evangelical 360°

Ep. 39 / Ancient Traditions and the Art of Spiritual Friendship ► Norm Allen

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 37

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What happens when a fired youth minister transforms his pain into a forty-year exploration of spiritual friendship? Norm Allen's remarkable journey reveals pathways to deeper connection with God and others that many evangelicals have missed.

After being unceremoniously dismissed in 1983, Allen faced a crucible moment—bitter, angry, and uncertain about his future. Rather than staying trapped in resentment (he eventually burned his journal of complaints), Allen discovered his unique gift for listening to leaders struggling with profound loneliness. This revelation launched Touchstone Ministries, where for four decades, he's cultivated spaces for spiritual friendship among businesspeople, ministry leaders, and seekers.

Allen's approach challenges conventional evangelical spirituality by mining two millennia of Christian tradition. "I'm basically a curious person, or you might call me a spiritual magpie," he explains. This curiosity led him to explore contemplative prayer through Ignatian spirituality, Celtic prayer rhythms, Franciscan meditation on the cross, and Benedictine hospitality. Rather than abandoning his evangelical roots, Allen integrated these ancient practices to enrich his Jesus-centered faith.

The heart of Allen's ministry centers on redefining friendship itself. Beyond mere friendliness, spiritual friendship involves intentionally creating space where Jesus becomes present in conversations. "We assume Jesus is present, but sometimes we need to sit together and say, 'Let's just sit in silence,'" Allen notes. This approach transforms relationships from networking or accountability into sacred encounters where mutual listening reveals God's voice.

For those feeling spiritually hungry or dissatisfied with surface-level faith experiences, Allen offers gentle wisdom: seek internal quietness amidst our noisy world, take responsibility for your spiritual journey rather than expecting church programs to fulfill every need, and test every practice by whether it helps you see Jesus more clearly.

You can learn more about Spiritual Friendship resources and retreats, and find Norm Allen's books at Touchstone.ca

And you can share this episode using hashtag #Evangelical360 and join the conversation online! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, brian Stiller, and I'm pleased to share with you another conversation with leaders, changemakers and influencers impacting Christian life around the world. Be sure to share this episode, use hashtag Evangelical360, and please subscribe on YouTube. My guest today is Norm Allen, founder of Touchstone Ministries and author of Spiritual Friendship the Art of being Friends with God and a Few Others.

Brian Stiller:

For decades, norm has been coming alongside believers from all walks of life, inviting them into a deeper discipleship through spiritual retreat and friendship. In his book he writes this Spiritual friendship exists at the connection between our deepest longings for experiencing God and our desire to become fully mature humans. In our highly driven, cognitive-oriented culture, our inner beings long for friendship and connection with God, with others who share our longing. Join me as Norm and I talk about the importance of growing in spiritual maturity. Norm, so good to have you on Evangelical 360.

Norm Allen:

I think it's nice to be here

Brian Stiller:

, norm. It's probably best that we let people know that. I guess it was 50 years ago this next month that we joined together with Youth for.

Brian Stiller:

Christ,

Norm Allen:

you were my president and I was a lowly field lock.

Brian Stiller:

Well, in that time you emerged pretty quickly into national leadership and over the time our friendship has grown.

Norm Allen:

Yeah, I mean, we went from me being sort of the newbie on the block I was 27 or whatever and you were 35 and pretended to know what you were doing. So we were in perfect shape. You know, I was still not able to even understand myself as a leader. But you came alongside me and said you know, you've got leadership capacity, and so that was one of the big sort of opening doors for me.

Norm Allen:

As I was being called, I felt, to follow Jesus in sort of the world of evangelism through Youth for Christ. But then I saw my role as a leader develop, partly with your encouragement. And then when I went into the national office and worked under your leadership, then I had lots of scope to then exercise all the different gifts that I had and put myself across the country helping other chapters in Youth for Christ, and so it was quite an interesting time. And then, of course, we've been through many ups and downs in our lives. You left YFC, went to EFC, then Tyndale and back to WEA and I had touched on for 40 years after I was sent out the door at Youth for Christ. But in the course of all of that you and I have walked like brothers, with Jesus at the center, and we've been strength for each other for a lot of those years.

Brian Stiller:

Norm, when you unceremoniously left the youth ministry, you started a ministry called Touchstone, which I want to get to in a moment, but just so people understand our context, for about 25 years eight of us, under your leadership, have done retreats twice a year. We get at a cottage in north of Toronto on a lake somewhere. We get at a cottage in north of Toronto on a lake somewhere in the spring and the fall. We have fun together, we pray, we Bible study together, we have times of ceremonial blessing and the Lord's Supper, and that has been for me, enormously helpful in my growth and my understanding of both kind of the spirituality framework of my life, which as a Pentecostal, I'm not sure I understood that well.

