Sep 30

What is Contemplative Spirituality?


As I have mentioned, I recently completed a year-long training for clergy on contemplative prayer and spiritual leadership through the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. Throughout the year, we read classical and contemporary writings from the Church’s mystics, learned about prayer practices developed by monastic community’s and reflected on how these would fit within congregational life. I am happy to talk about what it has meant for me personally, if you are interested.

In order to shed more light on what I mean by all of this and add more understanding to the spiritual practices I am bringing into worship, I wanted to do a newsletter series on this topic. For the next few weeks, I will take excerpts from an introductory essay written by Shalem staff and briefly reflect on it from my own experience. The first in this series is below.

Contemplative Spirituality: A Shalem Senior Staff Monograph Written by Carole Crumley, Bill Dietrich, Ann Kline, and Gerald May March 2004

A generation ago, most people were uncomfortable talking about their personal spirituality. Now, however, people speak of it so freely that the term itself has become confused; it is difficult to know what people mean when they say it…

Given the variety of interpretations, it is helpful to go back to the original understandings of spirituality as revealed in the traditions of spiritual pilgrims who have gone before us. Their teachings and writings through the centuries are priceless resources in helping us clarify our own experience. It is upon this gathered wisdom that we base the following discussion.

What is Spirituality?

In many traditions, the word “spirit” refers to life-force, the basic energy of being. Symbolically, spirit is the breath of life. The Hebrew “ruah,” Greek “pnuema,” Latin “spiritus,” and Sanskrit “prajna,” all mean both “breath” and “spirit.” Traditionally, this life force is seen as manifest in our love—in our passions and inspirations that motivate us and connect us with the world and with one another.

In this view, spirituality has to do with the fundamental propelling forces of our lives, our most profound loves, passions, and concerns. It is the wellspring of our sense of meaning and of our will to live, the source of our deepest desires, values, and dreams. Spirituality, then, is not a thing apart from our daily lives, but rather the fundamental energy source that fuels all our emotions, relationships, work, and everything else we consider meaningful.

Contrary to popular belief, spirituality is not something special or extraordinary. It is instead absolutely ordinary and completely natural. Everyone has a spiritual life. We express it in many and different ways: not only in places of worship but also in work, community and family, in all our creativity and commitments…

This opening excerpt already raises many important questions as it seeks to clarify what spirituality is.

How may the description of spirit being the “basic energy of being” influence your understanding of God (Emmanuel or God-with-us)?

What are your most profound loves, passions, and concerns? What are your deepest desires, values, and dreams? How do you live these out?

How may knowing these are gifts of the Spirit affect your relationship with God?

After learning this, I “see” God everywhere…in everything. God is in every breath and every molecule. God is in the breeze the flows through the trees. God is in my desire to build community in our fractured culture and teach people about contemplative prayer. God is in our congregation’s concern for the poor and LGBTQ + community. God is everywhere and in everything.

What about you? Does this deepen or shift anything for you? If so, what?

Let me know when you have a chance.

‘Till next time,

Pastor Karsten

Sep 10

Grace and Peace to the Body of Christ in Twinsburg


This week we hear Jesus’s teachings on forgiveness in Matthew 18.
While teaching his disciples about how to live well with others, Peter
asks about forgiveness.

“Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I
forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times,
but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

Bible scholars write that Rabbinic wisdom of this era suggested
forgiving three times, so Peter’s offering of seven times is
expansive. Yet, as Jesus does, he pushes his disciples’ understanding
of divine love even further by saying 77 (or 70 x 7) times.

It is another example of how Jesus seeks to expand our hearts and form
us in the expansive Love of God.

This week we will also experience a sermon form called Living Stories
Sermons. It was created by Episcopal Priest, Peter Levenstrong of St.
Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, CA.

It invites us all (young and old) to bring our life experience to the
stories of Jesus and to share our faith in a safe space with members
of our congregation.

It is one way I see to build up the Body of Christ in faith, hope, and love.

I hope you will join us as we learn from one another what it means to
follow Jesus in our own time and place.

In hope,

Pastor Karsten

Aug 27

Get Behind me, Satan!

23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.  

Matthew 16:23 NRSVUE

The above verse comes from a story in which Peter, in a flash of fear, tries to stop Jesus from going to Jerusalem and heading toward the cross. It is a human moment in which Peter simply did not want his beloved teacher and friend to suffer and their time together to end. It is something we all can relate to. Yet, Jesus knew, however difficult it was, that he could not deviate from his calling.

It was a hard lesson for Peter, and it is a hard lesson for the church. From death comes new life. This story asks many important and deep and difficult questions.

What “human things” must we let go of for new life to flourish?

What things in our lives are stumbling blocks to offering and receiving a loving openness?

We could spend a lot of time reflecting on just these two. This Sunday we’ll continue the conversation as we learn together how best to follow Jesus in our time and place.

Peace be with you.

Pastor Karsten

Jun 09

“What Does It Mean to Be a Resurrection People?”

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. 
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
(1 Corinthians 15:17, 19

Every year after Easter, I find myself returning to the same question: What does it mean to be a Resurrection People? Not just people who believe in the resurrection, or celebrate it once a year, but people whose lives are shaped by it—whose imaginations, choices, and relationships are marked by the hope that God is still bringing life out of death.

Being a Resurrection People doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. The first disciples didn’t emerge from the empty tomb with easy answers or perfect confidence. They came with fear, confusion, wonder, and hope all tangled together. Resurrection didn’t erase their humanity—it transformed it.

To be a Resurrection People is to trust that God is not finished with us or with this world. It means believing that despair is never the final word, that injustice is not inevitable, that broken relationships can be mended, and that new beginnings are always possible. It means looking at the places where life feels stuck or heavy or uncertain and daring to imagine that God might be planting seeds we cannot yet see.

Resurrection People practice hope—not as wishful thinking, but as a way of living. We choose compassion when indifference would be easier. We choose welcome when exclusion feels safer. We choose repair when harm has been done. We choose joy, not because life is simple, but because God is faithful.

And perhaps most importantly, Resurrection People carry this hope into the world. We become signs of new life for others—through our kindness, our courage, our justice-seeking, our willingness to love.

The stone has been rolled away. The Risen Christ goes ahead of us.
Our calling is simply to follow—
with open hearts, open hands, and resurrection in our bones.

Pastor Greg

P.S.  On a Resurrection People can be an affirming people because we know God is working in each person to have them come to resurrection fullness.