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The Sabbath Life Podcast is about sharing stories from the Abbey of the Heights retreat house in Tulsa—all about finding rhythms of life that make us more human, learning the Christian contemplative tradition, and becoming friends with time.
Peter White (00:05)
Welcome to the Sabbath Life Podcast. This is a space where we share stories about the Abbey of the Heights, the Christian contemplative traditions, and rhythms that make us more human and friends with time.
I'm Peter White. I'm one of the hosts of the Abbey of the Heights, a Christian contemplative retreat space here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And today I'm joined by my friend Deidre Franklin. And Deidre is the pastor of spiritual formation at Crossings Community Church in Oklahoma City. She's also a recent graduate of the Sabbath Life School of Spiritual Direction. And Deidre, do you want to share any more about what it is you do and tell us a little bit about yourself?
Deidre Franklin (00:39)
Yes, thank you, and thank you so much for having me, Peter. It's really good to be here. I have been at Crossings Community Church for a long time, 26 years that I've been on staff here. I've had lots of different jobs while I am here. I did a previous stint as pastor of spiritual formation, then went into women's ministry for a while, and now I'm back in spiritual formation.
When I was approached a couple of years ago about kind of doing spiritual formation again, the actual invitation offered was to start a ministry of spiritual direction here at Crossings. And so I said, Yes, I would love to do that, and then started on the road of training and all that kind of stuff. That's where you came into the picture.
Peter White (01:21)
That is great. Yeah. So you are you were brought on to start a ministry of spiritual direction. I am so curious about this and the process behind this and what this is looking like now. So when that first happened, what what did you have in mind and what do you feel like the church was looking for in that request from you? Do you remember?
Deidre Franklin (01:41)
Well, so I'll be really honest, I was kind of surprised that our leadership actually had language for what what they were what they were asking for. And I'm not sure, you know, exactly how they saw what they were asking for, which was we want you to start a ministry of spiritual direction. And I say that because we'd we had been doing spiritual formation kinds of content, that kind of thing.
We have a strong connection with Renovare from our you know, a long time in our history at this church. And so I kind of think they might have thought it was a little bit more like that. So before they could change their mind, I grasped onto it and I said, Yes, I want to do that. Because I'd always wanted to be a spiritual director, or at least I've been thinking about it for years. And so I thought it was a great opportunity to become a spiritual director. I quickly figured out that, you know, there's there's not a lot of familiarity with it, in in my context. And so I've been just kind of slowly helping people understand exactly what it is. Yeah.
Peter White (02:46)
I would imagine that you're probably not alone in that, in that spiritual direction is unknown in in your context. So what has that been like for you and what have you found is helpful in communicating to to the people that you're with?
Deidre Franklin (03:01)
That is not unusual. I've just finished my doctorate at Asbury and part of my research was around...
Peter White (03:07)
Congratulations.
Deidre Franklin (03:25)
Thank you, thank you so much, but part of my research was actually around spiritual direction in the context of large churches or mega churches, which is technically defined as churches that have over two thousand people in regular attendance.
And Crossings is actually much larger than that. And so what I found in the research is that while spiritual direction is making a comeback in Protestant circles, it's definitely becoming more and more prevalent in Protestant circles. Within the context of larger churches, it's not really making that kind of a comeback. It's much, much slower. and I think because it's just kind of at odds a little bit, spiritual direction and even spiritual formation, a little bit at odds with the culture of larger churches because we just really, because of just the sheer numbers of people who are involved, really need to kind of present programming and so forth that can be done, that is scalable, that can be done to the masses, that is gonna be big and loud and and bring people, you know, butts in seats kind of thing. And so it's a little bit counterintuitive when you start to think about the culture in which we're living and then what we're actually trying to do ourselves and what we're trying to encourage people to do in terms of their spiritual lives. So it's challenging.
Peter White (04:33)
Yeah, so can you speak some to to your journey along that? So you were you were tasked with creating this ministry of spiritual direction in this really large church. So what did you do next?
Deidre Franklin (04:44)
Well, when I was presented this opportunity, like I said, I first very quickly said, Yes, I will do it. But we we might need to tweak a couple of things. One of the first things I said is, I'm gonna need to get some training. And the person over my head at the moment, the person I was talking to literally said why? All you're doing is listening, right? And I was like, well, yeah, it's listening, but it's a really special kind of listening and I need to get some training in order to do it. And so I began to gather around me a group of people that I'd been like I said, I've been here for 26 years. I did singles ministry, I did women's ministry, I've done small groups ministry, I've done all kinds of different tasks while I've been here. So I had a group of people already close at hand that I gathered around me. I called them the spiritual formation team and I started to talk to them about this training that I wanted to do. And as I did, there were another five people who were also saying, Yes, we want to be trained as spiritual directors too. So now had a group of six that I wanted to find a a a school of training for. That was the first thing,just, let's get us trained. Yeah.