Norm Allen:

Well, you understood it in that particular way

Brian Stiller:

, yeah, but you brought to us all a larger vision of, and a more historic vision of what God was doing through others and could do through us. So I guess the question talk a bit about Touchstone itself so people understand that ministry.

Norm Allen:

Right. Well, I went through outplacement, counseling and had help in sort of recalibrating what I was looking for, developing everything from developing a CV and starting to look for work and all that sort of thing. And then it became clear, with some help with some friends, that they felt that there's something about, whatever I do, that I come alongside people, I listen well, leadership. People who are lonely seem to want that, my support, not necessarily for advice, but just to find companionship, to be able to talk about the hard things of life. And then that out of that seems that community started to develop. And so they said if we could figure out a way to create a covering for you, which ultimately became Touchstone Ministries, we think we would like to do that and then free you up to explore that.

Norm Allen:

So that was June of 84.

Norm Allen:

And we had some kind of a mission statement, but basically we were trying to respond to the need, particularly of men at the time, of the loneliness of leadership in business, politics, the arts a bit, and those of us in sort of spiritual leadership.

Norm Allen:

And that really gave me 40 years to explore what are the things that help nurture friendship, help nurture our own personal lives as we face the dark times and the joyful times in life, and so that essentially that board, which was a terrific resource for me they were almost like my priests we ultimately they gave me enough freedom that I could then explore, rather than saying, here's what you've got to accomplish in terms of results. It was like let's see what you need to do to figure out what this thing actually is, because we basically had a blank sheet of paper in June of 84, and didn't really know what we were going to do. But 40 years later it had become defined as something that we would have said is a community of people with Jesus at the center of it and attempting to nurture spiritual friendship. But we'd been through many, many stages through that whole period of time.

Brian Stiller:

Let me just go back to this transition that you made and what you have learned and what you might pass on to others. You're let go from a youth ministry. You're let go from a youth ministry. You're young, maybe a little disillusioned and angry, unsure of what to do next. You came to understand something about yourself through that and what the possibilities were. Use that as a bit of a of a teaching moment for people who may be at that point in their own lives today.

Norm Allen:

Yeah, it's hard to know. I mean I was definitely devastated, angry, bitter you add up all the negative emotions you can imagine. So that happened a few days before Christmas of 83. We eventually negotiated that as long as I continued to raise my support I could be paid, rather than giving me a five-day severance that they would give me until June of 84, as long as I raised the money, and so that. But anyway, I was so angry and my journaling reflected it. You know the more.

Norm Allen:

I sort of processed it, and that happens to anybody who's been fired. You doubt your value. It affects your marriage. Three weeks after you've been let go people are saying, well, have you got a job yet? And you want to pound them right.

Norm Allen:

But somewhere in there Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection became sort of I want to be like Christ in his crucifixion, in his life, in his death and in his resurrection. So I started to process that stuff and that began with the help of a counselor in the outplacement world, a mutual friend of ours. He was a lovely man and I started to try to figure out what were my strengths, gifts and all that sort of stuff, and it became clear that me, being a bit of an entrepreneur was one of those things. But for me, to get spiritually healthy, there came a point where I had to take that journal and burn it, because all that journaling, of all that negative stuff, I never wanted to go back and revisit it. So we used to have a wood stove in our place in the country at that time and I just lifted the lid and fired it in one morning and said I don't want to revisit that anymore.

Norm Allen:

I have to start looking forward, and so in a sense, that was one of those things that you learn that you need the company of friends. You can't do it alone. Being fired and then trying to recalibrate your life is a hard, hard job. But calibrate your life is a hard, hard job. But with you know, there were all kinds of people who ended up becoming resources for me, helping me understand myself, helping me understand my potential, helping me see the opportunities. And then some people who did come alongside and say you know we'll be with you as we start this ministry, and they became the board and it functioned really, you know, obviously never perfectly, because I was involved, but it it had a form of authority for me and protection while I went out and did something that nobody understood, and it was just sort of me hanging around in between the cracks with leadership. People in bay street, people like you and people

Brian Stiller:

how did that emerge?

Brian Stiller:

beginning to build the relationships and beginning to serve. Was that an epiphany? Did it happen and you said oh, I can do this, or somebody called you and needed you. How did that emerge?

Norm Allen:

Well, I know, near the end of my time at Youth for Christ, we had a staff conference in Vancouver and we had a sailboat ride up the river from Vancouver or something, I don't exactly remember, but I remember being on the boat with a bunch of the staff and listen, and as they talked to me, the loneliness of the staff was profound. And then it started to remind me that when I traveled the country, I would, you know, I was your VP and so I was dealing with boards and all that sort of stuff across the country and trying to be an encouragement to staff. And uh, the reality was I would have my corporate stuff that I had to do for YFC. But then, if I was sitting with the board chairman in his office, in his business, I'd take off the Youth for Christ hat and say well, how's it going with your life? Well then, that changed the whole conversation.

