This summer, I spent quite a bit of time diving into the world of spiritual abuse, church abuse, and narcissistic leadership. And this fall, I’ve found myself in the midst of several conversations hearing about these matters and recommending many of the resources I’ve found. So it seems only logical to me to make a list of what I and others have found helpful.

One bit of advice: Diving deep into these heavy topics takes a toll on the self. I found myself overwhelmed with the information I was consuming and needing to come up for air. My encouragement to you? Take your time. Come up for air. Process the material with people you trust.

Podcasts & Docuseries on Spiritually Abusive Churches & Organizations

• The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill podcast by Christianity Today—This podcast is a lengthy portrait of a church that fell apart in the wake of toxic leadership.
• The Secrets of Hillsong docuseries available on Hulu
• Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets docuseries available on Amazon Video

Books on Spiritual Abuse & Narcissistic Leadership

I have personally read these books and found them helpful…

• A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing by Scot McKnight—I really love this one as it envisions a good church culture and gives some hope to what a “tov” church can look like!
• When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse by Chuck DeGroat
• Something’s Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse—and Freeing Yourself from Its Power by Wade Mullen

These books have been recommended by people I trust, but I haven’t had a chance to read them myself!

• Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church by Michael J Kruger
• The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson & Jeff VanVonderen

Where We Go From Here: How the Church Might Heal

Culture change is needed in our churches! These resources envision what a good church culture might look like…

• “Church After Mars Hill” series on the Transforming Engagement podcast—More than a year after the Rise & Fall of Mars Hill wrapped up, the Center for Transforming Engagement hosted a series of conversations about how the church can learn from the toxic church leadership we see in the news.
• The Resilient Pastor podcast by Barna—This podcast, while not directly addressing spiritual abuse, church abuse, and narcissism, generally addresses how pastors and ministry leaders can lead wholeheartedly, lean into vulnerability, and stay resilient in ministry for the long haul.

By no means is this a comprehensive list! If you have suggestions to add my list, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to email at hello(at)sarahjoaustin(dot)com.

“Pray for me,” I said. “I lack conviction for our work right now.” And I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing this, I thought to myself. I was tired. Tired of pep talks. Tired of traumatizing my friends and family with stories from ministry. Tired of the work ahead of me as much as I was tired from the work behind me. 

It was just three weeks since I had returned from work after Christmas break, and I already knew the pace I was keeping was unsustainable. Red flags were flying freely, but I couldn’t take the time to look up, catch my breath, and pay them any attention because already January had been C.R.A.Z.Y. I had experienced all of these red flags before, and when I did, I took a vacation, doubled down on my productivity hacks, and powered through until the cycle repeated itself. I had done this since high school, and the cycles repeated every year or two. But now the cycles were coming faster and more intensely, and I needed more than a two-week vacation to recover from them.

What is Conviction?

When I articulated that I “lacked conviction” for the frontline anti-trafficking work I loved, I was trying to articulate all the exhaustion, sadness, and hopelessness I felt alongside a general desire to give up. The dictionary will tell you conviction is a firmly held belief or opinion and the quality of showing that one is firmly convinced or what one believes or says. I had lost both: I wasn’t sure I could keep doing the work God had called me to eight years before, and I definitely was losing the ability to keep up appearances that everything was A-OK.

If my description of “lacking conviction” resonates with you, keep reading. If it stirs up resistance within you, keep reading. Both resonation and resistance are powerful informants regarding what’s happening deep within our souls. If you’re experiencing a loss of conviction – about anything – be curious about it now. Red flags only get bigger; they never get smaller. Pay attention to them even when you feel too tired and busy to give them any attention. It’s difficult to observe any situation clearly when you’re in this state, but you must take a step back, observe what’s going on, and start asking hard questions.

What’s Really Going On?

For me, lacking conviction ended up being an indicator of two things: 1) I was burned out with a dose of compassion fatigue from frontline anti-trafficking work. 2) God was beginning to call me away from this work to something else. But lacking conviction could be a symptom of a number of things, and it’s important to consider what might be going on in your life. This is a starter list of what could be going on:

• A temporary high-stress season
• Job assignment creep
• Burnout
• Compassion fatigue
• Vicarious trauma
• Depression
• A dark night of the soul
• Disconnection from God’s vision for your work
• A shift in God’s calling 

Is it just me or does only the last item – a shift in God’s calling – sound remotely positive? None of the others yield any kind of warm fuzzies for me. Even if your loss of conviction is a shift in God’s calling, that’s not going to be easy either. Sorry to be a downer! 

Whatever the cause of your lack of conviction – and we’ll get to some diagnostic helps below – I recommend two things:

1. Start journaling. Write down your questions, doubts, emotions. Write down what is giving you life and what is draining the life out of you. Song lyrics, quotes, Bible verses, or anything else that resonates with you right now, write those down, too. If your loss of conviction is related to any of the items on the above list, your memory may be shot. You may need this journal later to articulate what you’re experiencing now.
2. Find someone to talk to. As a spiritual-director-in-training, I think a spiritual director is your best bet here because they are trained in journeying with others in seasons like this one, especially if this is a dark night of the soul. If a spiritual director is not for you, someone you trust who can listen to you without trying to fix the problem is the next best option.

Other Diagnostic Helps

I love data, and I love any kind of personal assessment that gives me quantifiable data about myself. I found these assessments useful in understanding what I was experiencing and providing language that I could use in conversations with others:

• Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory from the American Institute of Stress
• Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Vicarious Trauma Assessment from the Crisis & Trauma Resource Institute

But don’t stop with diagnostics!! Keep going. Keep wrestling with your loss of conviction until you understand it. And I will say it again: You need someone to talk to about what’s going on! 

