Beyond Tradition and onto the Open Road

Fresh Pathways to Spiritual Growth

“How can we grow spiritually?”

This is an important question for a lot of people, and it doesn’t come with easy answers.

Another way of expressing the question, for me, is,

“How can I keep growing in a dynamic and authentic walk with God that meaningfully and positively impacts my life and my world?”

For the last 25 years, I have been growing to know and trust the God of the Bible. Over the centuries, well-defined pathways for followers of Jesus have emerged from Greek, European, and American cultures. Many are satisfied with these pathways, but many more — both inside and outside of Christianity — are not.

If European culture is essential to following Jesus, then that is a cultural obstacle too big to overcome for many people.

For others, the wineskins are life-giving up to a point, but they feel like they hit some kind of ceiling. They sense that God is inviting them into something bigger, but they don’t know how to say ‘yes’. A sense of holy dissatisfaction builds.

Additional Possibilities

My 25-year spiritual journey has taken me into and through a wide range of situations, cultures, and experiences. Sometimes painful, sometimes mundane, sometimes exciting. Always changing, usually stretching. There have been seasons of desert and wilderness, but overall, there has been a sense of God’s loving and sovereign presence.

That journey has given me resources to draw on that I could never have imagined as a little kid growing up in a single-parent home in rural Australia, and I am more convinced than ever that the possibilities are much broader than we usually think.

Onto the open road.

As that journey pushes me out further and further into other cultures, I realise that many, many people are feeling a sense of “stuckness” and desire more in their relationship with God. I see that the experiences and insights I’ve received can be useful to others. At the same time, I can benefit from their experiences and insights.

God is living and active in hugely diverse ways and places. He has a way of integrating the transforming work He wants to do outside of us with the transforming work He wants to do inside of us.

I see what happens when people take hold of this reality. They are energised, activated, and transformed. They bring that to the communities around them, and it spreads. And I’ve reached a point where I’m confident that writing some of this down might meaningfully add value to people’s lives.

Hence, this blog…

So if the idea of that type of spiritual growth resonates with you, this blog may be worth some of your time. Perhaps we can share the path together for a while and see what conversations emerge.

I’m planning to introduce this blog over three posts.

For the rest of this one, I’ll introduce myself so you can get to know me a bit and see how this subject emerges from my personal journey.

My next post will unpack some shifting dynamics I see which challenge those who want to grow in this way.

The final post in this introductory ‘series’ will unpack the title of this blog, and how it relates to the solution.

So, how did I get here?

Of course, we’re all mid-story, right? Right now, I am in my mid-40’s and married cross-culturally with three teenage children who have experienced everyday life as minorities in three different countries.

I grew up in a rural part of Australia in a single-parent family, with some exposure to a ‘high’ church environment. I relocated to a major Australian city for the last few years of my schooling and university. Most of these years were characterised by anxiety, depression, and unhelpful attempts to escape.

I attended university and had a foot each in an alternative community and a young adult creative community before an experience of Jesus caused a dramatic shift in my life on many levels. Addictions were broken instantly. I became involved in a young adult church community. I began looking outside myself more, which led to community initiatives serving local university students and international students. I had this huge hunger for God and for helping others know Him, which drove me immediately to Bible College to try and understand my new reality.

Fast forward a couple of years; I was living, studying, and working in Asia. This had never been my plan or desire, but was the result of a series of small steps of obedience to what I felt God was asking me to do. Share an apartment with two specific friends. Choose a particular major for my degree. Apply for an overseas study tour (despite having no cash — He provided). Accept the scholarship I was offered. Involve my community in helping me discern the next steps.

The result of that series of obedience steps was that I found myself swimming in the midst of a handful of completely new cultures, with minimal support networks, trying to work out what on earth it meant to follow God in this new space.

Asian cities have been home for most of my life. Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash.

Since then, I’ve lived in or visited a dozen Asian countries with a wide range of ethnic and religious environments, and spent five years in a disadvantaged and highly multicultural part of a major Australian city. Professionally, I’ve worked in a number of industries: caretaking, hospitality, accounts, travel, community development, training, and coaching (life, executive, and spiritual).

As I’ve walked with Jesus, I have had opportunities to serve others who wanted to lean in towards God, particularly the people who don’t have the opportunity to do so in their natural context. In recent years, this has involved serving, coaching, and supporting leaders in several Asian cities as they pursue that same passion in their own contexts.

Across this journey, I’ve seen sustained spiritual growth take place in a wide range of communities and contexts. As we learn how to walk with Him in every part of our lives, many, many exciting new possibilities emerge. I am convinced that there is hope for the many who are attracted to Jesus, but not to religion. I believe that helping people make that connection is one of the most profound things I can do. I hope this blog can facilitate and support those kinds of connections.

Moving forward…

In this opening post, I’ve introduced myself, giving you some context that helps you understand where I’m coming from as I write.

In the next post, I’ll unpack the “why” behind this blog — some shifting dynamics I see which pose a challenge to those who want to grow spiritually. In the third post, I’ll unpack the blog’s name and how I believe it points towards the solution.

I hope you’ll stay with me for at least the next two posts. I believe you’ll know by then if this is a path that is good for you in this season of your life.

Thanks for sharing the road this far!