Norm Allen:

And then people would start to pour out well, I've got no place else to say this and thank you for asking. And so it became clear that there were, for whatever reason, because I'm not the nicest person in the world people do trust me. They will talk about their life with me. I'm able then to somehow connect them to other people who become mutually helpful, and then ultimately my goal isn't to always be the one at the center of that circle, but to try to find a way to create some circles of friendships that have Jesus at the center, and then I can be occasionally involved with them, but they can be mutually beneficial to each other without me always being present.

Brian Stiller:

So it really emerged, as you listened and observed, to need yeah, and at what point did it occur to you that you had the capacity to enter into their lives and provide some kind of spiritual or emotional amelioration?

Norm Allen:

Well, I think it was mainly, in a sense almost doing an exegesis of the audience, right? So you're saying, all right, what are the needs that I have? So everything? People always joke and say Norm's the worst guy in Touchstone, so if any of the stuff that he's learning can help him, it'll help anybody, and so that's, that's so. It was sort of.

Norm Allen:

Where's my spiritual hunger? So my spiritual hunger led me to trying to figure out what it was to be a follower of Jesus. How do I understand that my work matters to Jesus? How do I understand that vocation and prayer and labor, they're all somehow integrated spiritually? And so, as I was grappling with that stuff, then I started meeting with people downtown in Toronto, in Bay Street, and that was our primary focus. And I would just start chatting and would say here's what I'm thinking of doing. And you know, blah, blah, blah. And I remember on our 10th anniversary I got a note from one of our guys downtown. He couldn't be at the 10th anniversary party and he said what an amazing proposition that you presented to those of us on Bay Street hard-nosed business people, one staff, no money and a dream that we would start to build friendships in Christ.

Norm Allen:

And somehow, 10 years later, a lot of good things have happened, and so it was like it was one of those things like a bee shouldn't be able to fly Well, touchstone shouldn't have been able to fly, but somehow I just I was a doggedly determined, like people you know certainly I'm a person of faith and I think Jesus was going ahead of me. Like I had a couple of moments once or after we made the decision to make it to start Touchstone, I went to see Oscar Peterson at Roy Thompson Hall with my brother-in-law and he had his trio playing and it was fantastic. And then was he asked the trio to leave and then he suddenly goes. I'm going to play a song that I've never played in public before, called Ballad, and he started to play and it was like I had this experience that the creator of this music and the creator had somehow come together with the ringing of those keys and all I could hear was Maranatha and it just was being repeated in my mind come, lord Jesus, lord, jesus, come. And I felt like that was the imprimatur, that I was supposed to be downtown, and so I had those kinds of moments of affirmation, but also had lots of days of discouragement where there was no money and I didn't know how I was going to pay for parking to get my car out of the parking garage after I had my appointments with people.

Norm Allen:

But somehow, by just spending a lot of time with people. We wanted to not create events with famous speakers, we wanted to create a community so that people wanted to be together and that they became the spokespersons to each other. It wasn't me the expert on faith and work, or faith and prayer and all those kinds of things. I was coming alongside with them, providing leadership and vision, but somehow providing focus. And so then, as that group got, I got to understand them, the need to understand prayer. How do we help each other with our inner journey? How do we help each other actually have conversations that aren't just competitive, that aren't just Bay Street networking, but are in fact let me listen to you as opposed to talk to you? And you know, you and I both know that one of the struggles we have is we're trained to talk, not listen. And so if our touchstone's whole thing is we're here to listen to God and to listen to one another and to respect Jesus in you, then that's a whole different kind of deal that we're trying to deal with.

Norm Allen:

And so it was a huge learning curve for me, and so I started out with the whole. You know, we got to figure out how to have devotions or something or how to have a prayer life. And then we got into faith and work and the value of work in the sense of you know, spirituality of vocation, that if you're a banker and you're using the God-given gifts you have, it's as though you were painting the Sistine Chapel just the same as because I can be as venal preaching a sermon as they can doing a deal, or we can be as spiritual on both of those things. And so, as we grappled with all of those things and I kept listening and learning, and then I was learning myself. That then led me to the ancient streams, because I was now being drawn to. We've got to find some deeper ways to learn to pray and to have community.