Peter White (06:04)
And what were you looking for then in training programs when you when you were looking all around?
Deidre Franklin (06:10)
Well, I started, when I first started to dive in and and research various schools, my own spiritual director is a trainer. And so I immediately thought, well, I'll just go to her, you know, to her training school. But when I discovered that I would be taking six people along with me rather than just myself.
I couldn't do that. She's in Indiana. I couldn't fly six people to Indiana, you know, every other month or whatever to to do the training. And so then I started really focusing on things that were local or as close to local as possible. The other thing I quickly discovered is that the there are kind of two camps within which schools of spiritual direction seem to fall.
And the one that is specifically focused on Christian spiritual direction, I knew that was going to be a much better fit for my church, my congregation, and our ethos than than a school of spiritual direction that was more open to other religions and that kind of thing. Just a different kind of way of looking at spiritual direction. I knew the more focused our training could be on on Christ-centered spiritual direction, as CSDA calls it, the better it would be for us. And so I was limiting my searches to groups that were more associated with Christian spiritual direction. One of the people who was was going to spiritual direction with us just stumbled on The Sabbath Life. I think you all were doing your first cohort, it was brand, brand new, the Sabbath Life School of Spiritual Direction.
And so when I discovered it was rooted in, you know, David and Beth Booram's curriculum, which is rooted in Sustainable Faith, which is the one my spiritual director uses, that whole combination, I just knew it was gonna fit like a glove.
Peter White (07:57)
Yeah, and then we were just 90 minutes down the road from Oklahoma City.
Deidre Franklin (08:03)
Which is perfect. It's nice if you can get out of town, and for those intensives, and at least have a little bit of distance between your workspace and where you're going to be in a situation like that. But 90 minutes gave us just enough time to kind of wind down and the stress comes off your shoulder. You feel like you're not in your own hometown. It wasn't too far away to make just a quick, you know, a quick trip of it.
Peter White (08:27)
So then you brought this group of six people, that were then in one of our cohorts. And so what was that experience particularly like for you going through the School of Spiritual Direction over those two years?
Deidre Franklin (08:40)
So as I described the actual leaving town was a great part of it. Two of the women and I drove together each time we came down. And just the 90 minutes in the car on the way down and the 90 minutes home was like it was like a reset. You know, we were totally in a different headspace by the time we got there. So that was really terrific to arrive at the Abbey with breakfast ready and coffee on and everything ready to go to kind of gather again with this group of people who became so dear to us during the time that we were in the cohort together. It was fabulous as far as just the setting for us. It was so comfortable. Our group was such a great size.
We had we were from all over the map in terms of churches and places that we were serving with spiritual direction. We learned so much just by listening to one another that I just it was perfect for us.
Peter White (09:37)
How do you feel like your sense or your understanding of spiritual direction kind of grew or changed throughout the time that you were doing that? Like, you heard this comment from a a colleague at the very beginning, like, isn't it just listening? So what did you learn or what changed for you?
Deidre Franklin (09:56)
Well, boy, it was like, yes it is listening. It's deeply listening, but the skills that are necessary, I suppose, are more moving barriers out of the way, barriers meaning so much of myself, being able to remove barriers between myself and the other person and the barriers between myself and God so that I can listen in this very specific and very special way in spiritual direction. So yes, it's just listening. And you know that's that's true in a way.
But it's deeply listening. I think one of the nice little quips that I can't remember if this language came from you guys or one of the books that that we read together is three-way listening, listening to the directee, listening to God, and listening to my own inner landscape all at once and trying to keep those three voices kind of straight in my head and in my heart has been has been quite the trick. I'm definitely still getting the hang of it and definitely get it wrong as much as I get it right. But it's just so satisfying to feel like I'm hearing from all three voices and kind of keeping them straight. Yeah.
Peter White (11:18)
I love that. That's so good. So how long has it been now from the very beginning of starting this journey of putting together this community and this ministry to where you're at today?
Deidre Franklin (11:33)
Just a little bit more than four years, I guess, four and a half years since I was approached with this new job title and this new position. It was a brand new position at the church.
Peter White (11:37)
So in four years, what kind of headway have you made at this point? What does this ministry look like today for your church?
