My next two years, while in Transforming Community, were filled with many changes. The retreat provided me with space, community, and material that helped me navigate the changes. One month prior to the initial retreat, I underwent open-heart surgery to replace a congenital heart valve defect. A year later, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Although I missed two in person retreats, I received the materials and recordings to do the retreats myself. Through the different topics for retreat, I worked through my spiritual desert experience. I arrived at the second retreat feeling dangerously tired. I had nothing left to give; I took time during retreat and throughout the quarter to connect with God and to once again be in tune with the Spirit in me. I took time in prayer, spending quiet time with God through centering prayer, and reading scripture and other spiritual writings to strengthen my soul for leadership.

After a year and a half into Transforming Community, I decided that I can take time off from church ministry to continue to learn more about myself and what exactly is God calling me to going forward. With prayers, joint discernment, support of leaders and small group members, I took a leap of faith. I rotated out of church ministry to do a year-long Chaplaincy Residency. I am a third into the year and I am experiencing God’s intimate presence with me on my journey. I still do not know what I will be doing starting fall 2026, but I am transforming and enjoying this journey. Transforming Community has and continues to provide me with the space, rhythms, structure, tools, and support to continue to examine my inner self and strengthen my connection with God so I can be God’s presence for others.

Read more: Cynthia’s Story: The impact of a Transforming Community in the life of a pastor

Lee Ann Thornton’s history tells a good story, but her swiftness to share the gospel, the way her eyes disappeared when she laughed, the joy she found near a body of water, the pleasure of nurturing nature with a hose in her hand, her appreciation of a good harvest, and the way she loved openly her ever growing circle of love. That’s the story of Lee Ann. Her story will forever remain in the hearts of those who loved her.

As much as Lee Ann loved flowers, she would be delighted for donations to be made to the Transforming Center, a ministry that immensely enriched her faith.

Donate to Lee Ann Thornton Memorial Fund

Lee Ann wrote this about her experience…

Becoming aware of Transforming Community was the tipping point in my life when I began to understand the difference between church going and Bible study and true spiritual formation.  Transforming Community is not a solitary work that cannot be done alone.  Coming away for solitude and silence and for discernment, is done, all for the sake of others.  By practicing these rhythms and making them my own, it has created a desire in my daughters to begin practicing these rhythms personally.  To pass this to the next generation is my legacy.

Donate to Lee Ann Thornton Memorial Fund

Use the button above to make a memorial gift to the Lee Ann Thornton Memorials or send donations to the Transforming Center, 400 W. Roosevelt Road Suite 100, Wheaton, IL 60187 with a memo for “Lee Ann Thornton Memorial.”

If you would like to discuss leaving an estate gift to the Transforming Center, contact Andrea Sung or call 630-588-8133, ext. 308.

Read more: Lee Ann Thornton Memorial Fund

After 20 years of ministry, I hit a wall in my spiritual life and discovered that I was burned out. Outwardly, I was doing incredibly well and appeared successful. However, it was all an illusion. Inwardly I was dying, I was empty, I was exhausted and depleted. My emotions had shut down and I could no longer feel, think, or sometimes even breathe. I was dangerously tired and wanted to quit, not just ministry, but life. That’s when I realized that I needed help. I reached out to a counselor and a spiritual director who got me on the path to recovery.  

A stirring in my soul

After two years of intense therapy and spiritual direction, I slowly began to recover from burnout.  During that time, I began looking for resources that would help me deepen my relationship with God and strengthen my soul. That’s when I came across the Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership Podcast with Ruth Haley Barton. The first episode I listened to was Season 4: Episode 9, on May 30^th, 2018 titled “Finding God in the Crucible of Ministry.” It described exactly where I was. As I listened to the podcast each week, my soul was nourished and strengthened. Ruth then started talking about the upcoming Transforming Community® retreats which would begin in January 2019.  I can’t explain it, but something deep in my soul began to bear witness that I needed this and that it was the next step in my journey.

“I learned that my soul was more important than my role.” – Joe Nieves

When I arrived to my first retreat, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be in that season of my life. Each retreat taught me spiritual practices that transformed the inward part of my life, which led me to become healthier, stronger, and whole. I learned that my soul was more important than my role, and that the best thing I can bring the world and my leadership is my transforming self. Each retreat felt like I was going into a Holy Spirit operating room where the Great Physician would do a deep work beneath the surface of my life.  It was a sacred time and a holy time as my soul began experiencing healing and strength.   

