I (Alan) often share the story of my first experience of solitude and silence on January 19, 1990. It was led by one of my mentors, Wayne Anderson, as part of a class I was taking at Fuller Seminary. I tell a little of that story in chapter 2 of An Unhurried Life, but until now I have never shared the full journal entry from that day. It was the first page of my journal, which today, over thirty years later, runs more than eleven thousand pages.

That journal has chronicled my attempt...

Today we are talking about Solitude and Silence or what we call Unhurried Time with God. But this is not just a “you should do it” talk. We are going to share stories from our own lives. From early on in our own experience and one from within the last month.

We share these with you so you can see how we started out. We were in our late 20s and were just beginning our process of solitude and silence.

Many of us unconsciously resist solitude because we don’t actually want to...

While I was writing the first draft of my next book, An Unhurried Leader: The Lasting Fruit of Daily Influence, I enjoyed a few days at a friend’s remote home in Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic. One of the rhythms I practiced was morning prayer using the morning lectionary* passages.

My habit is often to take a meaningful verse or two from my readings to reflect on and pray through in my journal. It is a discipline that helps me pray the scriptures. Below is a journal entry from one of...

Scroll to the bottom of this post to download a free Retreat eBook that includes a schedule for a 24-hour retreat, with options for a half-day and full-day retreats.

Over the years, I’ve led or been part of countless retreats: youth retreats, couples retreats, men’s retreats (never a woman’s retreat—surprise!), leadership retreats, strategic planning retreats, spiritual retreats. What I’ve learned is that there a lot of different ideas out there about what...

We like to think of every person as a leader. We all have influence with others. But what enriches that leadership? What gives it substance? We love an ancient word of wisdom on being a reservoir from Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century French abbot who worked as a reformer of the Cistercian order:

“The [one] who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it...