Keep Talking

It took me two more months before I reached a breaking point. In those two months, the intensity of my job continued on its upward trajectory, and I was also prayerfully navigating a decision to pursue seminary and a spiritual formation degree. When I began the application process, I honestly believed that I could take classes part-time and still work a full-time job (which I now understand to be utter nonsense!). As God was calling me toward spiritual formation work, I believe he used the intensity of anti-trafficking work, my burnout, and my compassion fatigue to turn up the heat, so I would go. 

(After I gave notice that I would be leaving my job, two of my clients(!) asked if I was in counseling or therapy. Obviously, if one’s own clients recognize that you are not in good shape, that’s a confirmed red flag! Eek!)

In this season of discernment – starting with that loss of conviction prayer in January and ending with my breaking point in March – I sought out conversations with trusted friends, family, and leaders. Some had left ministry for corporate jobs. Some had stayed in pastoral ministry for multiple decades. Some offered wisdom from their work experience. Some just let me vent and cry without offering anything more than their presence. Each conversation was a gift of encouragement. No one was mad that I was considering leaving frontline ministry. In fact, most were excited that God was leading me in a different direction. 

Deep down, I knew it was time to leave frontline ministry and pursue seminary. The loss of conviction I felt was an arrow pointing in a direction I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow, but I ultimately said yes to the new path in front of me. Later, after I gave my notice, a coworker told me that when I had made that “I lack conviction” work comment in January, God told her that I would be leaving. She told him, “God, you wouldn’t do that to us.” And then she told me later, “He went and did it anyway.”

You Are Not Alone

I don’t know what you’re going through or what is at the root of the conviction you’ve lost. So let me encourage you with this: 

• You’re not alone in ministry. No matter how lonely it may make you feel, you are not alone. 
• Pay attention to your lost conviction. Get curious about it. Do not ignore it.
• Don’t let the shame you feel about your lost conviction stop you from talking to someone. I don’t want you to navigate this on your own!
• You are deeply loved, friend. God cares more about this lost conviction than you do, and he has plans to use it. Even if you’re face down in the dirt today, keep your eyes on him.  

Questions for Reflection

• Does the phrase “I’ve lost conviction” resonate with you? Or do you feel resistance around it? Either way, ask the Lord why you feel this resonation or resistance. 
• Have you lost your conviction about something? Can you be more specific about what you’ve lost conviction for? Make your list as long as necessary. 
• Look for when this loss of conviction started. Often when nothing seems wrong, something may be happening. Ask God to bring to mind yellow flags that you missed.
• What came up on those diagnostics? Did the results surprise you? 
• Who can you talk to about this loss of conviction and whatever else is going on? 

Have you ever been in a conversation and found yourself talking about the ministry or church where you lead and inadvertently turned the corner of “Too Much Information” and found yourself talking (and by talking, I mean venting) about the challenges (and by challenges, I mean problems) of ministry? Did you later regret how much you said and how you said it? 

Been there.

There’s a better way, friend.

You need a trustworthy person with whom you can share the challenges you face in Christian ministry. You need someone tending to your spiritual health and development while you’re busy tending to everyone else’s. You need a safe, sacred space to encounter the Lord without all eyes on you.

Who in the world do you talk to?

Might I suggest a spiritual director?

A spiritual director is a partner with you in ministry whose primary role is encouraging your spiritual formation. They are professionals who have been trained (and sometimes certified) to serve as a spiritual companion to others. “Director” is a bit of a misnomer; “friends” or “companions” perhaps better convey their role in your life. They leave the directing to the Holy Spirit! A spiritual director is not going to solve your everyday ministry challenges, but they can hold space for you to explore these challenges with the Lord, provide outside insight into and fresh tools for your spiritual health and growth, and cheer you along as you step out in faith to grow in Christlikeness.

Spiritual Directors Hold Space With You

When you’re working with a spiritual director, you have a time reserved on your calendar that is dedicated to a spiritual check-in. (And you’ve paid for your session, and I don’t know about you, but if I’ve paid for something, I am showing up.) You might arrive at your spiritual direction meeting with burdens that you need to offload, or you might arrive feeling empty and spent. Either way—or somewhere in between—your spiritual director is there to listen to you, listen to the Lord, and invite you to listen to the Lord, too. This dynamic takes the pressure off of you to have all the spiritual answers at the ready. You don’t have to fix anything, solve anyone’s problems, or have it all together. You can be a bit of a mess because this conversation is confidential.

Many times, I have come to my spiritual direction appointment with no idea what I want to talk about, but as my spiritual director and I sit in silence together, God brings to mind what we need to discuss. I will process those things out loud with my spiritual director, and often, as I am talking through the issue, God provides a different perspective that I could not have seen on my own. During these appointments, I often encounter the Lord in ways that I don’t encounter him on my own. Most weeks, it’s a challenge to dedicate time and energy, not to mention finding a quiet place, to spend extended time with God.

Questions for Reflection

• When do you take time to reflect on what’s happening in your life and ministry and to engage with God on these things?
• Do you ever have the freedom to be a mess and not have it all together? Why or why not?

Spiritual Directors Provide Outside Insight

Ideally, your spiritual director is someone who you only know as a spiritual director. That is, you don’t have another type of relationship with them elsewhere. In ministry, we often find ourselves in complicated relationships where our pastor is also our boss. Or a coworker is also our roommate. Or your best friend is also your co-elder. These are examples of dual relationships, relationships in which one or both parties serve multiple roles. On the best of days, you and the other person probably jump roles multiple times without any issue. But in a stressful season or tough circumstance, jumping roles gets complicated, and often the relationship can become the challenge instead of the season or circumstance. 