Brian Stiller:

And that leads to this very important part of both your own pilgrimage and how you have been helpful to me and to us, and it's this we come out of an evangelical tradition, a Baptist Pentecostal. We have lived within the traditions, the forms of worship, the music, the way of reading and understanding Scripture. That's very typical evangelical, of reading and understanding Scripture that's very typical evangelical. I suspect that most of us have thought that the Church began with us, but you have rightly shown us how that the ancients, the various people and their prayers and ideas and spirituality over these last 2,000 years can greatly enrich us and isn't simply to be ignored as historical. How did that, as a fount of spirituality, come into your life?

Norm Allen:

Well, part of it is. I'm basically a curious person, or you might even call me a spiritual magpie in a way, in the sense that I had a hunger to know Jesus wider than whatever my tradition did. I was well-grounded in Scripture. We had a wonderful pastor who we grew up under, lots of leadership development in that Baptist church, but I somehow intuitively knew that there was much more, and sort of eventually understood over years that all traditions have something to offer us. None of them, though, is sufficient, and so what I was growing up in had an element of the gospel that was true, and an understanding of the cross that was true, and certainly a very Jesus-centric thing, which was very important to me. But then you know how they understood Scripture, how they understood community, how they understood the Christian life. I realized it was a particular way, and in those years it didn't matter what the tradition was. We all stayed in our own tribe. So United didn't like Anglicans, and Baptists didn't trust anybody else. And you know, the Brethren were perfect, and the Pentecostals, you know. You just didn't know what they were doing. But anyway, that was, but it was. But you know.

Norm Allen:

But I had then got exposed to a Pentecostal church and participated in that. I had went on retreats, as you know, with Bernie, with oh his name goes out of my head, but anyway he's the godfather of the charismatic movement in Toronto and so I was suddenly being exposed to all this stuff as a high school kid and so I knew there were all kinds of things out there that seemed attractive and certainly seemed legitimate. So, anyway, as I was getting older and you know reading people like GK Chesterton or TS Eliot or Lewis or whoever, and then that leads to Merton, leads to other people, you start to go okay, there's something here, there might be some fresh water over here behind that rock or whatever, and so that led me to sort of contemplative prayer and thinking about spiritual direction and all of that sort of thing. So my spiritual direction thing happened really in the Ignatian tradition, and so that had a whole lot of richness to it. What the Ignatian tradition is. Well, so that's, you know, basically Loyola, the Jesuits, and so they have a particular approach to prayer.

Norm Allen:

Ignatius had this you imagine yourself in a story of Jesus' life, and then you go through the version of the 40-day retreat, which really grounds your being and discernment and all kinds of things. But I didn't want to become a Jesuit, so I didn't want to stay being just a Baptist or an evangelical and I didn't want to become a Jesuit Boy. There was some really good stuff there, and then my director put me to a Franciscan who was just down the road from where I lived at the time, and so I did some direction with a Franciscan guy. Well, now then I ended up in Assisi and then you start to see, francis had a whole other approach and he had a companion, claire, saint Claire, and then Bonaventure was his sort of his articulator, of mission guy. But she was the contemplative and she took the old-style lexio that most monastics use, just reading scripture over and over again, hearing a word and then meditating on it. And then Ignatius has this really imagined self-history of Jesus like. Well, clare had this idea that the only Bible that we need is the cross, idea that the only Bible that we need is the cross. Now, I don't happen to agree with that, but her passion was to look at Jesus on the crucifix that she had in her chapel and gaze on him, consider him, meditate on him and inevitably you will imitate him on him. And inevitably you will imitate him because you become what you observe, which was Marshall McLuhan's observation in Understanding Media decades ago. And so I started you know, sorry again. So like I still use Jesuit stuff, I still use Franciscan stuff.

Norm Allen:

I went and spent a week with the Benedictines. Their whole thing is hospitality. Went and spent a week with the Benedictines. Their whole thing is hospitality. And you know rigid disciplines but they work in the fields and you know they say treat your shovel with the same respect that you treat the cup for the Eucharist. So we polished them, both kind of thing. So I suddenly went wow, there's a whole lot of this stuff and I got this sense that this was all ours and it came to.

Norm Allen:

I articulated it well, one time I was in Florence on a trip with a group and we had been to Assisi and we came back to Florence and we were staying at this place and looking out over the olive groves on the hillside and there was a woman from Santa Fe, new Mexico, standing there and Susan and I were there having a glass of wine, looking out at the fields while we're waiting for the rest of the group to get there, and she turned to me and she said I wish Francis was one of ours. And I said no, and ours meaning Well, it turns out she was Presbyterian. Okay, I said well, when did Francis live? We've just been discussing it? Well, 1200. Well, when was the schism? So is he any more Catholic than he is Presbyterian? No, he's part of your Presbyterian history, so he is ours.