Retiring from my old way of pastoring

As I grew healthier and spiritually stronger, I did contemplate retiring.  It wasn’t because I was at the age of retirement, but because I was tired. I had pastored three turnaround churches by the age of 46. I discussed this with my counselor, spiritual director, close friends and my wife and everyone felt that it was not the right time. Entering my last retreat, I carried this with me until Ruth began to teach on crafting a Rule of Life. That’s when the Holy Spirit spoke to me like a bolt of lightning and said, “Joe, I don’t want you to retire from being a pastor, I want you to retire from the way you Pastor.” That’s exactly what I did. On that day, I retired from my old way of pastoring, and rearranged my life, my schedule and my job description around union and communion with Christ, spiritual practices that open me up to God’s transforming presence and my calling to preach, teach and pastor.  

I am extremely grateful to God for Ruth Haley Barton and for the Transforming Center, because without them, I can almost guarantee that I would not be in ministry today. I am now looking forward to my future with excitement and anticipation for what God is going to do first in me, then through me.  

A generous alumni has pledged $50,000 to challenge you to become a Sustaining Partner with a recurring gift of any amount before December 31, 2021. 

FREE BOOK: We will send you our newest Transforming Resource: Transforming Worship by Rory Noland as our thank you when you become a Sustaining Partner with a recurring gift of any size before December 31, 2021.

Read more: Joe’s story: The impact of a Transforming Community in the life of a pastor

Pastor John Knox

Ten years ago, I had it all figured out. Ten years ago, I had been in fulltime ministry for twenty-four years, but I decided it was time to get out. The emotional toll of congregational ministry coupled with the stress of having teenagers in my home propelled me toward change. Compassion fatigue was pronounced. Conflict in the church was starting to feel personal. I was done.

Ten years ago, I took a huge leap of faith and signed up for the two-year experience with the Transforming Center. As I clicked the send button for Transforming Community (TC6) registration, I wondered where I would find sufficient funding to fly to Chicago every quarter for two years. But I felt like an experience in spiritual formation would help me to discern what my next chapter in life would look like. After all, I was done.

I cannot pinpoint the date. Nor can I explain in precise terms what occurred. Sometime during that two-year-period I stopped thinking about getting out of ministry. I was too busy experiencing spiritual renewal. I was learning new concepts. I met people whom I am certain will be lifelong friends. The utter exhaustion started fading. There were moments during worship that I wept internally. As the two-year period unfolded, God changed my heart.

Ten years later, I am still in ministry. Next month, I will celebrate 17 years of service with the same church. And ten years later, I am still serving as chaplain for the law enforcement agencies in my city. My desire for discernment was fulfilled during the TC6 experience. And much more occurred as well. I am not the same person. And by the way, God also provided the funds for travel to Chicago. I am done today. I am done taking life in my own hands. I am done making the plans. God’s surprises are far better.

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Read more: Ten years later, I am still in ministry!

I was finishing the book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence. While reading it, I stopped so many times to breathe, cry, and internalize every concept. On the last page, I found an invitation: “Don’t just learn about spiritual transformation —experience it in your own life!” Somebody was talking to me! After serving in ministry for many years, I was getting tired of teaching truth to others while struggling to maintain a healthy inner life.

When the Transforming Community experience started, I just couldn’t believe that silence was going to be one of the hardest things to do. How is it that I’m so addicted to noise, traduced in technology, activities, ministry, and any other religious compulsive life? The simple exercise of stopping for solitude was a scary thought. I knew I was tired, but I didn’t want to expose myself and confess how burned out I was. My identity (false identity) was so interwoven with my job and ministry that I could only value myself through my ministerial performance.

Then during my first quarter, it happened. I burst into panic attacks, and in days my anxiety disorder consumed my life. My anxiety opened the doors to depression, and in less than 7 months I lost almost everything. During these months, my Transforming Community experience helped me to navigate the chaos, the process of disorientation, and deconstruction. During each retreat, every invitation provided me with an inner language to lament, hold the pain, accept God’s invitation to sit with Him in my sorrow and make the slow, deep journey to healing.