With a spiritual director you have a singular relationship without any of those complicated role-jumping dynamics that come with dual relationships. They’re just your spiritual director. As someone who is outside your context and relationship circles, your spiritual director can provide outside insight into your life and ministry. They have training and ministry experience that are different from yours and bring a different perspective. 

I sought a spiritual director during my time with a counter-trafficking ministry. I raised my own financial support for that role, and many of my family members, friends, church acquaintances, etc. were also donors. It was difficult to be honest and transparent about my work because few people understood the dynamics of the anti-trafficking world. I never wanted to complain or process the difficulty of work around my inner circles because I felt like I could be putting my financial stability at risk.

Questions for Reflection

• Do you have a relationship that is singular without the complications of dual relationships?
• Is there anyone in your life providing insight from outside your ministry context, denomination, geographic location, etc.?

Spiritual Directors Provide Fresh Tools for Your Spiritual Health & Growth

It’s easy to get stuck in our denomination’s discipleship boxes. And for a period of time, especially as young or immature Christians, we need those boxes to develop our awareness of God, become disciples, and move into leadership. But each denomination has its strengths, challenges, and limitations, so eventually, if we want to continue to grow in our faith, we need to break out of our denominational discipleship boxes. 

For many of us, that means exploring spiritual practices and modes of spirituality that predate the Reformation, that engage the writings of Christian mystics, and consider the outworking of the early church. Spiritual directors have practiced, studied, and been trained in teaching these things to their directees. Early in my spiritual direction journey, my spiritual director walked me through the key components of the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola and provided exercises for me to practice in between our meetings. These practices were totally foreign to me, but they taught me to engage with God in new and fresh ways. 

Questions for Reflection

• What spiritual practices are giving you life in this season?
• What was the last spiritual practice you learned?

Spiritual Directors Cheer You Along on Your Spiritual Journey

Our spiritual directors serve as companions on our spiritual journeys, and as companions, we give them permission to see the best and the worst in us. As our relationship with our spiritual director deepens over time, they can see our growth and call out that growth in us when we can’t see it for ourselves. They can see how we approach life and ministry challenges change, they can see our faith growing as we step out in faith more and more, and they encourage us every step of the way. And let’s face it, sometimes we just need a cheerleader to take joy in us and encourage us to keep going.

I think my spiritual director must have an extra dose of joy and encourager within her; she is often more excited about what the Lord is doing in my life than I am! She frequently reminds me of the journey I have been on since we started meeting in 2019, and she can see evidence of my faith growing and expanding when I can’t. We need more people like her in our lives!

Questions for Reflection

• When was the last time you were genuinely encouraged in your journey with the Lord? (Not your leadership, the sermon you preached, the project you finished, etc.!)
• Who is your greatest spiritual encourager who sees you and is watching you grow in your faith?

Take Action

Using each section’s questions for reflection, try this activity to reflect on Jesus as your ultimate spiritual director:

• Set aside an hour of time and find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted or distracted. Out of your office or place of ministry is ideal. Silence your phone and devices.
• Spend 5-10 minutes quieting your body, mind, and soul by closing your eyes, breathing intentionally, sitting still.
• Consider each question for reflection and jot down your answers (handwritten is best). Try not to analyze your answers as they come to you; instead write down what immediately comes to mind as you read the question.
• What welled up within you as you answered these questions? Sensations in your body? Emotions? Thoughts? Close your eyes and imagine gathering up all those things and your list in a container of your choosing. Maybe a backpack, a basket, or a cart.
• Remembering that God is ultimately our spiritual director, imagine bringing Jesus your container and offer it to him. It’s maybe not be the prettiest of offerings, but it is what you have today. Ask Jesus for his words of love and encouragement toward you as you leave your container with him.
• Close your time with another few minutes in silence, meditating on God’s love toward you.

Finding A Spiritual Director

Christian ministry can be a lonely vocation, full of complex relationships and heavy responsibilities. You’ll often feel as though no one else in the world understands God’s call on your life or cares about your personal spiritual growth. A spiritual director, though not the answer to all of these challenges, is one relationship you can seek and foster to ensure you continue to grow in Christlikeness, engage with the Lord about life and ministry, and receive outside insight from someone who has been trained in spiritual formation.

Are you ready to find a spiritual director? Directories of spiritual directors can be found at GraftedLife.org and Spiritual Directors International. 

Steadfast Center (that’s me!) also offers spiritual direction. I’d love to meet you and discern together whether we might be a good fit. You can get started with a free, 30-minute introductory meeting. No pressure. Just a brief conversation.

At the 2022 ICAP Global conference, I led a forum conversation on Belonging, our conference theme based on Ephesians 2:19-22. At the end of this forum, I invited attendees to use their imaginations to enter into these verses and imagine they are stones being built into God’s temple. Many asked afterward for this resource, and so I provide it here. Enjoy!

Ephesians 2:19-22 from the Message

That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

Imagine…

This exercise is best used when read to the audience, so they can fully immerse themselves in the narrative. You are welcome to use it in your ministry context, but please give me (Sarah Jo Austin) credit!

Imagine you are a stone. A very large stone. Big enough that a man can not lift you alone. You are heavy and weighty with your presence in the world. 

What do you look like? Are you marble with veins running through you? Granite dappled in grey and black? A precious stone? Maybe a red ruby or a green emerald? 

Now imagine that you are pressed deep within the earth. You’ve not yet been quarried. It’s dark and cold. Earth presses in all around you. Who knows how long you have been buried?

But one day you hear and feel rumbling and vibrating around you. It goes on for days and weeks. Then one day, an enormous blast jolts you from the earth. Daylight creeps into the earthen cracks around you. 

Soon you hear more rumbles. Feel more vibrating. These are giant yellow earth movers, their engines humming all day long. Moving the loosened stones and earth around you. 