Norm Allen:

So it wasn't me saying, okay, I'm going to adopt something Catholic, although my mother was very suspicious that that was the case. I didn't want to become a Catholic, I didn't want to become a Jesuit, I didn't want to become a Franciscan, but I knew there were things about listening to God and listening to each other and learning about vocation and all of those kinds of things that all these long historic traditions had great wisdom in. They have all their faults and you know there's as many crazy people in a monastery as there are, you know, in my neighborhood. But they also are grappling with some things that I think help us in the marketplace, with the speed of life and the overstimulation, that we have to find ways to create quiet, and not just external quiet, but internal quiet. So how do we create internal stillness? And that's where then the whole spiritual friendship thing comes in. But and then you know, as you know, I also then spent a fair bit of time on Celtic spirituality of a certain kind, and Celtic spirituality is Well, you know, it comes out of a group of monks that established themselves in Ireland.

Norm Allen:

And then where I spent most of my time was Lindisfarne, holy Island, and there was a monastery originally there that had been established at the invitation of one of the local warlords and somebody had come across from Iona and had established it there. And then there was a virtual community, the community of Aidan Hilda, with a friend of mine, ray Simpson, there. So I spent a couple of weeks at different times reading and listening and thinking and participating in their community and it's very Jesus-centric. But again, it has a greater understanding of the presence of God in all of creation, the presence of God and the significance of God and how you light a fire, how you, you know, may God be with you as you put those logs together and light the fire that sort of earthiness. It's got a certain kind of mirroring to Orthodox. So the Orthodox have a great sense of, you know, may God be with you as your step hits that rock and all that sort of thing. So I've got a collection of Orthodox prayers that could be Celtic prayers, but they have a way of getting at Jesus and getting at community that is actually really quite health giving.

Norm Allen:

But again, I didn't want to become. You know, ray was my friend but I didn't want to become part of his group. I learned a whole bunch of stuff from him and have stolen a bunch of his prayers. But it's like all of these resources are out there and why wouldn't we learn from them Not uncritically, but not learn from them, because if they help us provide some kind of structure in our spiritual, physical, emotional meanderings to settle down, to be quiet, to listen to God, to be able to listen to each other, then why wouldn't I learn from those things?

Norm Allen:

Our background tends to be more we're about preaching the gospel and, yes, we do our devotions and we pray and all that sort of stuff, but it's almost like we have practices that aren't necessarily shaping our lives. But these practices, in my opinion, have certainly enriched me and I believe have helped shape me and then shape the way I listen to other people, the way the community of friends has developed that you've been part of for a lot of years, because the guys that you and I have been part of for those 25 years. All very different, different traditions, different backgrounds. Everybody's got more education, theologically, than me. I have a degree in English, but I've been this sort of seeker who you know. As you know, john Vissers had this image of me one time being a guy who sort of goes down a tunnel with a candle and says the Christ candle and says, oh, I think I found something over here and it's because I'm hungry and needy and hurting I go to that and then when I find it to be helpful, I share it with others.

Brian Stiller:

So you've been mining 2,000 years of church history yeah, various people, yeah, and so you bring together an amalgam of the best that you have found. Can you describe where you are today and what would be the essence of your self-understanding, your walk with Christ, your imagining yourself in his presence? Can you describe that?

Norm Allen:

Well, it's an interesting time because, as you know, I retired from the role of touchstone in June of 24. And so in a way, I'm I but I still have the. So I gave up that, in a sense, professional structure, but I'm still called to be a follower of Jesus. I'm still called to be his friend and to be friends with other people. But I'm waiting to see how that expresses itself. So I just happened to do a retreat last weekend. It's the first one eight, nine months since I retired that I actually went and used my materials and led a group of people in retreat.

Norm Allen:

But I've been using my listening skills and friendship skills at the food bank and in a gospel choir and all that sort of thing. So I'm basically listening to. Where does Jesus want to open doors for me to do something? It was good for me to do that retreat because I hadn't done it in a long time, so I can still do that sort of thing, but I don't need to do it all the time and I don't need to generate anything. So for me it's, I still get up in the morning and feel like Jesus is inviting me to have a conversation with him, and so I'm very much as called to be a follower of Jesus, as I was the day I started Tushnow. But I don't have that obligation to initiate, manage and organize a ministry. But now maybe be more responsive just to opportunities as they are provided.

Brian Stiller:

But how is your walk affected by the amalgam mind through these various traditions? How would you be different today? What are the kind of things you do in your own devotional life that gives you richness?

Norm Allen:

And it really does vary depending on time and day. You know, mine is fairly simple most of the time, in the sense that I use a journal and I'm an Luddite enough that I have to use a fountain pen.

Brian Stiller:

So journaling has been a part of your life.

