with InterVarsity Press: A Non-Anxious Life: Experiencing the Peace of God’s Presence. It has been the most personal and most difficult book I’ve written so far. And it releases tomorrow!  

I wonder what your anxiety has been like over these last few years. I have to admit that this has been one of the most anxiety-provoking seasons of my life. So writing this book was not a theoretical research project. It was a personal quest for life lived with the Prince of Peace at the center of it. I’m grateful to be able to share with you what I’ve learned.  

This episode is a look at A Non-Anxious Life in a conversation with Michael John Cusick of Restoring the Soul.  Welcome to the Unhurried Living podcast.  

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

There’s one more week until we’re back with the next season of Unhurried conversations at the intersection of spiritual leadership and soul care.

And I have great news! Gem is coming back to the Unhurried Living Podcast. We’re talking about this today and we look forward to sharing what’s up with the Unhurried Living Podcast

I want what Jim has.

This is the phrase 17-year-old Alan, my husband, uttered as he made one of his first moves into the Christian life.

I have always loved hearing Alan share about the first time he went forward in a church to receive Christ. I’ve heard this story multiple times and I’m always struck by how simple and heartfelt Alan’s desire was. We’ll talk more about this today…

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

One of our great concerns at Unhurried Living is caring for the souls of leaders. And one of the ways we focus on this is by helping leaders learn to care well for their own souls. It’s too easy to become so busy with work we believe God has given us, but not enjoying the life that God has given us. 

There are so many good spiritual practices that can help us care well for our souls. That’s why I’m pleased to have Barbara Peacock as our guest today. She is the author of Spiritual Practices for Soul Care. We had a very encouraging conversation about 40 practices she recommends in her book. 

Barbara Peacock is a spiritual director, author, teacher, and preacher. She is the founder of Barbara L. Peacock Ministries, committed to developing disciples through prayer, spiritual direction, soul care, mentoring, and teaching. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. 

Today, I’m sharing the last of four episodes on the theme of rest. If you haven’t listened to the first three, I encourage you to go back. These have been some of the most important episodes I’ve offered in our six-and-a-half years as a podcast. 

As we continue to navigate so many changes that have come to so many of us in these last few years, I wonder how tired you feel inside. I’m not talking about the sort of tired that a nap would resolve or a good night’s sleep might address. I’m talking about a deeper tired—a weariness of soul. 

I’ve found myself wrestling with weariness at levels that has often surprised me. My wife, Gem, and I have both had to be far more intentional about finding the deep rest our souls need from God. In this episode, I’ll share what we’ve been learning. I’m hopeful you’ll find it helpful. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. 

I’ve been a reader of the New Testament for forty-five years now. I’m still grateful for the wisdom and life guidance I find in those pages. Checking my current favorite NIV Bible, I realize that the New Testament takes up 225 pages. That’s about the length of many of the books I talk with authors about on this podcast. What I mean to say is that it isn’t as big as I sometimes imagine.

And I realize is that I can easily get into habits, even ruts, when it comes to how I understand what I’m reading in these pages. 

That’s why I’m glad to share my recent conversation with Dr. Scot McKnight about his recent translation of the New Testament called The Second Testament. In reading through familiar passages in it, I found myself challenged and awakened to the New Testament in quite a helpful way. I think you’ll find what he shares about this translation to be very life-giving.

Right after my conversation with Scot, my wife, Gem, and I have a brief conversation about our experience of The Second Testament. Be sure to stay with the episode for those thoughts. 

Scot McKnight serves as Julius R. Mantey Chair of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. He is the author of many books, including Reading Romans Backwards, Pastor Paul, The King Jesus Gospel, and commentaries on James, Galatians, and 1 Peter. He is also the coeditor of the Story of God commentary series and general editor of the forthcoming second edition of the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters.

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. 

They say that authors often write books that they themselves need. That has certainly been true when it comes to what I’ve written about Jesus’s rhythms of work and rest. I have a deep-seated efficiency and productivity engine inside me. 