Deidre Franklin (11:53)
All right, so four years later, there were six people, as I said, who were trained together at the at The Sabbath Life School of Spiritual Direction. At the same time, we had another lady, by the time I approached her, she had already enrolled in another school of spiritual direction. So that was seven spiritual directors that we had that we all finished training at the same time. And then as I got to know some different people around the church, I found another three people who had been spiritual directors for a long time. They're actually our most seasoned spiritual directors on the team. We've just added one more who is currently in the School of Spiritual Direction at Sabbath Life. So all together now we have eleven spiritual directors who serve our community here at Crossings.
Peter White (12:41)
That's great. What's been something surprising to you over this four year journey for you? What were you not expecting that's happened?
Deidre Franklin (12:50)
You know, I think the least expected part was to be invited to do it in the first place. and that really surprised me and delighted me. And so once that, I mean, once those kind of dominoes began to fall into place, finding people around who were very familiar with it, like I said, the three women that we have found that have been doing spiritual direction for a long time, they have taken almost like kind of amma and abba positions on our team. They're just so wise. They've been doing it for a long time. And so we've been able to, in a way, kind of continue almost our training just amongst our team as we do peer supervision and we work together in it. It's been tremendous.
I think the openness that I have experienced here at Crossings is the more I learn, the more I understand it, is so unusual. I'm just very surprised. I'm still surprised and delighted. And every time I meet with the team, I'm like, we have got to remember that we need to be so grateful that we're serving at a church that is willing to courageously embrace these ancient, but to them brand new disciplines and ideas and ministries, ways of looking at our lives. I'm talking about Ignatius of Loyola. This year we're actually doing the Exercises of St. Ignatius. I mean, I'm we're going ancient, and this is just not something that megachurches normally do. So that's been so delightful.
Peter White (14:20)
That's fantastic. Is there a particular obstacle that you feel like you've run into that either you've found a way through or maybe that you're still banging your head against?
Deidre Franklin (14:31)
I think it's not too much to say that there is resistance. There's resistance to things, anything that is slow encouraging people to enter into a lifestyle that is slow, introspective, reflective, where discernment trumps decision making, where a quiet you know, unwillingness to just barge ahead and charge ahead in ministry, that that is just a kind of cultural there is a kind of cultural resistance in settings I think like mine. And so, that has been in fact it's a facet of my own formation in just patiently, quietly, and steadily, I guess putting up my own resistance and just saying, yeah, we're gonna take this slow and it is going to be maddeningly slow sometimes probably for many people. But we're going to we're gonna take each step as carefully as we can.
And always, always listening to the voice of God and coming behind our Master Jesus rather than running out ahead of him. That's been a difficult cultural, you know, transition.
Peter White (15:51)
If you had the opportunity to to go back in time and visit four years back and talk to yourself four years ago, what what advice or encouragement would you want to give Deidre at the beginning of this journey?
Deidre Franklin (16:01)
Pray. More time in prayer, more time in prayer by myself and with the Lord and regarding this ministry, more time in prayer together with the team, more time of silence and quiet. It's very difficult to do when you get ten people around the table who have busy schedules, busy lives, kids, grandkids, you know, all the things as well as careers. It's very hard to say, we're gonna take, you know, ten minutes and just be silent. Did I drive all this way to sit and be silent with you? So but yeah, I think if anything, it would be more quiet, more slow time together.
Peter White (16:47)
Sounds really rich. So in four years, what kind of impact have or what kind of difference have you seen in the church so far? Or at this point? Because four years still is not very much. It's still early on.
Deidre Franklin (16:48)
True. And all of us are beginners. So, well, I mean, you know, seven of us are brand new beginners. And so we still start our sessions with this little caveat: we're learning. We're learning as we go along, you know, so be patient with us as we learn our skills. but I think to the extent that I'm hearing stories back. And you know, obviously with spiritual direction, there's a confidentialities component. So I don't hear all the stories. I don't nose my way into, you know, a lot of what's going on with the other directors. But we have 85, I think, people who are on the rosters that are currently, routinely receiving spiritual direction. And even in a large setting, that makes a difference, the people who are responding to it in ways that I've been privy to talk about a deeper familiarity with God, the presence of God, specifically the presence of the three persons of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I think our directors refer to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit a lot. I know I do, and I think several of our directors do. And so people are beginning to see themselves as though they are in an ongoing constant conversation with God. And that's really that's worth it all right there.
Peter White (18:22)
Yes, yes. So let's imagine that someone is listening to this and they're a a lead pastor of a church and thinking, this would be a great idea for my church, or maybe they're a pastor of discipleship or spiritual formation and wondering, I wonder what this would be like in my church? What kind of advice would you give to them at the very beginning?
