Issue No. 435 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests you leverage the slower pace during COVID-19 to discern God’s voice in the stillness. Leighton Ford, now 88, shares his transparent journey. Perfect timing! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath.
A Graduate Course in Discernment
“Lord, what book should I read and review next?” is my on-going prayer. Many times I sense the Holy Spirit’s nudge about a specific book. So perhaps for you also—while hunkered down during this COVID-19 crisis—it may be God’s timing for us to read Leighton Ford’s masterful memoir of his very personal journey, A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own.
When Leighton Ford reflects on calling and vocation, he notes that “we spend the first part of our lives finding a role—professional or parent, executive or explorer, solider or artist.” But then (quoting Thomas Keating), “the paradox is that we can never fully fulfill our role until we are ready to let it go.”
So who is Leighton Ford? One global title is noteworthy: Honorary Lifetime Executive Chair of the Lausanne Movement. But is he a preacher, or a proclaimer, or a prophet, or a painter, or a poet? Yes—all of the above. He’s also a listener. And his life has impacted mine across the years. I’m so grateful.
Coaching a young leader—early thirties—who was second-guessing his pastoral call, Leighton encouraged him. “Remember God is an artist. He doesn’t do copies. He does originals. And if you are called here, God will do something new through you.”
Thus, at age 88, when asked to declare his mission statement, Leighton Ford now says “To be an artist of the soul. And a friend on the journey.” What’s your mission statement—and has it changed over the decades?
But let me back up a bit—with a LOL story that will provide some context. At age 14 (because he was tall!), Leighton was named the president of his local Youth for Christ club in Ontario, Canada. In the late 1940s, Billy Graham—the emerging evangelist—was invited to speak at the YFC rally in Chatham, Leighton’s hometown. So with this God-planned connection—fast forward—Billy Graham tells his sister, Jeanie, about this young Canadian and Leighton and Jeanie meet at Wheaton College and eventually marry.
Then, as part of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team, Leighton formed a team to focus on Canada and other parts of the world. Once, when Leighton’s team was conducting a two-week crusade in Nova Scotia, Billy Graham was invited to preach on the final weekend. Billy arrived a day early and sat quietly in the back of the crowd. During the invitation—when seekers would go forward to place their trust in Christ—Billy noticed an older man who perhaps needed encouragement. So Billy “tapped the man on the shoulder, and asked if he wanted to go down and give his life to Christ.”
“The old fellow turned, and, not recognizing Billy, who was wearing dark glasses, thought a moment, then said, ‘Nah, I think I’ll wait until the big gun comes tomorrow night!’”
So…you’re Billy Graham’s brother-in-law. Life is good. Bed of roses. Opportunities. Acclaim. Success. God’s blessings. (Eh?)
Hardly—and maybe you’ve hit a rough patch also along the way. So that’s why now would be the perfect time to listen, to go deep, and to discern God’s voice with the help of an experienced guide, Leighton Ford. Here’s a taste of the guidance:
• “As you read my story, perhaps it will stir a remembering of the voices you have heard in your life…”
• Following the tragic loss of their 21-year-old son, Sandy: “It’s been said that there are places in our hearts we don’t even know are there until our hearts are broken.” He then discovered: “My preaching was more from the heart, but what I sought was not so much more places to preach as more still places to listen. Silence and solitude, which I had often avoided, became more welcome and compelling.”
• The endnotes deliver readings for a graduate course in discernment: Leonard Cohen, Henri Nouwen, N.T. Wright, Mary Oliver, Parker Palmer, Richard Rohr, E. Stanley Jones, Amy Carmichael, Oswald Chambers, and dozens of others.
• On his birth parents and his adoptive parents: “It has also taught me that I cannot be a rescuer in unhealthy ways of those who carry deep wounds from life. To discern the difference calls for a lifetime of listening.”
• On recognizing God’s call to launch Arrow Leadership, a ministry to younger leaders: “For some time I had been keeping what I called my GGTW List—Guys and Gals to Watch. These were younger men and women in whom I observed strong potential for leadership.”
• In the chapter, “When We Lose Our Way,” he transparently describes his own angst during a devastating conflict: “Motives are misunderstood, and those involved project onto leaders their own needs. Reason shuts down, and emotions rule. We get wrapped in the ‘fog of war.’ The desire for power and control take over. And when those we have trusted let us down, the sense of betrayal is acute.”
On a country path walk through farm fields in northern England, Leighton remembered the discerning words from his “spiritual father,” an Anglican bishop, who tenderly said to him, “You just need to find a way to let the pain and hurt go. Hold it loosely even if you can’t fix it.” So Leighton “picked up a stick and drew a line on the dirt.” He stepped across the line and breathed this prayer: “Lord, as best as I can, I let go of the hurt, the resentment, the anger. I don’t know if the breach will ever be repaired. But as much as is in me I leave it behind. Help me to do so.”
• He quotes Frederick Buechner: “The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” And Leighton adds, “…where the Spirit’s deepest promptings bring a deepening conviction of being in the right place.”
