Holly Porter Phillips is a pastor, writer and trained spiritual director through Anam Cara. After years of wrestling with her place in the church and overthinking life with God, she’s found new ways of encountering the Spirit through simply being. Holly serves as co-pastor at a small church in Austin, Texas where she lives with her musician husband, their three kids and a backyard full of birds.
We are pleased to announce the newest recipient of our Empowering Experiments Mini-Grant: spiritual director, Holly Phillips! Her project is entitled Listening Like a Spiritual Director. The project aims to help more faith leaders adopt the posture of a spiritual director, rather than an authoritarian figure. With the current landscape of church shifting, Phillips sees a need for pastors to serve as a witness to the lives of the community. She says: “When I first began applying to spiritual direction training programs, my director said to me “spiritual direction is the future of the Church.” At the time I didn’t understand what she meant, and imagined it to mean more people would practice or attend spiritual direction. I have grown to realize that what she likely meant is that the posture of spiritual direction, much more than the practice, is the future of the Church. As described above, I believe that there is a shift happening, where people are no longer looking for a pastor to tell them what to do – people are looking for someone to bear witness to their lives. The top priority of this project is to help pastors and other ministry leaders engage with the changing roles they (we!) are being called to. This workshop series will allow pastors to grow spiritually by learning to listen more closely to themselves, to others and to God.”
Listening Like a Spiritual Director will take place once per-month in early 2025 (January, February, March, April) in Austin, TX. Local pastors will meet for 1.5 - 2 hours monthly for four months for a time of centering, teaching and practice. These groups will be part instruction and part spiritual direction groups.
Phillips’ mission aligns with The Church Lab’s mission to envision the Church’s future and the future of faith practice, and we are thrilled to empower her important work!