The primary reasons I’m blogging are to have fun and to point you to helpful resources, especially in the areas of spiritual and emotional development. (You may notice, however, an inordinate amount of posts about Ben Folds, my favorite musician.)

Where I’m Coming From
(i.e., A Little Bit of My Story)

My Conservative Roots

I grew up going to a conservative, evangelical Christian church. For undergrad, I went to Calvin College, an evangelical Christian college. After graduation I worked for various evangelical Christian organizations (see my LinkedIn profile), helping them develop and market their websites.

While living in Greensboro, NC, I helped start an organization (it was more of a group), which produced a monthly outreach event called Breathe. The primary mission of Breathe was to introduce people to Jesus and Christianity in non-threatening ways.

I Want to Be a Pastor!

I was passionate about helping people discover Jesus and enter into a personal relationship with Jesus, and I was having such a good time with Breathe that I thought, “Wow, I’d like to do this kind of stuff full time; I think I wanna be a pastor.”

My Three Years as a Pastor

In 2002, I left my job at Symetri (a website development company) and moved to Chicago to participate in a three-year pastoral internship program at Willow Creek Community Church, an extremely large evangelical church known for (among other things) its passion for evangelism. The church and the internship program seemed like a perfect fit for me!

Also, as part of the internship program, I pursued a master’s degree in Transformational Leadership from Bethel Seminary.

Throughout my three years at Willow Creek, I helped pastor a community called Metro 212, which was a community of about seventy-five young adults (most of whom were in their twenties).

A Model of Growth – It’s All About Love

“It’s all about love.” That was my internship director Sheryl’s favorite saying. For Sheryl, life is ultimately about love — learning how to give and receive love (in relationship with God, others and ourselves) to ever-deepening degrees.

One of Sheryl’s greatest desires was to help us interns grow healthier emotionally and spiritually; in other words, she desired to help us grow in our capacity to give and receive love. She knew that in order for us to be effective and fulfilled pastors (and human beings), we needed to continue to grow in love.

She taught us a model for growth that is simple and deep (and certainly not easy or pain-free!). I’ll use my own words to describe the model. By the way, there are many valid ways to describe the growth process, and my description is certainly not comprehensive.

Essentially Sheryl taught us that we all have some barriers to giving and receiving love. Past hurts, for example, can be barriers to giving and receiving love. In order to grow in love, then, we need to identify the barriers in us, embrace them and allow love to begin to melt the barriers.

As our barriers melt, we’re able to give and receive more and more love. As we grow in love, we become better spouses, parents, friends, neighbors, scientists, politicians, pastors, etc. As we grow in love, we live more fulfilled and meaningful lives. As we grow in love, we become even more powerful change agents in the world.

I Chose to Dive In

Sheryl didn’t force us to grow in love. We weren’t required to meet with Sheryl one-on-one. But if we wanted to grow, and if we wanted Sheryl’s help, she was willing to meet with each of us one-on-one.

At the start of the internship program, I was resistant to what Sheryl was saying about the importance of emotional growth. I grew up going to church, etc., and my relationship with God was very important to me, so I understood (on some level) the importance of spiritual growth — but I was very skeptical about the area of emotional growth, I was scared of it actually.

Initially I chose to not meet with Sheryl one-on-one. About a year into the program, however, I began to sense that Sheryl might be right about the importance of emotional growth, and I began to understand that it’s not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

Also, it was clear that some of my fellow interns were getting a lot out of meeting with Sheryl regularly. They were growing, and I didn’t want to miss out.

Furthermore, I could sense somewhere deep inside that I was carrying some pain from my past, and that that pain was limiting my capacity to give and receive love, form healthy relationships and be effective as a pastor.

I decided it was time to start meeting with Sheryl in order to start dealing with some of my pain.

My Deep Inward Journey

With the help of Sheryl, my fellow interns and others, I began to look deep inside myself to see what was there, to find my barriers (the roots of my pain) and my gold, and to ultimately experience some healing and growth in my capacity to give and receive love.

Sheryl and others helped me to look at how I’ve been shaped by my parents and other major influences in my life (such as American culture, the church I grew up in, etc.) and how that shaping affects the way I view and relate to myself, others and God.

I began to see, name and embrace parts of me that were hurting and parts that were immature or undeveloped. I also began to see, name and embrace my gifts, uniqueness, value and beauty.

Essentially I began to embrace and integrate all the parts of myself (the parts I was aware of at the time). Talk about a painful and exhausting process!

Sheryl and company helped me get at the roots of some of my pain and immaturity. Slowly I began to heal (a bit) and grow up (a bit), in deeper ways than I ever had before.

I’m still in the process of discovering and integrating parts of myself, and growing in my capacity to give and receive love — I’ll be in this process the rest of my life. Some of us in the recovery community like to say that the growth journey is like “peeling an onion,“ and there are always more layers!

While my growth journey has been hard, painful and exhausting, it’s also been beautiful, freeing and life-giving. Some days (or weeks or months) are better than others, that’s for sure! Some days I don’t want anything to do with growth … because it can be hard and painful. But most days I’m glad I’m on a growth journey, mostly because I’m able to experience more intimacy and love in my relationships than I used to be able to.

Losing My Religion

Also during the internship program, I began asking questions about God, Christianity, religion and spirituality. Questions such as: “Would a loving God actually send people to hell?” “Is the Bible really the ‘Word of God’?” “Was Jesus really the ‘Son of God’?” “Is it really necessary for a person to be a Christian in order to have a relationship with God and a thriving spiritual life?”

For the first time in my life I felt safe enough to ask those questions. I was surrounded by several safe people. Even though I felt safe enough, the questions I was asking felt like big, SCARY questions.

I was terrified to ask those questions and explore all the potential answers; yet, at the same time, I felt compelled to ask and explore.

Why was I so scared? Because what if I ended up rejecting some of the Christian doctrine I grew up with? Then who would I be? Then what would my worldview be? What would my foundation be? Where would I go? What would I do? What would my Christian friends think?

Worst of all, would God punish me? And would I end up in hell? I was terrified of God.

I lived my whole life as a compliant, good boy. I was that way with almost everybody, especially with God.

To ask questions, to think for myself, to draw my own conclusions, to trust myself — this was (and has been) stretching for me!

Now I See Things So Differently

My understanding of God, Christianity, religion, life, spiritual and emotional development, etc., is so different now than it was before I started the internship program. My understanding is different now than it was last year — my understanding is always evolving.

I no longer cling to doctrine (Christian or otherwise). What I continue to hold onto is love, which seems to be the core value of all the major world religions and seems to be the source of all life, healing and growth.

That’s a little bit of my story. I hope that gives you some context for my blog posts.

How I Evaluate Resources

When I explore spiritual and emotional development resources, I ask, “Is this helpful for growth in love?” That’s the lens I use for evaluating all spiritual and emotional development resources. So when I recommend a resource on my blog, it’s because I think it’s helpful for growth in love.

I hope you enjoy my blog — I hope it’s a helpful resource for you!

Blessings,

Andy

—————————–

In case you need it, here’s my contact info:

Andy Padjen | andypad@yahoo.com | 847-308-9900