Finally, one of these earth movers picks you up as if you weigh nothing at all. And you are moving across time and space, the wind in your gravel, the sun warming you. And you are carefully set down around other stones. 

But these are not beautiful stones. They are dull and gray and dusty. Is it possible that you look like this too?

Before you can really consider what you must look like, a truck below you fires up its engine and begins bouncing down the quarry road. And you bounce and jostle against the other stones for hours and hours.

Eventually the truck stops and another earth mover unloads you. You are piled up with the other stones. And you wait and you wait. And you wait. The snow comes. The rain comes. The sun starts to shine again. And weeds begin to grow up between you and the rest of the stones. 

But one day, a Master Stonecutter walks past you and says this is the one I’ve been looking for. And before you know it, you have been moved again into a workspace. And the Stonecutter starts chipping away at your rough edges and your excess volume. He speaks about a Cornerstone that you must be measured against.

He measures you and takes more off here. Measures again and takes more off there. Until finally he is satisfied with your width and height and depth. He keeps talking to you about the Cornerstone. 

But you are not yet ready. So he scrubs off the dirt and the grime. He sands and smooths each side. He buffs out the smudges. And when you’re really shining, he stands back, smiles at you in satisfaction, and says, “This one is ready.”

You take a deep breath. After all, you are a living stone. What could possibly be next?

Carefully, the Stonecutter brings you to the home he is building where he has been laying stone after stone after stone for generation after generation after generation. You can see the other stones that have come before you. The foundation built long ago and far below. And then you see the Stone. The Cornerstone the Stonecutter talked about and measured you against day after day. This was the standard stone he was conforming you to. 

Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with the Cornerstone that holds all the parts together. 

You look around and see all the stones around. Somehow, you are all measured to the same dimensions. Yet each one of you is unique and serving in a place made just for you. 

You see the home taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by the Stonecutter, all of us built into it, a temple in which the Stonecutter is quite at home.

Contemplative photography is the practice of using a camera to slow down and notice the world around you. Some teachers use language like “seeing the world with fresh eyes,” “connecting with the visual richness of our ordinary daily experiences,” and “relearning how to see.” For me, contemplative photography is sort of like meditation except that instead of quieting what’s going on within us, we are turning up the visual volume of what’s going on outside of us.

As I got started, I had to shift my mindset. One of the reasons I broke up with photography in 2005 was because I felt that everyone else was into photography. That was a lame reason, but even now, I still find myself fighting with it. Only now it feels like: Everyone has seen a picture of a rose. There are no new pictures to be taken of the Grand Canyon. Nothing I photograph will be original. 

The purpose of contemplative photography is not originality; it’s presence. While other (and better) photos may exist of the Grand Canyon, you’ve never been here before, so your photos are unique to you. While other photos have been taken of a rose, you’ve never photographed this rose before. I tell myself this with every new spring. Yes, I photograph my bulbs coming out of the ground every year, but every year they are new.

Seven Tips for Contemplative Photography

As you get started, remember there is no ideal or perfect way to do this. Be a learner. Experiment. Have fun. And consider my tips for getting started…

1. Set an intention. This is a practice, and practice implies that you have something to learn, you want to improve, and you are putting in the time and effort to do so. Set an intention to take one photo on each of your runs this week or on each walk across campus. Look at what you are already doing throughout your week, and add “take a photo” to it.
2. Use your phone camera. You do not need a special camera. If you’re like most people I know, you already take your phone everywhere you go, so use what you already have. You may be surprised by the quality of photograph that will come from your phone camera! I like the ability to take photos on the fly. Plus the costs of purchasing, learning, and using a DSLR isn’t for everyone, and I wouldn’t let that hinder you from this practice.
3. Slow down and move intentionally. Watching for moments to photograph requires us to be thoughtful in how we are going about our day. As you build this mindfulness practice, set an intention (for your day, on this walk, etc.) to watch for a subject to photograph.
4. Take multiple photos of the same subject. Stick with your subject for a few minutes, play with the settings on your phone, and watch for changes in your subject. Be patient. When I have a spare moment later, I review the photos on my phone and add the best of the best to a dedicated contemplative photography album. Everything else gets ruthlessly deleted!
5. Edit if you like. I don’t love editing photos, so beyond adding a filter, I don’t edit mine. But if you find editing to be a nice addition to your contemplative practice, go for it! There are loads of apps with filter packages you can purchase to experiment with editing.
6. Cherish other moments. Once you start this practice, you may find yourself in moments of stillness throughout your day when you spot something you’d love to capture but can’t! This often happens to me when I am sitting at a stoplight in my car. Take a moment to acknowledge the gift of what you’ve noticed and move on with your day.
7. Consider video. Still photos won’t always collect all the magic of a moment. Sometimes a video will capture the movement and sound that you are contemplating. Maybe it’s watching ornamental grass swaying in the breeze, bees buzzing around your flower garden, or clouds passing by. Switch to video mode, hold your camera still, and record a video of what you’re observing for a little while.

Six Extra Photography Tips

In case you’re brand new to photography and are learning how to make mediocre photos better, here are some tips I’ve learned over the years that have improved my photos. 

