Unhurried Living | Helping Christians Rest Deeper & Lead Better

In the last chapter of An Unhurried Leader, I talked about the difference between our working for God and working with God. There is a way for us to do our work in a way that imagines God is elsewhere, assigning us work to do but mostly waiting for us to do it ourselves.     It’s a beautiful thing to realize that whatever our work, paid or freely given, we can do our work with God. We aren’t alone...

We’re in the Advent week of joy. This is our third week of sinking into the season  by experiencing a spiritual practice together. Let’s keep ourselves grounded in our Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father and prince of peace.   On today’s episode I’ll guide you through the Carry Prayer as you bring your need for healing to Jesus. Learn more about Gem  on the Unhurried Living website...

This is the second week of Advent and our focus is peace. Over the course of Advent I’m sharing one helpful spiritual practice per week to help us stay centered on the season.   Today we are going to try on a practice called SLOW. SLOW stands for stop, linger, observe and wonder. You can use SLOW right there in the middle of a busy day. This idea first came to mind when I would catch myself feelin...

Today, I’m talking with Brian Zahnd about his latest book "When Everything’s On Fire" . The subtitle is Faith Forged From the Ashes. Brian’s book speaks to just how much this season in which we found ourselves over the last couple of years has tested our faith. A word some use to describe this experience is “deconstruction.”    Some think that deconstruction is a new idea, but something like decon...

Think about the stories when Jesus and his disciples are on their way somewhere. The disciples often seem agenda-oriented and, therefore, they become quite frustrated when Jesus keeps stopping to talk with or to help one individual along the way. They seem to think that all this stopping is getting in the way of arriving where they are going.     They feel like they are going to serve a whole vill...

This is the first week of Advent and for the next few weeks, we’ll walk together toward the birth of Christ, culminating on Christmas Day. For this season of Advent, I thought it would be good to share a few helpful spiritual practices. So we’ll engage hope, peace, joy and love in this way for the next four weeks. More than teaching these practices, we will experience them together.  On today’s ep...

Welcome Sister Joan Chittister to the Unhurried Living Podcast where we are talking about her latest book, " The Monastic Heart " where she offers simple, practical, deep wisdom. You know when someone has lived truth well when they can make things so very easily understandable.  Sr. Joan Chittister is an internationally known author and lecturer, and the executive director of Benetvision, a resour...

Today, on the I Can Do That Podcast, we’re talking about the symptoms of exhaustion. It’s easy to miss hints that you might need to ease up and rest. So today I wanted to briefly list a few symptoms that may reveal your level of tiredness. You find yourself complaining a lot. You’re bugged by everything. You have a decreased ability to concentrate. Brain fog is diminishing your focus. You have a s...

Unhurried is about making time in our lives for what matters most. The irony is that when we are frantically busy, we often run past what (and who) matters most in our lives. We can learn to slow down to remember and do what matters most to us and to God. Today I talk with dear friends John Freeman and Jeb Shore on how we take this simple idea and live into it's reality for our living and leading....

Sometimes we imagine that the in between parts are unimportant. We only live for the big and notable moments. And, typically, these are the moments we post on social media. Social media can be a place where we curate our own version of quick transitions, showing the best and moving our story along. But most of our life is in the in-between. That’s why presence and being in the moment matters. It c...

Today, I’m sharing a great conversation I had recently with Stephen Arterburn about a book he and David Stoop have written: The Soul of a Hero. This theme is so prevalent in our culture. So many of our most popular movies are rooted in the hero’s journey. There is something noble and beautiful that we can aspire to in the heroic way of Jesus himself.  Stephen Arterburn is the founder and chairman...

This is a continuation of the conversation we began last week. So, let’s return to the word I mentioned in the last episode…receptivity. Receptivity isn’t discussed much these days. We are typically more concerned with activity -  what we’re producing or how much we’re achieving more often rises to the surface of our conversations.  But receptivity is critical for the work of the soul. Openness, l...

Without question, there is one spiritual practice that has been the most central to my soul’s formation. In fact, I have been engaging this practice for over half my life and I have not experienced it the same way twice.    Here at Unhurried Living we call it Unhurried Time with God. But it is classically known as solitude and silence. I realize the term solitude and silence might sound a little d...