A Spiritual Language in My Own Context

With tears, I want to thank you for investing in me through the scholarship I received to participate in Transforming Community 15. What an honor!  I have a new language to understand my Christian spirituality and how to walk with others. I have been in the Army and did my basic training, but I have to say that by far, this is the hardest thing I have ever done. Soul work is hard work, and I’m thankful for the opportunity. While still on my own spiritual journey, I’m looking forward to blessing my Latino community in Puerto Rico and developing a spiritual language in our context.

Read more: Leo’s story: The impact of a Transforming Community in the life of a pastor

My Transforming Community (TC13) experience began with plenty excitement, anticipation and my soul tiptoeing around the edges of burnout. Fifteen years of pastoral ministry alongside raising a young family had taken the bulk of my energy. I felt weary and worn in ways difficult to express. My spouse and I were mid-sabbatical, so the call to TC complimented a desire to REST.

Several months into our retreat rhythm, the landscape of my life completely shifted. Quite honestly, day by day life unraveled as the need to offer my children and I a safer environment grew clear. I faced the challenges and pain of our situation with tremendous support surrounding us…but what about my soul, Lord? Attending TC felt important and yet now impossibly out of reach.

Thankfully, God already paved the way forward, providing each need. I continued in our community experience — to the very last retreat. Transforming Community became for me a spiritual container by which I felt carried, cared for and loved. The practical tools gained for tending to my soul deepened all my relationships and healed my grieving heart. I cannot imagine just how I did life before!

As a Spiritual Director, I am better equipped to hold space for others’ journeys and stories. As a mother, home life receives a better version of me as I interact with my children. As a pilgrim on sacred spiritual path, I am at home with myself and my God. Thank you Transforming Community…thank you.

Read more: Tiptoeing Around the Edges of Burnout

For the last two years, I traveled to a monastery outside of Chicago every three months for a three day retreat to tend to my soul. With a group of 70 others, as part of the Transforming Center, we practiced ancient spiritual practices and rhythms such as silence, solitude, centering prayer, lectio divina, confession, the daily office, and more. We traveled together down a road of spiritual transformation and it happened in this place.

For the last two years, I was fortunate to sit under the teaching of Ruth Haley Barton. I had one of her most well-known books, Sacred Rhythms, for about a decade. A mentor of mine had given it to me years before I entered ministry. I had never opened that book. A few years ago, though, I finally took it off my shelf….and donated it. I was going through a minimalism phase and thought I had no need for it.

Then, as part of this community, I had to re-buy, read it, confess to Ruth what I did with her book, and, of course, have her sign my new copy.

During these years, Ruth became my rabbi. We read her books, listened to her stories, studied her teachings, and practiced spiritual rhythms. I was honored to sit at her feet and follow in her footsteps.

It’s difficult to put into words what this experience has meant to me because it has radically altered my soul, mind, and life. For someone who was so eager to enter ministry and do work for God, I was shocked at how quickly I became burnt out and forgot to be with God. The Divine has become more real for me, present with me, and alive to me. It has truly been one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life and I am ever grateful for this community.

• I have learned to be present to the One who is always present to me.
• I have learned to be with God before doing for God as well as how to be in God for the world rather than in the world for God.

“The best thing I can bring to my leadership, life, family, and work is my own spiritually transforming self.”

• Silence and solitude have become essential practices for spiritual health.
• The Daily Office gives me a rhythm to commune with God throughout my day.
• Centering Prayer and the Breath Prayer have settled my soul.
• Spiritual transformation happens, not because I do anything, but because I open myself up to the God who transforms.
• And I have learned that in returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust shall be your strength, for the Lord waits to be gracious to you.

If you follow the Christian tradition, perhaps as a leader of an organization or work in ministry, want to pursue seminary, yet feel as if the Christian faith isn’t working anymore, if you’re tired or worn out, if it seems as if God is distant, or if ministry is killing your soul, I encourage you to join a Transforming Community.

It has made me a better husband, father, friend, coworker, and neighbor. It has made me a better human. It has healed my soul. God will use it to change your life, too.

Learn more about joining the next Transforming Community.

Read more: Two Years Transforming: Forever Grateful

Anjuli had to overcome many obstacles to migrate from India and become a physician in America, and the same strong personality that helped her overcome these obstacles was still obvious when she joined her community.  She had many firm opinions, and was not shy about expressing them.  She operated with an air of authority, and was accustomed to getting her way.  