1. Be aware of lighting. In its essence, photography is the art and science of capturing light and how it is interacting with objects and the atmosphere. Some lighting yields better photos than other lighting. The best light is during the golden hours of sunrise and sunset because there are no hard shadow edges and the world feels like it’s glowing. In a pinch, a picture in the shade works. But photos taken in the height of the day’s sun or with a flash won’t yield the lovely depth or richness in color that the golden hours offer.
2. Check the focus. Did the camera pick the correct thing to focus on? Is there something else in the frame that could be focused on? Are there other camera presets available to assist with the focus? On many phones, you can touch the screen to tell the camera where to focus.
3. Scan the background. Look beyond what you are focused on to check what is in the background. (Power lines kill me.) If it’s not in keeping with the vibe of the photo, can you move around to eliminate it? And if you can’t eliminate it, can you play around the photo composition to make the background look intentional?
4. Check the frame. Is anything cut off at the edges? Is there margin to play with and can you get a tighter shot? If you absolutely must cut something off, be intentional and make it interesting.
5. Play with the grid. Centering a subject in the frame either vertically or horizontally doesn’t make the most interesting shot. Can you align your subject on a 1/3 grid line instead? (Many phone cameras automatically display this grid.)
6. Experiment with perspective and patterns. Perspective and patterns are principals of art and design and are a fun way to make interesting photos. Try getting low on the ground or up high on a bench. Watch for subjects or backgrounds that repeat. Pay attention to the geometry that is naturally occurring in your photo.

You get to decide what is most important to you as you begin a contemplative photography practice. For me, it’s the meditative slowing down and watching for images I want to capture. For someone else, it could be finding awe and wonder in the world or documenting the changing world around us as the year goes by. 

Whatever the reason, have fun! Enjoy the practice of contemplative photography!

This post is the second in a series about contemplative photography as a practice of Christian obscurity. I broke up with photography in 2005, and now I pick up the rest of the story. 

In 2019, contemplative photography found me and said, “Hey, ma’am. Remember your old friend photography? It’s me. I’m still here. I’m the same as always, but I’m also so much better than before.”

I had not picked up a camera for personal enjoyment in over a decade. Chris and I had on semi-permanent loan my father-in-law’s DSLR, and on special occasions we would break it out to document a birthday or holiday. But between Chris and I, he was the spouse most committed to taking, editing, and cataloging our photos. I used my iPhone camera for ad hoc moments in our life and for social media posts, and that was about it.

But good friends have a way of inspiring us to look for what we thought was lost. And I credit my friend Brad with introducing me to contemplative photography and spurring me on to pick up my camera again.

We were on a global leadership retreat in Chamonix, France, for an organization we both serve when he broke out his DSLR to take photos of the sunset hitting the mountain opposite our retreat house. “You don’t need a fancy camera, Sarah,” he said. “Just see what you can do with your phone.” Now I’m a midwest, rolling plains kind of girl, so mountains are a treat for my soul to behold. And due to a broken toe, I had been unable to get into the woods to immerse myself with the mountains. So immersion through my camera would have to do. 

Those few minutes of snapping photos in the driveway of our retreat house jump started something. Time slowed down as I watched the changing light and clouds on the mountain. I had to breathe slowly and hold myself steady to keep the camera still. To be present in that moment required a meditative mindset.

Brad called this contemplative photography, but it felt like a return to all that I loved and missed about photography so long ago. The slowing down. The thoughtfulness. The magic.

Turns out, contemplative photography is an actual thing. Teachers and writers of it use language like “seeing the world with fresh eyes,” “connecting with the visual richness of our ordinary daily experiences,” and “relearning how to see.” For me, it just felt like a name given to my past approach to photography. 

When I got home, I dusted off the DSLR and ventured out into the world trying my hand at learning contemplative photography. But I quickly got bogged down with all the help Chris offered me, bless his heart. He set me up with an external hard drive and an Adobe LightRoom account, and he showed me the ropes of editing on my computer. I didn’t mind pruning down the hundreds of photos I took to mere handfuls; it was an exercise of ruthlessly identified what mattered most in my photos and choosing the absolute best of the best. I did a little editing and filtering here and there, but I never had much fun in the editing process. It would never be as much fun as the black-and-white darkroom. 

My enthusiasm waned as the trip to France grew distant, and soon I forgot about getting out the DSLR and going out to take pictures. I didn’t want to lug the camera out. I didn’t want to prune through hundreds of photos. I didn’t know what to do with the photos I wanted to keep. Maybe I was full of excuses. But as I look back on it now, I think I neglected to identify what mattered most to me about picking up this hobby again: the meditative slowing down and watching for images I want to capture. That’s what I love the most.

I had the opportunity to meet again with the global leadership team in France in November 2021. But this time, Brad didn’t bring his DSLR. He had invested in a high-quality phone that suited his international travel needs, and it had a very good camera. He was pleased with the quality of photos he had been getting from it and didn’t see the need to bring his DSLR with him. 

Brad championed contemplative photography once again. But this time, not just in passing while we were waiting for dinner. Instead, he gave the whole team a lesson in contemplative photography, drawing from the retreat he leads in southern Spain. He invited us to play and experiment with our everyday cell phones, gave us some some spiritual postures to consider, and challenged us to look at our world through a different lens.

I was not hobbled by a broken toe on this trip, so I could traipse all over the Chamonix valley with my phone during our afternoon breaks. Some days I walked with my friends into town and some days I trekked on my own. I ventured off the trails to capture photos of streams and moss and granite boulders. I used the towering pine trees to frame the mountains in the distance. I got up close and personal with nature, and I also stood back and tried to get all of the valley in one wide shot.

Back home, walking the dog was no longer a mere exercise in working out her excess energy. I always took my phone on our walks anyway, but now I put my phone to use. We slowed down our walks, and I watched for what caught my attention. Even in my suburban neighborhood, nature was in all its glory as fall gave way to winter. Ornamental grasses, dried seed pods, dropped magnolia leaves. They were all worthy of my camera.

Now, nearly a year later, I can’t imagine my walks without watching for photos. And though my walking routes don’t change much, the four seasons of southwest Missouri are constantly changing my local landscape. I love nature photography most (maybe because God continues to speak to me through his creation just like he spoke creation into existence in Genesis), but I also enjoy experimenting images that are not organic.