While this has often served me well in my work, it has also gotten in the way when it comes to entering into God’s gift of rest for me. It still feels like a discipline to stop producing and to simply embrace rest. When I do, I experience the grace and kindness of God. But it’s still often a challenge.

Today I am talking about the counterfeits of true rest when it comes to our work and our relationship with God.

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. 

I have long been a great appreciator of the writings of Eugene Peterson. I realized recently that one of my first introductions to the idea of an unhurried life was from his book The Contemplative Pastor. I still have my 1989 hardcover edition of that book. It it, he has a chapter in which he invited pastors like me to become an “unbusy pastor.” I’m grateful for a full shelf of his books that have taught and mentored me over the decades. 

But recently, InterVarsity Press released an expanded edition of one of his early books titled Traveling Light: Galatians and the Free Life in Christ. I couldn’t believe there was a Peterson book I’d failed to find and read. It’s a beautiful exposition of Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia on the theme of Christian freedom. 

And today, I have the joy of interviewing Eugene Peterson’s son, Eric, who is also a pastor and was willing to talk about this re-released title.  Eric E. Peterson, a native of Maryland, is now a Northwest transplant, having lived in Washington State for the last thirty years. He is a village pastor of the Presbyterian church he founded in 1997. His first book, Wade in the Water, represents a pastoral perspective on the power of baptism to lead people more deeply into a sacred way of life. Peterson has a home in the woods just north of Spokane where he lives with his wife, Elizabeth and three children.

My first book, An Unhurried Life, which was published over ten years ago, had this as it’s subtitle: “Following Jesus' Rhythms of Work and Rest.” Knowing what I know now about our great cultural struggle to rest well, I might have changed that to: “Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Rest and Work. It’s not that rest is more important than work. It’s that real rest is so neglected these days. 

And many of us are feeling our need for real rest more today than perhaps we ever have. Getting better sleep, setting aside a day a week not measured by productivity or accomplishment, even guarding some weeks each year to really rest is something most of us still struggle to do. 

Today, I’ll share seven reasons we don’t rest well. They aren’t theoretical for me. They are reasons I’ve struggled with entering into the gift of rest that God has always been offering me. I hope some of these will ring true to you as well, and just might help you move through some of these resistances, misbeliefs and challenges to a place of deeper rest of body and soul with God. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. 

It’s been nearly 45 years ago that I attended a jazz concert sponsored by a Sacramento area church. I was invited to it by my boss, Jim. I had been working for him for a year or two at the Magic Tunnel Car Wash. It was at that concert that Jim’s life, shaped as it was by his love for Jesus, came to make sense to me. When someone asked me why I’d come forward at the end of the concert, my answer was simply, “I want what Jim has.” 

It was that simple focus on Jesus in Jim’s life and in that little community that drew me into a new way of living and, eventually, into the vocational focus of my life. And refocusing on Jesus along my journey has been what has renewed me, even revived me, when my life began to feel heavy, or wayward, or empty. 

All of this is why I’m so happy to be talking with Todd Hunter, my bishop and my friend, about his new book What Jesus Intended: Finding True Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion. Doesn’t that title speak to where so many of us find ourselves these days? 

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Todd Hunter is the founder of The Center for Formation, Justice and Peace. He is past president of Alpha USA, former national director for the Association of Vineyard Churches, and retired founding pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Costa Mesa, CA. He is the author of many books, including Christianity Beyond Belief: Following Jesus for the Sake of Others, Giving Church Another Chance,  Our Character at Work and Deep Peace. He writes a weekly newsletter, The Gospel of the Kingdom, that you can find on Substack. Todd also happens to be my bishop and my friend. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. 

The theme of today’s episode has been fermenting in my thinking and in my rhythm of life for a while now. In fact, I’ll be sharing four episodes this season about rest. Today, I’m going to share some ideas about how exactly might we cultivate a good rest ethic. It’s something with which we’re much less familiar as a culture than a good “work ethic,” but it’s just as important. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website.