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Remembering Jim Houston

We have been born into and grown up in a culture that is deeply alienated from God. So as we cross the border into God’s kingdom, with its radically new attitudes and priorities, we will need all the help we can get from a spiritual friend who has made the same perilous journey before.

The way in which friends behave towards us can also help us to have faith in God. If friends really pay attention to me, listening to me and not just to my words, then I am encouraged to believe that God pays attention and listens to me in an even greater way.

James Houston

(1922-2026)

 

I first met Dr. Jim Houston over 30 years ago as a few friends and I sat together with him in a TCBY yogurt near Biola University. Dallas Willard had given us a glowing “scouting report” of Jim Houston. That night, we encountered a wise and faithful 72-year-old man who resonated with a sense of God’s creative and warm presence in the world. Around the table that evening, Dr. Houston asked each of us, “Where are you at?” When it came my turn to answer, a question emerged within me as if it had been floating to the surface for some time, and then, in that particular moment, it broke through the surface.

Over the prior three years of seminary, I had become aware of deep disappointment and despair. I was tired of trying to believe. All the theology that I “knew” seemed distant from my heart. Was it all true? Did God really care? Why did he seem so absent? Why did my life not make sense? Read More

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The Sacrament of Welcome: Holy Hospitality

Some of the people I know and love are alcoholics. They struggle, yes—but they also know a truth that many of us forget: we cannot make it ahead on our own. Alcoholics Anonymous becomes for them more than a time or place; it is a circle of honesty, accountability, and grace. 

You know the rhythm: a dimly lit room, coffee in a styrofoam cup, someone begins, “Hi, my name is Keith, I’m an alcoholic.” And the room responds, “Hi, Keith.” 

Then comes the story—the ache and the hope, spoken aloud and received by others who carry their own wounds. 

One recovering addict once said, “The hardest part is coming back the second time.”  Read More

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Living the Questions: Field Notes on Mentoring

When I first began the work of mentoring, I looked for manuals, methods, and models—anything that would give me a clear path forward. Over time, though, I learned that mentoring isn’t a formula; it’s a way of being present. What follows are my own “field notes,” drawn from the wisdom of Margaret Guenther, one of my early teachers and companions in this vocation.  Read More

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Learning to Notice: Conversation with a Veteran Mentor

 You know, when I first began mentoring, I thought my task was to give advice—to help people make better choices, live more faithfully, grow in wisdom. But over time, I learned that real mentoring is less about telling and more about noticing. It’s about paying attention to the quiet, sacred movements that shape a person’s life. 

Begin with Paying Attention 

Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33), and that has become a touchstone for me. We are, each of us, formed by what we seek — by what we value most. Our role as mentors is to help others see what is shaping them, often without their awareness. 

When you meet with someone, start with their image of God. Everyone carries one, whether they realize it or not. I sometimes ask, “What picture of God lives in your heart right now?” or “When you hear the word God, what comes to mind?” Those questions can open deep wells. Many of our early images come from childhood — parents, teachers, pastors, even the tone of a church sanctuary. Over the years, those impressions harden into assumptions. As mentors, we’re inviting people to revisit them and ask whether their image of God still holds life and truth.  Read More

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A Curriculum of Love: How Questions Become Prayer

A Reflective Guide for Mentors, Friends, and Fellow Travelers

The Art of Paying Attention

Every one of us is being shaped by what we love, chase, or cling to. Mentoring isn’t about handing out answers; it’s about paying attention to the subtle ways our lives are being formed—through joy and sorrow, success and disappointment, stillness and motion.


“Spiritual direction is really about learning to see. The mentor helps another person look for the fingerprints of God in the ordinary.” — Margaret Guenther


To walk with someone in their becoming is to practice reverent curiosity. These questions are not meant to close a conversation but to open one—an invitation to honesty, discovery, and quiet wonder. Sometimes, the most genuine form of prayer begins with the courage to ask. Read More

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Embracing Hospitality, Listening, and Mentoring

In a world teeming with noise and distractions, the teachings of Jesus offer a roadmap to cultivate deeper connections with God and others through hospitality, listening, and mentoring. These three practices are not isolated acts but integral threads woven into the fabric of a life lived in faith. By embodying these principles, we participate in the spiritual formation of ourselves and others, creating a ripple effect of transformation.

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Life Upon Life: Why Spiritual Mentoring Matters

This Fall, we will be hosting a short and sweet Mentor’s Workshop for anyone interested in sharpening their skills or preparing to mentor someone for the first time. For me, I am always and forever a student in the mentoring ways of Jesus. 

Listening to how Keith Anderson, Rob Loane, and I think about the importance of spiritual mentoring, frankly, jazzes me up. And perhaps, these excerpts from A Mentoring Guide: Christ. Conversation. Companionship will remind you as well that spiritual mentoring matters. 

The gospel plays out best in relationships. We believe this is absolutely true. It is in close relationships with others where we begin to see how Christ is actually, specifically, beautifully active in the fabric of our everyday lives. In the sadness and celebration, the betrayal and forgiveness, the division and unity, in the beauty and the muddle of our lives, we discover together the Spirit’s relentlessly creative activity.

 

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When your instinct is to explain

When Jesus Chose Not to Explain

Mentoring like Jesus reminds us that he not only preached, taught, and explained—he sometimes resisted the instinct to explain. I know the feeling too well.  

 

My urge is to speak, to fill the silence, to provide my answer to their “problem,” to tell them how it worked for me.  As a rabbi, Jesus’ goal was seldom informational. More often, it was formative and especially transformational.

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Mentoring and Hospitality: Embracing Risk, Vulnerability, and Transparency

Mentoring Always Involves Risk

Mentoring is a risk.  Being mentored can be costly.  Being a mentor can require paying a price.

These are probably not words you want to hear if you are:

  • already a mentor or mentee,
  • considering becoming a mentor,
  • thinking about finding a mentor.

Mentoring requires one essential posture: hospitality. We create an open and free space for another person. As mentors, we open ourselves to the work of the Spirit in another.  As mentees, we open our inner soul space. There is an emerging and (hopefully) growing transparency.   Read More

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Great questions for spiritual friendship

Mentors ask great questions.  We don’t always know the impact our questions will have until they are heard by the mentee.  Often, these great questions emerge from a pool of mentors, perhaps as starters or simply as something to introduce at the right moment.  

 

These questions can also serve you well as you journal—simply writing thoughts, prayers, experiences, questions, memories, in a carefully kept notebook for you to read again. Journaling is a spiritual practice that takes you deep into your inner landscape.  Many find it a valuable way to explore fears, dreams, aspirations, and convictions through regular writing.

 

We’d love for you to keep these questions for spiritual friendship close at hand. That’s why we’ve created a printable PDF of spiritual mentoring questions—a free resource that includes all 25 questions and the first practice prompt. Print it, tuck it into your journal, or bring it to your next mentoring conversation. Read More