I’ve found my old friend photography. We’ve both changed since we started this journey, but I’m learning to be okay with what’s new and different. I’m no longer the girl with the camera, I’m just another person with a camera phone. But I’m slowly making peace with the obscurity of being one in seven billion people taking pictures with their phones.

I’ll get practical with what Brad taught and what I’ve learned about contemplative photography in my next post!

This post is the first in a series about contemplative photography as a practice of Christian obscurity. But before we get into the practice, let me tell you my photography story.

In 2005, I broke up with photography. 

My love for being behind a camera, composing images, developing pictures, and—okay, I’ll admit it—being the girl with the camera was over. Why? Because everyone I knew was purchasing digital cameras for themselves and having the audacity to call themselves photographers.

The magic was gone. There was no longer anything special about being a photographer.

Oh, but it used to be so special.

I don’t remember exactly when my parents came home with their fancy new camera, but I remember how that camera was reserved for special occasions—birthdays and family reunions and vacations. The heavy black base clicked and whirred. The zoom lens circled in and out. The flash buzzed with energy. And the strap! The strap told everyone that, “I am a serious camera for serious pictures.”

I was allowed to pick up the camera for myself as a teenager for a 4-H project, and my only instruction was from the local portrait photographer who served as my project leader. I had no idea what any of the letters and numbers on the lens and the film meant, but I managed to learn how to focus on a subject with that fancy zoom lens. And with that knowledge, I trucked around the county watching for anything that inspired me and spoke to me. I took rolls and rolls of pictures until my parents cut me off from purchasing and developing film.

But there was something magical, something special, about having a camera in my hands. Even when my photos were terrible for reasons I didn’t understand. (For starters, no one had told me about the Golden Hour. I didn’t know about depth of field or exposure or framing. And the film developers at Walmart weren’t specializing in color correcting.)

In college I majored in writing, but I had a minor to play with and decided to pursue photography. Prerequisites wouldn’t allow me to jump feet first into photography classes. I had to muddle through two-dimensional art and a drawing class first. But once I got to the second floor darkroom of Ellis Hall for my black-and-white photography class, I was home. 

There was so much at stake as I stepped into the dark closet to take my film out of its canister and wind it around the developing can. If the film touched itself or if any light got to it or if I messed up the chemicals, the whole roll of negatives could be ruined. But if I got it right, ooh! The black and silver images on the negatives appeared as miniature reversals of what I hoped to see in the darkroom.

And the darkroom. Oh, that dim red light and the radio that always played slightly dated pop music and the smell of the silver chemicals and the quiet conversations that felt like everything we spoke was a secret. Yes, developing photos involves the science of chemistry and the objectivity and precision of light exposure and timing, but to me, it was magic.

That semester, I took rolls of black-and-white film at Applebee’s, where I worked as a hostess. Shots of all the salt shakers waiting for their weekly cleaning in the back of the house, playing with the light bouncing off of stainless steel counters, and reducing all the color of vibrant restaurant to black and gray and white. 

I took photos on the snowy back country roads of my home town. Train tracks and old bridges. Trees heavy with ice and snow. Gravel roads that faded into the distance.

And I spent a day on one of my dad’s construction sites in Kansas City. The Grandview Triangle where three interstates converged. I played with the repetition of highway construction barrels, the movement of scrapers and dozers, and my dad deep in thought over his latest repair. 

I just loved how black-and-white film that was developed by hand in the darkroom lent itself to a grittiness and honesty in the final photo.

Color photography the following semester was not nearly as romantic and magical. In this class, I met the serious photographers who were working toward actual careers in photography. Students with artistic vision who committed all their spare time to the color darkrooms and who had an eye for color development and correction. I was no longer in the communal space of the black-and white darkroom but alone in the individual and isolated darkrooms of the color lab. The magic was wearing off.

I made it through color photography by the skin of my teeth and moved on to another minor in another department. Photography shifted to paid projects: senior, engagement, and even wedding photos. Looking back, I can hardly believe I managed all those projects on film when so much was at stake and I often only had one chance to get the shot I was after. I shutter at the thought! (See what I did there?)

But shortly after college, I gave up photography all together. Continuing to shoot with film when I didn’t have access to a darkroom lacked the magic I remembered. The development process—the time and presence and nuance it required—were lost. Plus, I was in graduate school working on a writing degree and newly married with a mortgage. I didn’t have the time or money for hobbies. And the world of digital photography—that everyone was into it, the sheer volume of photos that could be taken, the necessity of photo editing software—simply didn’t appeal to me. The magic was just gone.

So photography and I broke up. And I refused to entertain the thought of getting back together. But that’s not the end of this photography story…

I’ll tell you more in my next post.

Our Scottish terrier Zelda loves her daily walks, but the heat of Missouri summer days prevents us from going out before twilight. Once the sun starts its evening decent and the heat of the day starts to dissipate (though the humidity does not), we head out the door and wind our way through our neighborhood. 

About the same time, something else comes out. They fly overhead like the birds I’m accustomed to seeing during the daytime. But they’re not birds. They flutter and dart about like butterflies with their paper-thin wings. But they’re not butterflies.

They’re bats.

I often wonder whether I’m the only person to notice the bats. Matthew 6:26 comes to mind: Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.” I’m sure the same is true for the bats. Jesus reminds us that God attends to all the details of all his creation all the time, including the bats flitting around my neighborhood.

We cannot pay attention to our world the way God can. Nothing is obscured from his view. He is omniscient. Humanity is not. But in noticing the bats, I’ve come to value noticing obscurity as a spiritual practice within Christian obscurity. It teaches us to pay attention, to wonder, and to respond.

