Most congregations today will ensure that new Christians are not neglected or left to their own devices. They will organize personal or group sessions to introduce them more fully to the faith.

The Need

This has not always happened. It didn't occur in my case. However, I did have an advantage in having a grandfather and step-grandmother who were excited that I had become a Christian. They were Plymouth Brethren. They encouraged me by writing to me and sending me books.

I also read voraciously. In the early days it was Moody paperbacks. I read one a day in the train, while travelling to and from work. I devoured biographies and read a sermon a day. I also wore out several New Testaments.

I entered Woolwich Bible College eighteen months after becoming a Christian, where I was taught the fundamentals of the faith and where I lived in community with forty others, mostly young men. We had committed ourselves to ministry.

I have continued to be nurtured by friendships, by further study, by small group involvements and by Christian literature. Over recent years, the pain associated with the failure of my first marriage drove me to become better acquainted with my inner self and the immanent God whose presence constitutes my being.

Throughout my life I have been driven, ever so gently, to deepen my experience of myself, of others and of God. It is for this reason that I have often been disappointed when preachers have not offered me, in there preaching, what could have facilitated this process. They did not take me beyond the stage I had already reached and often reflected understandings that I had jettisoned as inadequate or harmful. When I reflect on the disappointment, I appreciate that I was expecting too much of them. What I was really looking for, though I did not know it at the time, was spiritual direction.

Beginnings

Spiritual direction has had a long history in the Church. Jesus directed his disciples. The relationship between Paul and Timothy and the teaching received by novices from the Desert Fathers of the fourth century BCE carried on the tradition, which has continued to be fostered within the Roman Catholic Church. [217]

Benefit

While it has frequently been helpful, the practice of spiritual direction has not always been positive. Tauler¹ and J. P. de Caussade argued that directors were often more of a hindrance than a help.² Teresa of Avila had an unfortunate experience at the hands of an unskilled director, who was no-where near as advanced as she was.³ However, while some direction was too rudimentary,⁴ while some directors were sometimes ill-equipped to help those they were directing and while some direction was actually harmful, its effect, in the main, was positive.

Protestants

Protestants have been suspicious of the practice of spiritual direction because of their emphasis on the freedom of the Christian conscience and because they have been suspicious of the intentions of Catholic directors, particularly Jesuits, whom they accused of proselytisation.

Despite their traditional aversion to spiritual direction, Protestants are self-deceived if they imagine they have never been spiritually directed. The Reformers of the sixteenth century enjoyed enormous influence. Protestants, of all persuasions, have never lacked for gurus.

Marshall McLuhan described Protestantism as a literary subculture.⁵ Protestantism has been deeply influenced by literature. However, censorship, blatant or disguised, at the level of publication, distribution and retailing, has governed the type and bias of literature available to Church members.

Influence

Influential directors have always enjoyed an incredible influence, from the Apostle Paul, through Bernard of Clairvaux to Thomas Merton, perhaps the greatest Christian mystic of the twentieth century. Popular keynote Charismatic speakers fulfil the same function.

Many Christians, particularly Protestants who are alive to the potential of Spiritual direction, are arguing, as Martin Thornton has done, that spiritual direction is the greatest need of the Church today.⁶ Kenneth Leech has suggested that the Church is in desperate need of spiritual guides, men and women of prayer, who are open to the Spirit of God.⁷

What is Spiritual Direction?

It is important to explain what spiritual direction is, and what it isn't.

Spiritual direction is not pastoral supervision, counselling or psycho-therapy. It is concerned with the directees relationship with God.⁸ [218]

The Role

What is the role of the spiritual director?

According to Merton spiritual direction involves the exercise of discernment and judgement, rather than exhortation.⁹ Spiritual direction seeks to help people penetrate beneath the surface self¹⁰ and to deal with self-will, self-justification and the desire to please.¹¹ Urban Holmes described the spiritual director as someone from whom we can get a navigational fix,¹² while Leech referred to directors as those able to help us discover a new centre and a new identity.¹³

The Qualities of Good Directors

What type of people make good directors?

Those most suitable are people of unusual sensitivity, who make their experience available to others without imposing it on them. The director's experience furnishes perspective, understanding and insight. Good directors are those who are capable of following the inspirations of grace in their own lives. They are carriers and vehicles of the Spirit, who can stand aside and allow the Spirit to do her work.

According to Ignatius Loyola, directors should be prudent, discrete, cautious, reserved and gentle.¹⁴ Holmes identified good directors as people who combine faith and vulnerability.¹⁵ Merton contended that good directors' lives will be characterized by simplicity, humility, frankness, honesty and sincerity.¹⁶

Spiritual directors can be clerical or lay, women or men.

Theological Colleges and Seminaries

Directors within theological institutions are better located outside the institution. The Catholic Church argued this issue through at the time of the French Revolution when French clergy were thin on the ground, with the French and Italians taking opposed positions. The Italian view, which argued that directors should not be seminary faculty or staff, eventually won the day. It was important that direction not be seen to potentially prejudice academic results or career prospects. Such a perception would discourage openness.¹⁷

Startsy

The Russian Starets, true successor to the Abba and Amma of Egypt and the Geron among the Greeks, affords a splendid example of the spiritual director. The Startsy, who were usually older men, were not part of the [219] official hierarchy. They were charismatic figures who may or may not be ordained. A form of apostolic succession existed between generations of Startsy.

Startsy did not seek disciples. People came to them. They underwent a long preparation, often involving a flight from and a consequent return to the world. They considered that the Holy Spirit was the true director. People were deeply influenced by their presence. They were sought out by a wide range of people, from commoners to the church hierarchy. It has been argued that it was the Startsy who were responsible for maintaining faith in Russia during the terrifying years of Russian Communism.

The Startsy were noted for their insight and discernment. They had the ability to love those who came to them for advice and they made the sufferings of others their own. They demonstrated a power to transform the human environment. The creative energies of God were seen to shine through them. They did not see direction as a one-way process. The disciples revealed the Starets to himself, and thus the starets himself changed through the process. There was a lack of violence in the relationship between the Starets and disciple.¹⁸

Seeking a Director

How does one go about seeking a spiritual director?

You have probably benefited from spiritual directors without realising it. You have been deeply influenced by mature Christians. You may have been formally discipled. You have enjoyed close relationships that have been soul-friendships. You may have been directed through books, records, tapes or videos.

If you are serious about seeking direction, ask God to lead you to an appropriate director. Different directors could be appropriate for us at different times. Seek out a director. Ask advice from someone who is under direction. Look around for a soul friend. Open yourself to direction through literature and other media. Explore the dynamics of prayer. Join or form a group interested in spiritual development. Develop a personal rule, similar to a monastic rule, listing disciplines you are comfortable with and to which you are willing to be committed.

The Minister as Director

If you are a minister, realize that people will be looking to you for direction in your preaching, your worship leading, your public prayer, your pastoring and your counselling. Be alive to their needs and be committed to living on your own growing edge. [220]

Gordon Jeff, in his Spiritual Direction for Every Christian, demonstrates, from his own ministry experience, the benefit of spiritual direction to the local church. He was so taken by the possibilities of spiritual direction that he organized the life of his church around this practice. For those in ministry it is a book well worth reading.¹⁹

More Than a Good Idea

None of us is so self-sufficient that we can go it on our own. We were never intended to. Mentoring was built into the life of the church from the beginning. It is to our benefit, and that of congregations within which we are associated, to make it an intentional part of our lives. [221]

[SFM 217-221]