Today, I’m sharing a great conversation I had recently with my friends, Darrell Warner and Matt Fogle about how we make space to notice and respond to God’s presence in our busy lives. So often as leaders, we fill every minute with activity—really good activities. But a leader needs to cultivate moments for receptivity in the midst of our many good activities.  We talk about questions like:  What...

Today I’m introducing the process of Notice, Discern, & Respond (or NDR). NDR is a supremely helpful progression for change, especially in terms of our thoughts. Once you become familiar with this simple idea, it can be an underlying way of life as you engage your own thoughts and feelings as well as your transformational journey.    The beauty of NDR is that it helps you make the move away from r...

In today’s episode, Alan speaks with Ashley Hales about her new book A Spacious Life . You’ll hear a lot of intersections between her good thoughts here and Alan’s first book, An Unhurried Life . Alan’s book had a title focused on time. Ashley’s book has a title focused on space. But they are both talking about the great challenge and cost of hurry, and God’s invitation to live our lives at the sl...

Hope is a deep and strong dynamic. I believe that deep down, we all have access to this gift. However, for many of us, it gets buried underneath the hard knocks of life. And yet hope gets uncovered, over time, as we make our way through our circumstances. Hope is that beautiful combination of two more life-giving dynamics: with and through . And, more importantly, it’s with and through with God.  ...

Today, I’m sharing a great conversation I had recently with my friends, Jeb Shore and John Freeman about how our obsession with productivity impacts the level of hurry in our souls. In An Unhurried Life , I wrote a chapter titled “Productivity: Unhurried Isn’t Lazy,” in part, to speak to this tendency to make assumptions about what makes our lives productive. The irony is that my over-busyness is...

Today, on the I Can Do That Podcast, we are talking about love. I realize it’s pretty audacious to think I can discuss this subject in a 10-minute podcast. Let me assure you, I am in no way covering the depths of God’s love or what it means to give and receive love. I am simply layering another part of our foundation.   But I’m not going to talk about a prancing through the daffodils kind of love....

In today’s episode, Alan talks with fellow author, A. J. Sherrill about contemplative prayer. It’s such a timely practice for our frantic, hurried world today. We really do need wise mentor and coaches like A. J. to help us actually live the invitation to “Be still and know that God is…God is with us…God is at home in us through Christ by the Spirit.” We so need to learn how to be comfortable in s...

I’d like to propose an idea right up front here. Can we acknowledge that 100% of the time we do not know 100% of the story? I know this may be jarring to some of us. I, personally, like to think that I always know what’s going on. I’m an excellent mind-reader and an astounding predictor of outcomes. I hope you can tell that my tongue is firmly planted in cheek.   We don’t actually know 100% of any...

Alan  and friends, Darrell Warner and Matt Fogle, share a great conversation about the issue of identity. In his book, " An Unhurried Leader ", Alan wrote about how doing our work to prove our worth is a very common temptation for leaders. It can be surprising just how often insecurity is driving us to frenetic activity.     We too often imagine that our value or worth is hanging in the balance of...

If you could see me right now you would notice that my hair is at least four different colors. I tried easing into my grey hair last year about three months into the pandemic. “This is the perfect time,” I thought. But then, as it grew out, I began to doubt the aging process and decided to color again.   Well, last November I decided to go for it one more time. So about four inches from my roots d...

Today, Alan talks with Dr. Matthew Sleeth about his latest book, Hope Always: How to Be A Force for Life in a Culture of Suicide . It’s a difficult but timely theme. We’ve been living through a season that has stretched many of us to what feel like our very limits.    By the way, this episode is airing at the end of September, which has been Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. It seemed to be a ve...

Welcome to the Unhurried Living Podcast. Today, Alan is talking with friends Jeb Shore and John Freeman about the effect of hurry on our souls and the correlation that people make between anxiety and concern. We invite you to listen in on this leadership conversations that will help you to develop healthy rhythms of rest and work, and to live fuller in friendship with God.  Discover more Christian...