• Looking for a deeper leadership model than the ones many believers adapt from secular models, Leighton notes how Jesus led: “the leadership of a son, a storyteller, a servant, and a shepherd-maker.” (Four S’s: that will preach!)
• Noting how E. Stanley Jones pictured a “Cosmic Loom” metaphor emanating from the unshakeable kingdom in Hebrews 12:28, Leighton writes, “As I respond to his calling, I may make mistakes. But he does not. And even my mistakes he can weave into his pattern.”
• An editor’s advice to Leighton and Jeanie’s son, Kevin (also an author), on making college decisions—discernment counsel from A.W. Tozer: “When you have to make a decision, concentrate on loving God from your heart. If there are several doors open, some will likely close. Then if more than one is open, go through the door you want to go, and trust God to make it right.”
• And this from a Quaker woman when asked how “to discern God’s way in her life.” Her answer: “Way has not often opened before me, but way has often closed behind me.” (Prophetic words during COVID-19?)
• Don’t miss Leighton’s exposition on the three-step process for discerning your calling: Observe, Reflect, Act. He notes John Wesley’s encouragement that we should “second the motions of the Holy Spirit.” He quotes Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life:
--Pay attention
--Be astonished
--Tell about it.
• How might God get your attention? Study the great characters of the Bible and reflect on the diversity of attention-getting moments (see Moses, Samuel, Mary, Peter, and others).
• Leighton punctuates this powerful memoir with a probing question: “If right now the Lord walked up the back steps to where I am sitting on my porch, I wonder, how might his voice sound?” He answers his own question with 19 bullet-point phrases (arresting insights)—the strongest and most meaningful final two pages of a book I’ve ever read. Stunning.
A Life of Listening is rich. I read it slowly and I’m still discerning and discussing the book with my favorite listener—my wife, Joanne. I never aspired to be a Billy Graham or a Leighton Ford (not my calling)—but the book prompted me to think ahead to 2034, when I’m 88 (Lord willing). Will I have been a faithful lifelong learner and listener over the previous 15 years—so I might have something to write home about? Yikes.
Or even this, as Leighton notes: Inscribed on Ruth Graham’s memorial plaque at the Billy Graham Library,
“Construction complete.
Thanks for your patience.”
To order from Amazon, click on the title for A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own, A Memoir by Leighton Ford.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In Ruth Haley Barton’s book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership (my 2009 book-of-the-year), Leighton Ford’s foreword pulls you into the richness of the text. The 10th anniversary expanded edition (2018), includes a new “afterword” also by Leighton Ford. He writes about the book’s impact: “My own soul responds both with ‘Ouch!’ and ‘Yes!’” Mention a book you’ve read or listened to recently that prompted an “Ouch!” response!
2) “Most of us need some kind of spiritual jolt to start us on the second journey, to make us stop and listen long enough to pay attention to what God is saying to us,” writes Leighton Ford in The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things. Describe a “spiritual jolt” you’ve experienced—and the result.
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Bullet Point Your Life!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook
One of the big ideas in the Team Bucket is that “…we leverage the unique set of talents and strengths given to each person by God. Thus we serve with more fulfillment and joy.”
Have you ever “bullet pointed” your life’s journey? During this unique COVID-19 period, in addition to reading A Life of Listening, by Leighton Ford (above), select a second book from the list below—and use another person’s journey to reflect on your own journey.
#1. The Joseph Road: Choices That Determine Your Destiny, by Jerry White. The author’s bullet point summary of Joseph’s life is fascinating and so he convinced me to “bullet point” my major life events—to see what I could learn from those forks-in-the-Joseph Road. Jerry illustrates how to do this exercise with bullet points of his own life.
#2. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer
#3. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. Warning! You’ll weep as you journey with John Ames, the 76-year-old still-in-the-pulpit Congregational minister in Gilead, Iowa. It’s 1956 and Pastor Ames is journaling a life letter to his seven-year-old son, an extraordinary blessing from his second and younger wife.
#4. Listen to My Life: Maps for Recognizing and Responding to God in My Story, is a unique visual tool that helps you invite God into the process of reviewing your past, assessing your present, and enriching your walk with God into your future. Created by Sibyl Towner and Sharon Swing.
#5. Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You, by John Ortberg
#6. Leading Me: Eight Practices for a Christian Leader's Most Important Assignment, by Steve A. Brown (president of Arrow Leadership)
#7. The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, by Robert D. Novak
#8. Myself and Other More Important Matters, by Charles Handy
#9. Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols. After a heart attack in 1955, the “doctors told him to take it easy—and in that we get a humorous picture of Ike. He wrote a friend that he had been ordered ‘to avoid all situations that tend to bring about such reactions as irritation, frustration, anxiety, fear and, above all anger.’ So he had snapped at the doctors, ‘Just what do you think the presidency is?’”
#10. Crafting a Rule of Life: An Invitation to the Well-Ordered Way, by Stephen A. Macchia.
Note: Click here to download PDFs of three lists from the Book Bucket, including more biographies, autobiographies, and other resources for the journey.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Your organization is also on a journey. How effectively are you painting your past, your present, and your future? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And while in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. (Read John’s review here.)
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