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Spiritual Direction: A Guide to Giving & Receiving Direction by Gordon T. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many longing for a deeper awareness of the presence of God in their lives have rediscovered the special relationship known as spiritual direction. One of the needs that have existed is for a readable and concise treatment of the nature of this relationship. Gordon T. Smith has given us that account in this 96 page book packed with both a theological basis for and practical explanation of this form of spiritual friendship.

He begins by describing the agenda of this relationship as one of “directing our attention to the presence of God in our lives.” This relationship is grounded in four theological themes: the Triune person and work of God, the nature of religious experience, the particularity of each person and the church as the people of God and means of God’s grace.

The conversation in a spiritual direction relationship is a focused one where a director seeks to listen to both directee and God as the directee talks about relationships and work, key decisions, our experiences of suffering and pain, and most of all in the life of prayer.

After talking about the content of this conversation, he talks about the form it takes–how is this hour (usually a fixed time is set and typically an hour) spent? It is a conversation that begins with the directee sharing about his current life experiences, reflected upon coming into the meeting. After a time of silence the director may ask questions, and propose observations regarding how God may be present in what has been shared or how the directee may respond to this presence. After silence, the directee responds and the two may dialogue further with the director closing the time with a prayer of blessing.

Smith has a chapter on the role of direction in evangelism and how direction is a special form of friendship and its relationship to pastoral ministry. Spiritual direction is a helpful counterpoint to worship, teaching, and pastoral leadership in pastoral ministry. Spiritual direction can be instrumental in helping a person come to faith as a director helps a seeker discern how God is present. Like a friend, a spiritual director speaks with truth and freedom but at the same time never preempts one’s personal responsibility to choose.

The next two chapters focus on the qualities of both a good director and a good directee (something I’ve not seen elsewhere!). Good directors are schooled in a theology of the Spirit, have an awareness of the history of Christian spirituality, extend compassion and grace, have a capacity for “double listening” to directee and to the Spirit, and keep confidentiality. Directees approach with a desire to grow, a meekness and humility, and intentionality of preparation and response. He then concludes with a focus on the true director in this relationship, the Spirit of God.

We often oppose “spiritual” and “practical”. Smith fuses the two in an account of spiritual direction that prepares the reader engaging in or considering direction to understand the nature and practice of this formative discipline.

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Called to Be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity by Gordon T. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book might change your thinking about “sainthood”. Sometimes, we conceive saints as these unworldly, serious, ascetic, and somewhat odd creatures. Gordon Smith would propose instead that being a saint is something to which all of us are called and what this means is growth into Christian maturity–a kind of perfection of holiness that isn’t perfectionism but rather a kind of completeness or wholeness of life.

This is especially important for many evangelicals, who may excel at seeing people come to faith but have little idea of how to direct them into becoming holy (or sanctified, a word drawn from the same root as saint–in other words, saintified). Most often, since we do the crisis experience of conversion so well, we simply propose additional crisis experiences. Smith proposes a different route.

Smith begins with what he sees as the essence of the Christian life, which is union with Christ. To be in Christ is to be united with Christ through his Spirit, which is a profoundly humbling thing that promotes our dependence upon Christ, our focus on the person and work of Christ, and our Spirit-enabled obedience of faith. In a later appendix, Smith applies this to the scholarly life, which is a life grounded in prayerful dependence upon Christ and illumined by Christ.

Smith then talks about four expressions of holiness that might surprise you. The first of these is wisdom, the practical understanding and knowledge of how to live well in the fear of the Lord. This can be expressed as having the mind of Christ, of seeing all of life through the lenses of creation, fall, and Christ’s redemptive work. Wisdom that understands the cross understands suffering in light of the cross.

The second expression of holiness is vocational holiness. By this, Smith means a life of good work that flows out of a sense of being called both into union with Christ, and into the world. Vocational holiness understands our agency in the world as fallen but redeemed image-bearers of God. It involves self-understanding of our temperament, skills, gifts and situation and lives in hopeful realism throughout the seasons of one’s life.

The third expression of holiness is social holiness expressed in our love for others in the communities to which we are called. This will find expression in radical hospitality where we welcome each other as we have been welcomed in Christ, forbearance, forgiveness and reconciliation, and in generous service to others. All of these are formed in the worship, teaching, and witness of our churches.

Finally, and surprisingly, Smith speaks of joyful holiness–the ordering of our emotional lives around our hope in Christ. He sees these particularly worked out in the practices of worship, friendship, and sabbath. This last is especially radical because in sabbath, we trust that while we must rest God doesn’t and his work is prior to and over ours.

The book concludes with two extended appendices, one addressed to applying these truths to the life of the church, and the other to the life of the academy, particularly, but not exclusively the Christian university and seminary.

I came away from this book with a different rubric for thinking about Christian maturity that is neither obsessed with sin nor activity, but rather in the kind of person we become in union with Christ–wise, called, loving, and joyful. That is a kind of “sainthood” that seems quite attractive, and one to which all, and not simply some “spiritual elite”, might aspire.

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