Norm Allen:

Central to mine. So journaling has been a part of your life Central to mine. So I got up this morning and made coffee and the sun wasn't up yet and turned on the fire, and when I had my coffee I got my journal book out and I looked at the guide that said here's the gospel story you're going to look at this morning. And so then I just started writing. Well, it's dark and cold, but I had a good day yesterday and I'm going to be meeting with Brian today and doing this podcast thing, and so I'm just sort of settling here in here with this amazing mystery that you care about everybody, but somehow I feel like you're listening to me particularly, and so and then I take some time to. We have mutual friends that have some issues that they ask prayer for. So I was praying for that, praying for Lily as she faces some challenges, and then went to the gospel story and just spent some time listening to it, reading it, and what was Jesus saying? What was he looking like? Does he have sweat on his brow? How is he feeling with the friends that are around him? And then just trying to interact with him and saying well, jesus, that's. I feel like that might be something that I need to think about today, and so it's. But there are other times when I might use the liturgy of the hours that the monks use, that the monks use, or I might use. There's Northumbria community, south of the folks at Holy Island, who have terrific Celtic prayer book which has all kinds of ways of teaching you to pray and to think and to you know songs to sing and everything else. So it just depends on what I feel my needs are.

Norm Allen:

I think Henry, nowen years ago I listened to some tapes tells you how long ago it was, because it was tapes and he did a thing on the Desert Fathers that was very helpful to me and you know we're in this wordy world and it's the way his language would go, but it was trying to get away from the noise.

Norm Allen:

But he talked about spiritual disciplines and he said they're like scaffolding on a building, and that's been very helpful to me, because once a building has its own internal structural integrity, it doesn't need scaffolding anymore, and so as we get older, the disciplines that may have got us to this point may not be as necessary.

Norm Allen:

So sometime you and I might say well, let's go away on retreat together and rather than using all our dolls and dishes that we use to normally do a retreat, we might say why don't we just sit together? We already are aware that we're in the presence of God, and we've done that. Last summer we sat for a long time looking at the lake we didn't need any external structure for that, because the internal stuff was already there and we just sat and had conversations that we knew that God was central to, and the pain or the joy in the center of both of our lives at those moments became part of a natural conversation, not something forced in the midst of all of this, you have articulated and demonstrated an idea of friendship which has defined your work.

Brian Stiller:

Was this again an epiphany or did it emerge out of your mining of the?

Brian Stiller:

ancients.

Norm Allen:

Yeah, I'm not much of an epiphany guy, but I would say I said we wanted to offer friendship, but I don't think I knew what I meant. So I spent the last 40 years figuring out what it meant to be friends and studying what a friend is, using John the Baptist, for instance, as a prototype. He took joy in somebody else's success. Jesus says no greater love has someone for, but they lay down their life for their friend. Well, if we're really friends, we lay down our agenda for each other and say let me just listen to you. And so, over time, I began to understand that friendship was something that required work, just like marriage does. So if you're going to be in a good friendship, then that requires attention, and it requires time and mutual support and all those kinds of things. So when times are tough, there are certain people that we know we can turn to and they're really our friends. We have friendships on all kinds of different levels, but there are those who are closer than a brother kind of thing friends, and that's different. Now I then have in a sense added to it by calling it spiritual friendship, which is in a sense out of the sort of the Celtic model of anim, caria, caria, soul friend, where your friendship? We can have a solid friendship, but our friendship will change if we take time to do intentional practices that invite Jesus to be part of the conversation. We assume Jesus is present, but sometimes we need to be able to sit together and say, okay, let's just sit in silence and we'll listen to a psalm and we'll see what the psalm is saying to us, with no agenda and no right or wrong answers. Let's just look at a gospel story. Let's see Jesus by the seashore feeding the fellows after a long day of fishing, and he's created a barbecue for them. Let's imagine that together. Well, that can change, then, the nature of how we function, because now we're trying to find ways to consciously bring the presence of Jesus into our conversation, differently than we're just really good listeners to each other, Because now we're somehow saying we're listening to Jesus and we maybe even hope that he might say something to us, and that he might say something to us that we can reassure each other is truth, not just fantasy, and one of the things you know, like in the traditions that we grew up in, accountability was a big thing and that was more scrutiny. Okay, well, you did these three things wrong. Well, in my understanding of friendship, and spiritual friendship particularly, we're helping each other here. What is Jesus really saying to me about this? Is that the way Jesus would talk to me.

Norm Allen:

When we beat ourselves up, when we all fail I have more failures than Carter's got little liver pills but Jesus doesn't focus on that he says, yes, we got to clean that up. But he'll then say, got to be reminded I love you. You've got to be reminded that a bad tree doesn't produce good fruit. So therefore, you must be a good tree because you know there's been the odd bit of good fruit out of your life and we need to be able to tell each other those things, rather than you know.

