Contemplation as an essential practice for sustainable ministry

“We must find sources of strength and renewal for our own spirit, lest we perish. We must learn to be still, to settle down in one place for a time. Sometimes, every day, everything should stop and…the art of being still must be practiced until development and habit are safe.” –Howard Thurman, “Dilemmas of Religious Professionals, Part 3, February 11, 1971“

In recent years, the Spiritual Imagination Center focused on creating new pathways for people to engage in contemplative practice. Although contemplation is inherent in the Episcopal (and, by extension, Anglican) tradition, woven into the “Book of Common Prayer” and the rhythms of the liturgical calendar, it is shocking to converse with leaders, ordained and lay, who do not view contemplation as a necessary part of their ministry.

I think this disconnect happens for several reasons. First, contemplation is often seen as too mystical, something difficult to approach or embrace in a simple way. Second, people often feel that practices lack a regular and accessible rhythm. And perhaps more importantly, the challenge lies in how we define the word itself. Some equate contemplation with meditation, mysticism or simply “looking”.

What is contemplation?

We, in the Community of the Incarnation, define contemplation broadly as a prayer practice that allows us to come into conscious contact with God. The goal of contemplation is not to master a technique or to be silent for silence’s sake. Rather, it is about creating patterns and shifting perspectives so that we can come into conscious contact with God whenever we can. Even though we cannot all be Brother Lawrence, practicing the presence of God in every moment, it remains our aspiration: to be in contact with the Divine at all times.

Why am I starting with this idea? Mainly because I find that Christian leaders often don’t realize how vital contemplative practices are for us.

As a dedicated member of the Community of the Incarnation, I have integrated contemplation into my Rule of Life. The more I engage and practice contemplative prayer, the more grounded and connected I feel to my inner life, my community, and our complex world. Currently, I reconcile preparation for the priesthood, management of academic courses, fulfillment of community responsibilities, direction of Black Lives and Contemplation Projectwhile navigating parish life and volunteering. While all of this can easily seem untenable, I find that contemplative practice invigorates me and keeps me grounded in hope during these difficult times.

The wise Dr. Howard Thurman calls us, as people, to develop an inner life, a “well” to draw from when life gets difficult. The quote I shared above, from his lecture series on the need for prayer in ministry, follows his assertion that for ministers to truly commit to a life of prayer, they must practice it, not just preach it. He notes that it is often easier for a minister to teach prayer than to actually engage in the practice of prayer.

And it serves as a crucial reminder, even for me, to consistently engage in contemplative prayer practices. I believe that contemplation is the path to healing the way we show up in the world, the way we lead. But it is by adopting imaginative ways of entering into contemplative practices and establishing conscious contact with the Divine that I believe we can effectively unlock new, transformative dimensions of ministry, strengthening both our personal lives and our communities.

A contemplation that brings liberation

At the Center for Spiritual Imagination, we believe that the call to contemplation is universal and offers us various avenues for listening and responding to the Divine. We present this call to people through different methods, featuring our Method of Incarnation Prayer, as well as practices like Musica Divina, Lectio Divina, and Visio Divina, all designed to deepen one’s inner life (you can learn more at our “Practical guides” page). We believe that developing this inner life through contemplation is the vital path to achieving liberation for all. This approach, which I recently called “Liberating Contemplation” for Community Substack, asserts that if conscious contact with the Divine is the goal, ultimately leading to freedom, then the practices themselves must be inherently liberating and imaginative.

Imaginative contemplation is crucial because it is the path to a contemplative life that I wholeheartedly believe brings liberation and transformative change to the world. And this is taken up by the Father. Ian Cowley, who writes about the importance of contemplation for our ministries: “This is what I now think of as contemplative ministry. This ministry begins with the care and right order of our own hearts, and it leads to the transformation of our society and the world” (“The Contemplative Minister: Learning to Lead from the Still Center” [Bible Reading Fellowship, 2015]).

We change the world by first tending to our inner life, fostering a deep inner life. This deep inner life must be rooted in the Divine, the place where we recover our Imago Dei, an identity free from the expectations of society. Here we hear the unique voice of God and are then empowered to share this truth with the world. This is how we join Jesus in his mission, a mission beautifully summed up by the late great Brooklyn prophet, The Notorious BIG, to “spread love” the Brooklyn way (“Juicy”), but perhaps more importantly, the Jesus way.

A liberating invitation

My invitation therefore is to embrace contemplative practice to enliven our leadership and deepen our prayer life, and I am convinced that this commitment will bring true liberation for us and our communities. If we sincerely believe that “for liberty Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1) and that Jesus acts as an agent of liberation for all marginalized people, then contemplation is a path to actualize this freedom.

To help adopt this practice, you may be able to join us at the Center for Spiritual Imagination for some of our offers. You can come learn a new prayer practice by joining our online contemplative prayer every Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET. Or, if you’re feeling more adventurous and looking for imaginative paths to contemplation, join one of our monthly Hip Hop meditations.

By engaging in these contemplative prayer practices, we cultivate the hope needed in these difficult times. As the great Long Island prophets De La Soul remind us in their song “Believe (In Him),” it is “on our knees” that we learn to “dodge the wolves of this age.”

The featured image shows one of the Center Down contemplative sessions from the Center for Spiritual Imagination and is provided by the author of the article, Guesnerth Josué Perea.