Deidre Franklin (18:44)
I think begin to have, I mean, prayer, praying, talking to God about who might it be that might go on this journey with you, and then sitting down to have non-hurried, non-pressured, quiet conversations with with each of those people one-on-one.
And to begin to form what you might call a team or what might someday be called a team. And then so you're praying yourself and then you're asking these people to join you in prayer, just to see if God's voice is resonating in this way in other people's hearts as well. It's very likely that that's what he wants to do there. I do believe that God's deep desire is to be intimately involved with all of his children. He wants to be in conversation with them. He wants to, he has things to say. The creator of the universe actually has things to say. And he wants us to be able to hear those things and then to be able to respond to them in obedience. That's what I really think this kind of I guess a deeper discipleship is all about, is following Jesus so closely that you can hear his voice and you can and then you can choose your response based on an accurate understanding of what he's calling and asking you to do. that's the vision. And so beginning to kind of share that one on one with people until you've got a group that wants to meet together and talk about it. And then there may be a time when it's time to make a proposition or a proposal to somebody in leadership. That's kind of the order I would go.
Peter White (20:21)
So good, yeah, because it takes a community of people to make something like this happen, not just one person. And I really love what you said about God being the kind of God who wants to talk to all of his kids. I just think it's such a beautiful picture. Yeah. Now you mentioned earlier that you had just recently finished a dissertation that was related to spiritual direction within the church and your church particularly. So I'm curious like what did you learn in that process? What what came out for you in that project?
Deidre Franklin (20:57)
Well, I'll try not to to make this too long of a story, but part of the whole process was a discernment process for me. I had actually started my doctorate before I was invited to start this new ministry. It was just something I just was felt like it was time in my life to finally do it. I had wanted to do it for a long time. So I'd started my doctorate in spiritual formation. That was kind of part of a conglomeration of things I was studying in this particular Doctor of Ministry program. And then I was invited to start this ministry of spiritual direction. So that took a corner after I had already started school. Then I wanted to go down the road of a spiritual practice. I started my dissertation. In fact, I wrote chapter one and started chapter two of a dissertation on the spiritual practice of pilgrimage. And my pilgrimage was gonna be I had a group of people, we were already signed up and ready to go. And I was gonna lead and teach a trip to Israel. Well, you know, when the war broke out in Israel, that door closed, not once, but twice, two years in a row, it was delayed. And so finally I was like, I am not going to be able to write my dissertation on pilgrimage. So I switched to spiritual direction. And specifically the building a ministry of spiritual direction in the context of a megachurch is those kind of contrast and those kind of pressures were were really the source of of my dissertation. As it turns out, it was exactly what God was calling me to do. And so to, man, to be able to do an applied doctorate with the actual application in real time. I'm doing this in the moment that I'm writing about it was just obviously God's big invitation. But it was a process of discernment to even see what was going on around me and to receive that as my project. So that was just such a beautiful example of the way God reveals things kind of step by step as we go along, fail, flounder, try again, you know, open a new opportunity when an old door closes. It was just a great process. It's given me a great example to work with.
Peter White (23:11)
That's fantastic. That's such a great story. I hear a lot of echoes of my own Doctor of Ministry story in that of having to like re-pivot and re-pivot and then where you land is like, Well, how did I not know this from the very beginning? This was of course this was supposed to be it all along. Yeah.
Deidre Franklin (23:23)
Yeah. Exactly.
Peter White (23:28)
Yeah, so are there any particular takeaways as you came to the end, that you learned?
Deidre Franklin (23:32)
Yeah, I think I'll return to just this, you know, the truth of this nature, this relational nature of God. God exists in a relationship in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, this ongoing eternal conversation between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This what Dallas Willard calls a divine conspiracy is a conversation about how, you know, how are we going to present, how does God present Himself to us in a way that's comprehensible to us and a way that's understandable? And that conversation is not only ongoing, but that we're invited to participate in that conversation. As a spiritual director, you know, I just I envision myself bringing my directee to a meeting, kind of to a table, to a meeting with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and training our attention on what God is saying to that person. And I envision an invitation, you know, laid down in the middle of that table in each of our conversations. What is that? What is that invitation that God is placing before you in this moment? What is it and what's the nature of it? And what do you need to do to decide whether you're gonna accept that invitation or not?
Peter White (24:49)
Training our attention. I really love that language that you used. It's so perfect. Because there's so many things around us that are trying to take our attention and distract us. Yeah, that are and we don't really think about how the intentionality that we can use with our attention to direct it particularly towards God and what God's doing in our lives.
