91 They serve rather to draw the individual near to Christ, behold Him, and position the individual to be receptive to the empowering and transforming grace of God. Donald Whitney refers such objections to 1 Timothy 4:7, which commends pastors to discipline themselves “for the purpose of godliness.”81 Willard, in keeping with his view of the disciplines as indirect, sees the purpose of the disciplines as the “effective and full enjoyment of active love of God and humankind.”82 These goals of godliness and full enjoyment of God and humankind are particularly Christian descriptions of what studies in resilience and well-being would call a flourishing life.83 LEADING CHANGE WITHOUT LOSING HEART: SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES AS RESILIENCE FACTORS Resilience, as noted earlier, is distinct from recovery. Rather than a return to personal flourishing, resilience is the ability to maintain a stable level of flourishing in the face of adversity. The literature has revealed that resilience factors that protect against risk are innumerable because of the contingent nature of aversive situations. However, they can still be categorized as individual, family, or community factors.84 The “Resilience Portfolio Model” suggested by Grych, Hamby, and Banyard provides a workable model for understanding these various factors and how they predict individual resilience or the lack thereof.85 It pulls specifically from research on resilience, positive psychology, and posttraumatic growth. The authors note, “…empirical studies consistently show that spirituality is associated with life satisfaction and posttraumatic growth (e.g., Shaw, Joseph, & Linley, 2005), and of the strengths studied, spirituality has some of the highest associations with adjustment following adversity (N. Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004; Peterson & Seligman, 2003).”86 Thus, the link between spirituality is both conceptually and empirically significant. What has not been done is to study a specific set of spiritual disciplines (at least beyond prayer and Bible reading) in an empirical way in order to draw out deeper insight on which practices tend to be most formative in leader resilience. Willard notes that “…very few disciplines can be regarded as absolutely indispensable for a healthy spiritual life and work, though some are obviously more important than others. Practicing a range of activities that have proven track records AN ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY: EXPLORING SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES AS POTENTIAL PREDICTORS OF RESILIENT PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
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