Norm Allen:

Hard things we sometimes have to say to each other and we've had to do that for each other over the years but the blessing things are often harder for us, particularly as men, to say you know what you are, somebody whose love has meant the world to me, or I see these amazing accomplishments for you, when you're not feeling secure and you're not feeling strong, so that we're not pumping each other's tires. We're just speaking truth in love about who we see God shaping that person, because so often our view of ourselves is so negative that it's you know it becomes destructive.

Brian Stiller:

You've talked about the friendship of Jesus. Now, jesus to be a friend is no big deal. You've talked about the friendship of Jesus. Now, jesus to be a friend is no big deal, but there's been something in there, our friendship with him, which has been new for you and, because of that, for us. Unwrap that a bit.

Norm Allen:

Yeah, and that goes back a long way. I've been noodling basically two things Jesus' prayer in John 17, particularly where he says I'm not praying only for these guys in the garden, but I'm praying for those who will believe in me because of their message that they would be one Father, as you and I are one, and so that they would then know that you love them as much as you love me. And then, certainly, jesus' discussion in the upper room in John 15, where he says I no longer call you servants, I call you friends, is preceded by him saying greater love has no one, that they lay down their life for their friends, and so he laid down his life for us, by definition, then his friends, and so it's not some sort of sappy friendship thing. This is highly demanding because if I want to listen to Jesus as my friend, or I want to be a friend of Jesus who represents him, then I have to see the cross. I have to see the scars when he serves me. If I imagine that I'm by the seashore receiving the fish and the bread that morning, I see the scars in his hands. So I know that, as he said to Peter, there's going to come a time when somebody's going to lead you around where you don't want to go, like moving into suffering, self-denial, self-control, all of those kinds of things, none of which you know, are particularly natural to me. Those are the things that a friendship with Jesus draws us to, because then that enables us to then be mutually submissive to each other in a healthy way. We can actually be humble before each other and care for each other.

Norm Allen:

One of my friends says it's not Jesus, my girlfriend, kind of stuff. This is serious business, because every time you listen to Jesus speak, you know I want your joy to be full. Oh well, what happened to those guys that he said that to Jesus prayed tears in the garden. So if you want to pray, it's not the yellow brick road, it may take you to the cross, it may take you to some form of cross, right. And so that's where, if we're serious about this engagement with Jesus and him dignifying us enough to say I'd like to call you my friend, then it's serious, costly business, and that's why you know it's been important to me, why it's been important to me, norm.

Brian Stiller:

I want to come back in a moment to what you might suggest for people who aspire for something deeper, so something a little richer to what they've had up to now. Let me just do a couple of things. This is a picture. This is one of Norm's retreat guides. Now this is available on Touchstone website. Yeah, so just Touchstone. ca, touchstone. ca, and you'll find in here a variety of things, and we have used this, and, of course, you have a number of these, right, but you have used this in what way? Just give me a bit description of how this works.

Norm Allen:

Well, essentially it's a guidebook for our time together, because I don't, like you know, I animate the retreat or I lead the retreat, but I don't like it to be my voice all the time. So it's got. Here are things to consider, here are ways to pray, here are some passages of scripture to consider. Here's a collection of prayers that you can use as you try to get into prayer. Here's a collection of prayers that you can use as you try to get into prayer. And then we've got what we call the Celtic Meal of Jesus, which is a liturgy that's modeled on the Iona community's liturgy for when we break bread together. So it's really designed to facilitate conversation amongst the people who are there, and or use it on your own for prayer guidance.

Brian Stiller:

And there's a whole bunch of other stuff on the website that you know suggestions for prayer, collections of prayer, podcasts and that sort of thing, the one thing that I found to be really helpful in the retreat and nobody has ever, in my experience, dared to do this Norm would take and ask us to take a text, and usually in his prayer guides there's a variety of Bible passages all from the Gospels, as I recall and he would take one of those and go away for 90 minutes. Now, for a type A highly goal-oriented person, 90 minutes being alone up by a lake looking at a text was a bit of a self-discipline Right, but you forced us into it.

Norm Allen:

But you found it. Ultimately, the time actually went.

Brian Stiller:

Oh yeah, but what you did, you helped us, and I guess this is more of an Ignatius principle. You helped us get into the text and what I found to be of great value is you encouraged us to imagine yourself as a member or an observer in the text and listen and watch, to see what you hear, and see from that point of view, and I found that often texts would just come alive in ways that I'd never known. So there's some very important. You can access this material.

Norm Allen:

Touchstone. ca

Brian Stiller:

Yeah, on friendship, which is, I think, has been key to Norm's ministry spiritual friendship. This is a book that you did that defines what you mean by friendship, right, and friendship is more than being friendly.