So I wonder if we might say that spiritual direction is about learning to pay attention to what we're paying attention to.
Deidre Franklin (25:28)
Yeah. That's a great way to say it.
Peter White (25:30)
Deidre, I feel like there's so much more, so many other rabbit trails we could go down and unpack and lots of things related to this. I mean, I love that your church is doing this and is valuing this ministry the way that they are and empowering people to do that. I think that is a really special thing and a really really needed thing in our world today. I think spiritual direction is a gift to so many people.
Deidre Franklin (25:51)
Well, the Sabbath Life School of Spiritual Sirection is sure a big part of our story. and we continue to send, you know, we'll I think we'll just have, you know, kind of a funnel of new spiritual directors that we'll be sending your way for a long time now. So I hope that you are ready for us. We're we're coming down the road.
Peter White (26:10)
Well great. I love to hear that. And thank you for entrusting your people with us and we hope that we we live up to those expectations and in an ongoing way. So Deidre, there are a handful of questions I ask people here at the end and these are just fun, top of mind questions. Don't think too hard about them. do you think you're game for it?
Deidre Franklin (26:19)
I am. I'm game.
Peter White
Okay. All right. What's the last book that you read?
Deidre Franklin
Actually after I finished school I read my first novel for years, Theo of Golden.
Peter White (26:43)
Perfect. Perfect. Well and that kind of fits in the realm of spiritual direction too, a little bit. People in our cohorts have talked about it around the breakfast table. If your job was something different than it is now, what would it be?
Deidre Franklin (26:44)
Well, man. I guess it wouldn't be a lot different. If my job were different from what it is now, it'd probably be just full-time spiritual direction. Now I do a lot more than just spiritual direction.
Peter White (27:08)
Great. What's a place you'd love to travel to that you've never been before?
Deidre Franklin (27:13)
On my bucket list, let's see here. My goodness, why is that such a hard question to answer? I have there's lots of places I haven't been. Right now, I'm having a hard time thinking of the name of the city. I lived in Budapest, but I didn't get over to..., I can't remember.
Peter White (27:29)
Okay. That's quite all right. Do you have a comfort food movie? In other words, like a movie you just go to again and again and never get tired of?
Deidre Franklin (27:39)
Well, I think The Princess Bride, I've seen it a thousand times, and I think I could watch it again without any trouble. Yeah. I love that movie.
Peter White (27:48)
Yeah. Brilliant. Great. What's a favorite place to eat a meal?
Deidre Franklin (27:55)
Hmm. My favorite place is my own kitchen table. I am not the cook. My husband is. And he's a fabulous cook. And then we love to have friends over. And so that my own kitchen table with friends in every chair, that's where that's my favorite place to eat.
Peter White (28:01)
Beautiful. If you and I were to go to karaoke, what would be your song?
Deidre Franklin (28:19)
My goodness, you do not want me to go to karaoke. That's what you don't want to happen.
Peter White (28:26)
Okay, we could take that. That's allowed.
Deidre Franklin (28:28)
Peter, I'm so curious, though, what would your song be?
Peter White (28:31)
Gosh. You know, it would depend on the day and who is with me. So if yeah, if my twelve year old daughter is with me I'd have probably she'd probably convince me to do some Taylor Swift song that she loves right now. And I would go right along with it.
Here's the last one. Deidre, what makes you laugh the hardest?
Deidre Franklin (28:51)
Goodness, what makes me laugh the hardest? I’ve got a group of girls, we get together on the patio, we start telling stories, just about our week and our weaknesses, and maybe maybe one glass of wine in, and that is when I laugh the most, definitely.
Peter White (29:08)
That sounds perfect. Well, Deidre, thank you so much for taking the time to do this and be with us. I love your story and the work that you're doing. Keep up the really good work. And listeners, thank you all for joining us as well. If you want to learn more about the ministry of the Sabbath Life, you can go to our website, thesabbathlife.com, and you can find information there about booking a personal retreat for yourself or for a group at the Abbey of the Heights.
If you'd like to make a financial gift to support the ministry of the Sabbath Life, you can also do that on the website at thesabbathlife.com/give. We exist because of the generosity of people just like you. And last thing, be sure that you're subscribing to the podcast so that you're able to catch the next stories that we share. If you like what you're hearing, please also leave us a review so that others can more easily discover us. Help us spread the word about the Abbey of the Heights and a life of rest.
So until next time, may you know in the deepest parts of your soul that you are God's beloved.