Not long ago, I sat across from a pastor. Looking at only his circumstances, I’d forgive you if you thought his life was unraveling at every seam. He’s facing the kinds of health problems many don’t come back from. His staff and congregation are stressed by financial crisis and cultural pressures. I’ve watched, though, and even as this season takes its toll on him, he continues to lead his people to Jesus. When I simply let him know that I noticed, and thanked him for his distinctly Christians leadership, he met and held my eyes. Then, quiet and composed, and said:
“As a pastor, you live your faith in front of people. Usually, that means more than your best sermon. And eventually, you’ll die in front of them, too. I’d never want the way I die to undo any of the good the Spirit has done in them while they’ve been part of this church.”
That moment landed heavy. Because it’s rare — not just the suffering, but the clarity. The uncommon but invaluable mix of self-understanding and selflessness. This is the kind of soul Shema exists to cultivate and support, to platform, and to multiply. Not because this pastor is perfect. But because he’s formed enough in Christ to keep bearing witness to Jesus even while his own life is slipping beyond his control. What we may see as the seams of his life unravelling are, for this man, something completely different. Because his identity and work stay rooted in his communion with Christ, the space in those seams are in fact windows into what is most true about his life. They are not the unravelling of a life, they are spaces for God’s life to flow through him.
Our increasingly secular culture needs more pastors like this. However, Barna’s most recent studies tell a stark story: nearly half of pastors under 45 have seriously considered quitting ministry in the last year. Moral failures, burnout, and isolation are epidemic. And many who remain in ministry are living with quiet disillusionment. The cultural and emotional burden on Christian leaders — especially pastors — is heavier than it has been in decades.
But the crisis isn’t only institutional. It’s deeply personal. Behind the stats are people. Behind the burnout is something even more subtle: a creeping sense of disconnection from others, from tradition, from God. A subtle walling-off of the soul.
We’re losing our sense of openness.
⸻ The World Behind the Glass
If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Why do I feel so cut off from things that used to nourish me? Why is it harder to believe, to pray, or to hope?” you’re not alone. Something about modern life seems to dull the edge of the spiritual life — or at least muffle it.
The philosopher Charles Taylor calls this experience the “buffered self.” It’s a name for the way people in our time increasingly experience themselves as sealed off — from God, from others, from sources of meaning and purpose that are larger than their own pleasure or desires. The buffered self lives behind thick emotional glass. Behind it, things like prayer, deep community, and spiritual authority feel abstract or even suspicious. And when those things feel abstract long enough, we start to question whether they were ever real to begin with. Who hasn’t felt a profound difference between Sunday worship and your Monday routine?
But it wasn’t always like this.
Taylor points out that for most of history, people lived as “porous selves” — deeply aware that their lives were caught up in something bigger than themselves. God, community, sacred tradition, moral order — these were things that reached into you. You weren’t just choosing your beliefs; you were being formed by a world charged with God’s presence.
We’ve lost that. In fact, modern culture encourages us to protect ourselves from it. We are told to reject any source of meaning that might work its way from the outside in. And that’s left us… alone.
⸻ A Picture of Porousness
Think of it like this: imagine you’re standing on a shore during a violent storm, watching the ocean crash and swell in front of you. Now imagine the same scene, but you’re watching it from inside a soundproof glass room. Same ocean. Same storm. But the difference in experience is profound.
In the first, the sea can touch you, change you. The air is thick with salt. Your clothes are soaked. You’re in it. You’re exposed.
In the second, you’re safe — and untouched. But also disconnected. Removed from the elements that could awaken your soul.
This is the buffered self. And its rise has enormous consequences — not just for pastors, but for all of us trying to follow Jesus in a secular age. Just think of how many kids are pressured to sever ties from their parents, young adults to cut themselves off from their Christian upbringing, or spouses to seek divorce, all with the promise that once severed from these influences and commitments they will finally be able to “find themselves?”
⸻ The Silence Is Louder
Here’s the good news: the wall isn’t real. Not in the truest sense. We build the wall between us and God with our stories of a mechanistic world and self-made heroes who chart their own course and build their own meaning from willpower and efficiency and control. But the God who actually holds the universe together hasn’t gone anywhere.
And there are practices that can help us crack the glass and rediscover our true selves as we reawaken our awareness of Him. One of the most powerful is also the most counterintuitive: silence.
Martin Laird, in his book Into the Silent Land, describes silence not as the absence of sound, but as the presence of God — waiting for us beneath the noise of our thoughts and anxieties and beyond our efficiency and hurry. Laird writes, “God does not know how to be absent.” Silence isn’t empty. It’s full. But we have to become still enough to notice.
Here’s a simple way to begin:
Practice of Silent Prayer
1. Find a quiet space. Sit in a chair with your back straight and feet flat on the floor.
2. Choose a sacred word or phrase. Something like “Jesus,” “Abba,” or “Be still and know, that I am God.” This will help anchor your attention.
3. Close your eyes and breathe slowly. Let yourself become aware of your breath, your body, your stillness.
4. Gently return to your word. When thoughts come (and they will), don’t fight them. Just gently return your attention to your sacred word — not to banish the thoughts, but to rest beneath them.
5. Stay for 10–15 minutes. You’re not trying to accomplish anything. You’re simply resting in God’s presence.
You may not “feel” anything the first few times. That’s okay. This kind of prayer is not about fulfilling our current desires — it’s about surrendering them to God’s presence. You’re not trying to reach God. You’re realizing He’s already reaching you.
Practice this consistently, and you’ll start to become aware of the gaps in your own seams. Keep keeping at it, and you might even begin to live porously.
⸻ What Happens When I Practice Silence
When I (Wil) pray this way — when I sit in silence without needing to perform or impress or produce — I sometimes experience a kind of graced stillness. A quiet so full of God’s nearness that the idea that I’m alone in the universe becomes impossible to believe, no matter how loudly the world shouts otherwise.
In those moments, the buffered self gives way to the porous self. The walls come down. I remember that I am not closed off, not self-contained. I am held. And that changes everything.
The apostle Paul tells us that not even death can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8). If death can’t, neither can modernity. Neither can the internet, or busyness, or cynicism, or the ache of secularism. When we open ourselves again to God’s presence — even just a crack — He rushes in.
⸻ What This Has to Do With Cultural Renewal
That pastor I sat with? He’s living through the crucible of mortality. But he is not doing it as a buffered self, living from his own strength. He’s living open to God’s presence, and so the presence of Christ is still pouring through him. That’s not strategy or willpower. That is not something that can be reproduced in more churches through a mere system or structure. That’s formation. That’s communion.
This isn’t just for pastors.
Maybe you’re feeling isolated too. Maybe you’ve felt the cultural drift and wondered if your faith is outdated or irrelevant. Maybe the glass is thick. I want you to hear this: we’re here for you too. The path of deep formation isn’t only for leaders. It’s for anyone hungry for something real.
Because here’s the truth: a life open to God — truly open, porous — becomes a witness in and of itself. The kind of Christian who has been with Jesus, and is still becoming like Him, carries something the world cannot ignore.
Enough of those people might actually turn the tide of culture.
Thank you for supporting us as we train and serve pastors like the one I described. We believe that by investing in their inner life, their capacity for cultural impact multiplies — not by power, but by presence. Not by strategy, but by surrender.
Regardless of what Social Media might tell you, there are a lot of pastors like this out there. But the truth is, given the state of our world, we are in desperate need of more.
Let’s keep building a church that’s not just operationally functional, but spiritually alive.
With gratitude and hope,
Wil Ryland
Founder & President Shema: Center for Christian Formation