Norm Allen:

Right, because I'm often not that friendly. Exactly.

Brian Stiller:

And the latest ones that you did, which was kind of brought to the end of Touchstone Pop the Corks and Pass the Butter Tarts. I don't think I've ever seen a book with that title.

Norm Allen:

Right. So that's essentially reflections along the lines of what we've been talking about 40 years of spiritual friendship, and that was kind of my thank you note to our community. And there's a few people who also wrote in response to different chapters.

Brian Stiller:

Norm. I'm hearing from so many people and so this is not just occasional, but I see a bit of a pattern. People of my own evangelical Pentecostal community who have a hunger for something that's richer in their walk, deeper in their understanding of Christ and a little less doctrinal or traditional. And some have gone into the Orthodox Church. Many of my Pentecostal friends have become Anglican because they can have the Eucharistic experience, right experience. So for those that are in that search some counsel on what to do, what not to do where to go, how to think, what to read.

Norm Allen:

Yeah, I'm always hesitant, as you know, to offer that kind of counsel because my journey has been not unlike many of them that you described, and so becoming part of the United Church in Orangeville when we moved there 50 years ago was one of the best church experiences we had. And then it blew up, so I now attend an Anglican church. I'm a member of an Anglican church in Orangeville, but it's more what is your own internal spiritual journey. So one of the things I learned early on was that I could participate in the church and I could offer leadership in the church and I can, you know, be on committees and do whatever, but the church is never actually going to be able to really help me with my own leadership and spiritual needs. So I had to figure out a way to figure that out myself, and so I did eventually start, you know, collecting some friends who helped me with that sort of thing, and I think that's part of it's taking responsibility for your own life.

Norm Allen:

I think I hear people often saying, well, it's not deep enough and it's not this, and so people are leaving for critical reasons. I think if you're moving some direction, see if it's helping you see Jesus more. So for me that's a bit of a litmus test. For me it is because if all it is is okay, now I've found a happier you know, instead of happy clappy music, I've now got, you know, I've now got an organ and a choir. That's great, but Jesus is in both of those places and if it's helping your soul, that's great. And are you doing it as something that's communal and it's part of relational engagement, or is it just something that's Because when I first started going to the Anglican Church, coming out of an unhappy situation, a bit of a church conflict, I was in a sense doing the liturgy, standing and kneeling, but it was really a private spiritual activity for probably the first year and it only became more communal later. But I think, part of what, if you've got a spiritual hunger and maybe you've got somebody else who shares that, well then talk about it with each other and there are all kinds of resources.

Norm Allen:

I don't know what the younger generation does today because everybody's listening to things differently. I read books, but people are now listening to podcasts and doing all that sort of thing. But I would say, if you can find ways to help you develop some inner quiet not just so you're quiet, not just sort of a yoga meditation thing, but something that makes you quiet enough to somehow hear Jesus then those are the kinds of processes that we want, because right now we're so bombarded with sensate activity whether it's, you know, screens and devices or whatever it is that it's really hard to start to just settle in and say, okay, I'm just going to see if I can see Jesus in the Gospels. And there are all kinds of tools where you can find that. Some of them get referred to on my website.

Norm Allen:

But I think each generation has to find their own way, and they have to find their own way to create the friendships with one another.

Norm Allen:

So my grandkids, who are university age, and my kids, who are, you know, 50-ish, those two generations do it completely differently from each other and certainly differently from me, and so it's finding the ways that. And yet the need for friendship in all of those generations is the same, and certainly friendship with God. And so how one does that, I think, is taking responsibility for one's life and taking initiative to find the resources, because years ago I read a book on spiritual direction that was very helpful and one of the points the guy made was God knows that you have a desire to have a spiritual director or to have some kind of different direction in your spiritual life. Don't force it. Explore, and then it will eventually be provided. And that's been true in my life over and over and over again. I have a hunger and then some thread takes me to somebody and I read that or I have a conversation about it, and then somehow Jesus is in that and then I'm able to share it with other people out of whatever enrichment I have received in my own life.

Brian Stiller:

Thanks, Norm, for being part of Evangelical 360 today.

Norm Allen:

Thank you for having me. It's been fun.

Brian Stiller:

It has.

Brian Stiller:

Thank you, norm, for joining me today and for helping us see the possibilities of a greater and a richer walk in faith. Thank you for being a part of the podcast. Be sure to share this episode. Use hashtag Evangelical360, and please subscribe on YouTube If you'd like to learn more about today's guest. Just check the show notes for links and info and if you haven't already received my free e-book and newsletter just go to brianstillercom.

Brian Stiller:

Thank you, until next time. Don't miss the next interview. Be sure to subscribe to Evangelical 360 on YouTube.