Pay Attention

First, we pay attention in our physical world. We probably need to slow down. And then we need to zoom in. A quilting friend once told me, in regard to a small mistake I made on a crafting project, “If you can’t see it while trotting by on the back of a horse, don’t sweat fixing it.” Her sentiment is exactly the opposite of what I’m talking about. In noticing obscurity, we have slowed down, dismounted, and are paying close attention to what’s happening around us.

Paying attention to nature is a great place to start. Photography, collecting, and writing poetry are all activities that force us to slow down and zoom in. They can’t be done in a hurry and without paying attention to details. People watching (non-creepy people watching, that is) can also teach us to notice what’s happening around us.

Wonder

What happens when we pay attention? We could stop at our observation and let it fall flat. When I visited the Grand Canyon in my twenties, I walked up to the edge and said, “It’s a big hole in the ground. What else is there to see?” I was determinedly underwhelmed I’m ashamed to confess. (I was not in a good place as a human being; hence, the attitude issue. But that’s another story.)

The alternative to stopping at observation is to respond with wonder. We ask questions of ourselves and God about what we’ve noticed, and we may move from seeing with only our physical senses to seeing with our spiritual senses. Holy Spirit is always at work around us, but we need eyes to see and ears to hear how he’s revealing his character, spiritual truths, his love, and more in the world. 

Jesus taught in parables because the people’s eyes and ears were not open to seeing and hearing beyond the physical world. In Matthew 13:14-16, Jesus explains how the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled: 

“‘You shall keep on listening, but shall not understand; 
And you shall keep on looking, but shall not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull, 
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their heart, and return,
And I would heal them.’ 

But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears because they hear.”

My hope as we move from paying attention to wonder is that we turn our eyes, ears, and hearts to God for his hot take on what we’ve noticed. From there, we have a choice in how we respond.

Respond

How do we respond when we are in awe of the bats flying around our neighborhood? When we wonder about the homeless man on the corner while we wait at a stoplight? When we are surprised by a fresh revelation of how fast our children are growing up before our eyes?

We have a choice here, too. We could let the wonder fall flat with a non-response. This often feels the safest. No vulnerability required.

We could respond to God with a breath of praise and thanksgiving for what we’ve wondered at. Wholeheartedly offering up our observation and questions to him.

We could take action. Being kind and gentle with a stranger. Speaking a word of encouragement to someone. Taking an action that costs you something: your courage, your time, your emotions, your money.

As you consider how you will respond, ask Holy Spirit to lead you. Listen for his guidance and respond in obedience. Afterwards, reflect on whether you were eager to follow his lead or whether you had resistance rising up within you. 

Wrapping Up

I hope to see the bats while I am walking Zelda now. As I watch for them, I find myself watching for other bits and bobs of obscurity in my neighborhood. A flower that had not bloomed yesterday is blooming today. The neighbor who is persistently weeding her flower beds in spite of the heat. I breathe a prayer of thanksgiving for the gorgeous environment God created here in southwest Missouri. I wave to my neighbor, and we both make comments about the weeds and the heat. 

Slow down and watch for something obscure today. Look up and down and all around. Expect to be surprised. Let what you notice lead you to wonder. And let your wonder lead you to respond to God and to others. 

My Scottish terrier Zelda is an enthusiastic walker. She reminds me every day—especially on particularly good weather days—when it’s time for our walk. She reminds me where I keep my shoes and socks. And she reminds me where we keep her leash. To be clear, I am not that forgetful; she just likes showing me where I keep the important stuff.

She practically drags me out from under the garage door as it opens to the driveway. She pulls me down the driveway. She aggressively leads me down the street. She stops abruptly to smell the latest contribution to the neighbor’s telephone pole. She jumps and barks at the dog that passes us by. 

Do you get a sense for how violent a walk with my seventeen pound dog can be?

Enter the Gentle Leader.

The Gentle Leader is a strappy little contraption with two straps: one strap fits behind the dog’s ears to keep it in place and another strap fits over the dog’s muzzle and then slides through an O-ring under their chin, where it connects to the leash. When the dog pulls, the Gentle Leader puts pressure on the dog’s muzzle to make pulling uncomfortable.

Zelda is not a fan.

The Gentle Leader cramps her walking style. Her violent, pulling, starting, stopping walking style. 

Instead, she has to walk beside me. She has to walk at my pace. She has to go where I am going. She has to simultaneously pay attention to me while also getting her fill of the neighborhood.

But here’s the real kicker: Sometimes I need a Gentle Leader.

OK. I need a Gentle Leader all the time.

I need Jesus all the time.

(See what I did there?)

But sometimes I like pulling ahead of Jesus. I like telling him where we are going. I like setting the pace. 

And sometimes I like dragging my feet and procrastinating on the whole obedience thing and ignoring his encouragement to keep up with him. (And since Jesus leisurely strolled at about three miles per hour, any self-respecting mall power walker could outpace him.)

Or other times I see what other people are doing, and I get excited and distracted and want to check out that other situation, which is when I and everyone else get tangled up in one big mess.

But when I let Jesus be the Gentle Leader in our relationship and in my life, our walk is so much better than when I’m running the show. We go at his pace, and his pace is slow. He’s not in a hurry to get anywhere. We get to take in the sights and sounds and smells of the neighborhood. We get to talk about whatever is on our minds. We get to stop and chat with the neighbors.

Jesus doesn’t put us on a leash. Either we choose to walk at his pace or we don’t. Either we pay attention to what he is doing or we don’t. Either we go where he goes or we don’t. It’s up to us to make the choice to stay by his side. And we get to make that choice every single day.

When I put the Gentle Leader on Zelda—even though she protests—we have a better walk. She trots along on her short little terrier legs with confidence. She pays better attention to what’s happening around us. She lets me set the pace. And she still gets to sniff as we go. And I don’t need to visit the chiropractor.