Over the course of the two-year community experience, Anjuli’s dogmatism gave way to a spiritual openness and her overbearing pride was replaced with a new humility. In one of her last academic papers, she captured this transformation in her own words:  “Ruth Haley Barton (has) taught me to purge my narcissism and learn self-sacrifice…Through thick and thin, I am learning intimacy with Christ, fidelity in the spiritual disciplines, a biblical perspective on the circumstances in life, (and) a teachable, responsive, humble, and obedient spirit.”

Before her community experience ended, Anjuli confided to me that she wanted to leave money from her estate to the Transforming Center so that others could have the same opportunity for transformation she had. 

It was with deep gratitude that we received our first estate gift from the Nayak family earlier this year.  In keeping with Anjuli’s wishes, the money will be set up as an endowment fund, and the annual income will be used to provide scholarship funds to help those, especially minorities in the Chicago area, who need financial assistance to attend a Transforming Community.  

If you would like to discuss leaving an estate gift to the Transforming Center, contact Andrea Sung or call 630-588-8133, ext. 308.

Read more: Transforming Gift Creates Endowment Fund for Scholarships

I have served Christ for thirty years in urban youth ministry in the Lawndale community of Chicago. The need to be “on call” 24/7/365 has been a way of life for me all these years. While I was aware of the need for self-care and spiritual formation, over time this became more like a spiritual triage effort than real restoration and connection to Christ. Hard and grueling ministry was relentless and old practices became rote to the extent that they lost their potency.

As I was finishing up seminary, two friends carried me financially so I could join a Transforming Community. Like the story in Mark 2 where, out of love, the friends of a paraplegic man were so bold they busted a roof open to get him to Christ for healing, my friends knew I NEEDED HEALING.

My two friends carried me to Jesus to be healed. They knew I would obey Jesus’ voice, pick up my mat and walk again. My two-year Transforming Community experience has been healing, my walk with Christ is fresh, and I have discovered a healthier way to live and serve God in the world. My life after the Transforming Community is filled with the same challenges, but I am serving Christ from a stronger place than ever before.

Read more: What Happens After 30 Years of Being on Call 24/7/365

We began our journey with the Transforming Center with Transforming Community 4 and have just kept on coming. Incorporating the rhythms of quarterly retreat into our lives is now an important aspect of our spiritual health. When we began, we were looking for a deeper, more intimate walk with God. Although small groups and Bible study were good, we found they weren’t enough to draw us deeper into the divine relationship we sought. Our search for peace in the midst of life’s difficulties required, for us, something more.

Life gets hard

Since TC4 we have undergone some of our most challenging experiences: the ending of our son’s marriage, leaving our church home of 32 years, moving our business, the mission of another son in the jungles of central Congo, the premature birth and subsequent hospitalization of our two grandchildren, a life threatening accident with multiple injuries and a cancer diagnosis.

Without the deepening relationship we have with God through the Transforming Community experience, we don’t believe we would have survived these last 10 years without serious damage to our marriage, business or physical well-being.

Spiritual practices bring peace

The spiritual practices we have adopted from our transforming communities have given us a peace in the trials we never thought were possible. We now know we can discern the will of God and know that He delights in revealing it to us. We have gone deeper in our knowledge of our Christian heritage by learning to appreciate and love liturgical practices of the early Church.

Understanding more of who we are in Christ has allowed us tenderness with one another when our natural tendency might be to “blame and shame.” And in the darkest hours of cancer treatment, the practice of breath prayer allowed me (Lesley) to endure when I thought it was no longer possible.

These gifts would never have been possible if we hadn’t started our TC4 journey. After almost a decade, we’re certain we don’t know where we’d be without them.

As part of our 15-year anniversary celebration we are sharing stories and testimonies from each completed Transforming Community to celebrate all the Lord has done. We hope these stories will inspire you to continue to go deeper in your relationship with God, draw you into celebration of all the Lord has done, and encourage you to partner with us in all He has yet to do!

Read another story of transformation from TC4:

Rev. Vincent Rife’s reflection on his community experience

© 2017 Gilbert and Lesley Smith

Read more: Sustained by the Rhythm of Retreat