We are living in challenging times. We are hearing the news; adjusting our lifestyle; embracing the new realities and finding our way forward. Our whole world is different and we are different too! The first wave that swept over us is the virus and germs called COVID 19. A few weeks later, we are all feeling the personal impact of surviving and grieving ̶ so much that has been lost along the way. Sickness and death; the loss of graduation and birthdays, job loss and a heightened sense of anxiety and worry have all collided in our new lives. But now new realities face us that will challenge us to the core.
Now, new waves face us: record unemployment, economic anxiety and the rising tide of the mental and emotional toil of living through and living with the unprecedented woes of the pandemic. This is the need now, that the newly launched Soul Care Institute will face and meet with God’s help. As you read on, you’ll see that this is not the time to shriek back but actually it is the time to move forward.
Exciting News to Announce!
left to right: Steve, Gwen, Kaylene, and Jimm
While the pandemic has been happening, the Board of Potter’s Inn has been hard at work to help in the transition of Potter’s Inn. We are excited to announce that the Soul Care Institute will be launched into it’s own entity in July 2020. Through an extensive search process, we have invited the new President and Vice President to begin their work. The Board of Potter’s Inn unanimously called Kayleen and Jimm Derksen to serve in this capacity. Kayleen will be President and Jimm will be the Vice-President. Together, they will lead a new Team to not only launch the Soul Care Institute as it’s own entity and 501c3 but will be tasked to grow, expand and morph the Soul Care Institute into a much needed future. You can read more about the Derksen’s below. We are most grateful to Joan Hall, David Sachenmaier and Katy Kloosterman for their work in interviewing a host of qualified candidates and discerning, along with the Board of Potter’s Inn, who the new leaders will be!
What has become clear in our discernment journey is the vital need for soul care in the new world we face now. When Gwen and I founded Potter’s Inn in 2000, we faced the daunting task of offering a message to leaders in the market place and ministry who were tired, burned out and weary of religion. Now, the new heart-felt need that the Derksen’s will face is for the equipping, training and release of prepared leaders to meet the needs of the world in pandemic and post-pandemic times.
Everything is being rethought in the wake of the pandemic and this is true of the Soul Care Institute as well. New ideas, new strategy and new leadership are needed! The Derksens will now stand on a strong foundation of the Soul Care Institute and the wonderful stories from our graduates! We are so thankful to Joe and June Walters for their leadership in beginning and implementing the Soul Care Institute. Their work of building the Institute from the ground up is so deeply appreciated by the Board, the students and staff of the Soul Care Institute. As they transition away from Potter’s Inn, we pray God’s blessings upon them and wish them well!
Soul Care for the Sake of Others
Soul Care is never for just for someone to get better in life. Soul care, when properly understood, has a missional focus. Soul Care for the sake of others is what someone does when their life has been so deeply changed and transformed. We feel a compelling sense within us that, “This truth is not just for us—we must tell others.”
Just as the Risen Jesus told Mary—the first witness of the resurrection—to “Go and tell” the others, Potter’s Inn is now embarking on this same mission to “Go and Tell” market leaders and ministry leaders about the vital message that we can lose our very souls in the chase and hunt for security and for that which we think is life.
This same “Go and Tell” mandate happened along the road to Emmaus when two other disciples met the risen Jesus and found solace in his company. Rather than staying there and soaking in their own healing of despair, they “immediately got up and returned to tell the others” (See Luke 24:33). (I have written several devotions and published them on Facebook if you want to read about the Emmaus story.
The bottom line of what happened on the road to Emmaus is simply profound and informative. Grief and despair were assuaged by the Risen Jesus. Soul Care happened in a profound way, yet we learn there is a new mission that we are invited into just as those two disciples were!
Along the Emmaus road, we see profound change happening. Then a compelling need to tell others. The story in Luke 24 is compelling. What happened in the souls of the two companions of Jesus was not just for their own insight and communion with Jesus. It was so deep; so life changing and so compelling that Luke tells us that they got up “at once” to return on mission to tell others.
Soul Care’s mission is first you breathe—then you help others to breathe—just as the flight attendant directs us on flights!
A bona fide sense of urgency is facing the world now in these pandemic times and we believe the message of caring for the soul and caring for the soul for the sake of others is more real now than ever before. The Soul Care Institute is a part of this “go and tell” strategy. It truly is an exciting time coupled with a dire need facing us like never before. The core message is this: We cannot help others until we first find our own healing and hope. Change happens first to the messenger! Then the ripple effects of authentic change will last, endure and be blessed!
This is exactly what happened to me. I was changed. Then, I told someone else. This is what the soul care journey is all about. One life is impacted; then that same life begins to spill over and share what has happened to them.
When my life turned around in 1996 by spending time with Dallas Willard in the monastery in California, I was not the same when I flew back home to Gwen in North Carolina. I immediately told her. Step by step and little by little, we both embraced new insights and teaching just at these two companions did. Together, our hearts burned but we quickly realized that we could not hoard the truth. We felt compelled to tell others. One cannot keep for themselves, what is so good—so life-giving and so life-changing. You simply want others to know.
Our sense of being compelled to tell others was so life-altering we quit our jobs and embraced a whole new direction which involved massive change; leaving what we knew and embraced a compelling mission to help others know a deeper truth—a truth that is the Gospel—Good News for those who already knew Jesus, but still could know him deeper.
Progressive Revelation—step by step!
Potter’s Inn is the result of this encounter of our own Emmaus road experience. First, we encountered Jesus. First, our hearts burned within us. First, we sat and stayed with Jesus in a deep fellowship. We built a retreat where people could come to have their own Emmaus road experience. But then, mission happened. I wrote books. Gwen was trained in spiritual direction. We travelled the world together to tell people what had happened to us and envisioned an equipping ministry that would teach, impart and train the message.
But more was needed. We could not do this great task alone. So, God gave us a vision to multiply this great work. We would help train and equip other people to do this same work! This became known as the Soul Care Institute—a two-year, intentional community where people could have their own Emmaus road experience. Then, the hope was “they”—the new travellers on the Emmaus road would continue the mission. (See www.soulcareinstitute.com for more information).
Challenging times call for great courage, sacrifice and commitment. We believe this is the time to not pull back but the opposite—to meet the challenge at hand with the compelling message of soul care for the sake of others.
A very special “Shout Out” to the front-line workers of Potter’s Inn who are the Board of this wonderful ministry. Our Board members are: Michael and Hallie Doyle (San Antonio, TX), Joan Hall (Colorado Springs, CO), Katy Kloosterman (Holland, MI), Tammy Magaldi (Indiana), Steve and Gwen Smith (Charlotte, NC) and Ray Walkowski (Colorado Springs, CO). The Board has helped steer the rudder through these challenging times and walked a long path of discernment together. I would say that working with the Board has been one of the great highlights of my entire work life. All that we have learned together has been remarkable and humbling.
Gwen and I look forward to providing soul care, leading the Podcast work and offering spiritual direction. With our shoulders lightened by the launch of the Soul Care Institute, reorganization of Potter’s Inn and now working less, we are excited to embrace our own message as we offer it to others. This summer we will be the keynote speakers at the US Navigator Leadership in July and also the Canadian Navigators in June.
With Deep Gratitude,
Steve