I’m more confident when I walk with Jesus, too. I can rest easy in his pace. I can pay better attention to what he’s doing around me. I’m less concerned about comparing myself to others. I recognize his voice in my life. 

So my encouragement to you today, dear reader, is to imagine what it would like for Jesus to be your Gentle Leader. Slow down and walk with Jesus in your imagination. What does Jesus have to say to you? What do you notice? How does going slow make you feel? Do you go somewhere unexpected? Allow yourself to be led by him today.

Confession: I’m not the best at identifying my emotions. Turns out that most people don’t consider hungry or tired as actual human emotions even though those are often my answers to the question, “How are you feeling?”

So in an effort to grow in identifying and experiencing my emotions, I once downloaded a helpful emotion wheel to give me language for actual human emotions. And someone suggested that if there’s an emotion that isn’t truly captured on that emotion wheel, to identify that emotion and give it a name.

I had deep and intense emotions hovering around my workplace at the time: general despair, dread, and lack of joy due to feeling like a hamster on a wheel, lack of leadership, and a task list that would never, ever get to a manageable length. So I named that emotion trabajoplessness. It’s a mix of trabajo, which is the Spanish word for work, and hopelessness. That specificity allowed me to express that emotion, process it, and realize that I needed to find other work.

Naming and defining anything that has not yet been named and defined is a powerful component of the creative process. These two verbs —naming and defining—allow creatives to grab hold of nebulous ideas and thoughts and give them shape and boundaries. A ball of clay is just a ball of clay with a lot of potential until a potter decides they are making a mug and not a vase. 

After my dad’s wrongful death lawsuit, I was contemplating a lot of ideas and thoughts that were hovering around something nebulous in the middle. (Full backstory here.) And I named and defined that something in the middle Christian obscurity: the practice of living an inconspicuous life while also living fully known to God. With that name and definition, we can continue exploring and explaining the definitions within the definition. 

Let’s break this definition into four parts:

1. The practice
2. Of living an inconspicuous life
3. While also
4. Living fully known to God

(If this looks like a sentence about to be diagrammed, you’re not wrong. And if all the naming and defining and English class words make you twitchy, sorry, not sorry? You’ve landed on a grammar and writing nerd’s website.)

The practice…

Tucked into the dictionary definition of practice are the notions of habits, customs, and pursuit of mastery. Doctors practice medicine. Lawyers practice the law. Yogis practice yoga. Writing, for me, is a daily practice of getting words out of my head and into my computer. In these practices, there’s (hopefully) a humility that comes with being a learner and a beginner even when one has been practicing for a lifetime. There’s always something new to learn and explore.

Christian obscurity is a practice for us throughout our lifetimes. The practice starts small and builds over years and decades. Our practice changes with our seasons of life. We continue to feel like beginners even when others tell us that we are masters. Paul tells Timothy that he himself is the chief—the foremost—of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) and says in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate.” He says quite a bit in the following verses about the sin that dwells within him, his flesh, his struggle to do what is good. And Paul wrote these things deep into his years of ministry! He’s articulating that he has not yet mastered walking with the Lord even though he is leading others in doing the same thing.

Of living an inconspicuous life…

Both Peter and Paul write about quiet, simple, tranquil lives, both internal and external:

“But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to excel even more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we instructed you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.” (1 Thess. 4:10b-12)

“First of all, then, I urge that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made in behalf of all people, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” (1 Tim. 2:1-2)

“Your adornment must not be merely external … but it should be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.” (1 Pet. 3:3-4)

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people.” (Rom. 12:18)

When I envision an inconspicuous life, it’s ordinary to one’s time and place. In ancient Israel, an ordinary life was farming the Promised Land and shepherding flocks out in the wilderness. Today, an ordinary life in America has an infinite number of configurations. Mine happens to look like sending my kid off to school, writing and studying most of the day, making dinner, walking the dog, and keeping a tidy enough, clean enough house. 

Our lives are unknown to nearly 100% of the world. Our lives are unknown to nearly 100% of our communities. (Here’s the math.) But we get to be known by some people, and that’s where the good stuff happens. To be clear, we’re not hiding from the world. We’re not hiding our sin and messiness. We’re choosing where to be wholeheartedly all-in and to let our vulnerability be seen.

While also…

Sense the transition. And the tension. We are intentionally choosing how and where and by whom we will be known in this world, and we are choosing to be known by God. We are choosing how much of ourselves to give to the world and to others while also allowing God to know us and see us and pursue us. 

Living fully known to God…

Here’s the piece of Christian obscurity that is tricky. God is omniscient and knows everything there is to know about the universe he created. That includes us. All of us. Our bodies. Our minds. Our hearts. Our souls. And for a time (at least, speaking for myself) he lets us grow up believing that everything there is to know about ourselves is all there is to know about ourselves.

Until one day (or maybe over an entire decade) we wake up and everything that was working is not. And God invites us to understand the world from his perspective. He invites us to see our own selves from his perspective. And it turns out, he knows a lot more about us than a) we realized and b) than we know about ourselves.

But this (hopefully) doesn’t scare us off because in the midst those invitations, he is showing us how much he deeply loves us, knows us, and sees us. And we say yes to living fully known to God even when we don’t fully know ourselves. We settle into a spiritual journey with him, and in his timing, God peels back the layers of who he created us to be, who we are right now, and why we think, act, and feel the way we do.

Bringing it back together…

My hope with this essay, as well for this entire blog, is to give a name to what the Christian life looks like, define it, and begin exploring it. Christian obscurity—the practice of living an inconspicuous life while also living fully known to God—has many implications for our spiritual journeys, our relationships, and our time on this earth. I’m just scratching the surface in this essay to whet our appetites for what’s ahead!