This document discusses spirituality and spiritual formation in women. It defines spirituality and spiritual formation, noting that spiritual formation is a lifelong process of inner transformation to become who God wants us to be. It discusses how finding and using one's voice is an important part of spirituality. Women often lose their voice by compromising themselves for approval or deferring to others. This can disconnect them from themselves and God. Retrieving one's voice involves advocating for oneself and gaining agency. The document provides questions for reflection on listening to women's voices and how culture can inhibit that.

1. THE PHENOMENAL SPIRITUAL
WOMAN
FROM THE INSIDE OUT
Dr. Karen E. Griffin

2. PHENOMENAL
• Exceedingly or unbelievably great
• Grand
• Fantastic of the highest quality
• Extraordinary (beyond what is ordinary or
usual; highly unusual or exceptional or
remarkable)

3. SPIRITUALITY
• The way we live our Christian life with integrity; the
pattern of our spiritual practice that give particular shape
to a faithful living witness. Some Christians express a
more inwardly focused spirituality and some a more
outwardly focused spirituality; but every authentically
Christian spirituality will include a balance of interior
practice and visible witness in the world. Christian
spirituality is inherently holistic because Jesus embodied
the complete integration of physical, spiritual, mental,
emotional, and relational dimensions of human life, all
united in divine love. (Thompson and Bryant, 2005)

4. SPIRITUAL FORMATION
1. Spiritual formation involves an ongoing inner
change or transformation.
2. Spiritual formation is the process of becoming
who we want to be and who God wants us to
be.
3. This formation process is a lifelong effort.
4. Spiritual formation involves becoming the
song that we sing about.

5. SPIRITUAL FORMATION
5. In essence, “…spiritual formation…is our
gradual transformation from biological and
socially mediated self into the more remarkable
phenomenon of self as spirit…” (Johnson, 1989)

6. FINDING VOICE IS SPIRITUAL
• In Wrestling with the Patriarchs: Retrieving
Women’s Voices in Preaching by Lee McGee
she examines and critiques how women
ministers in the Christian Church lose and
retrieve their voices through the lens of
engaging difference. ( McGee, 1996)

7. WHAT IS VOICE
A Woman’s voice is their identity, perspective,
world view, etc.

8. LOSS OF VOICE
• When a woman’s voice is suppressed it
negatively impacts one’s spirituality.
• This leads to a disconnection with God

9. HOW DO WE LOSS VOICE
• The loss of voice appears to be developed
early in life according to the research.
• By compromising self for the approval of
others

10. LOSS OF VOICE
• I believe a woman listens so well to others and
seeks others’ voices so effectively that she
may not appreciate and develop her own
voice. Or a woman may believe that she
should withhold her voice in deference to or
consideration for others. Thu, a conflict arises
in women over the use of voice. The conflict
for women preachers is this: How do I
balance the private and communal
perspectives in my voice? Or put another way,

11. LOSS OF VOICE
• How do I find a voice that is faithful to the
community and authentic to my own identity?
McGee, 1996
Gillian believes this becomes a major problem
for girls in adolescence, especially when a girl
recognizes differences between her perceptions
and other commonly held points of view. Gillian
calls this process the “loss of voice.” McGee,
1996

12. LOSS OF VOICE
• The issues that women wrestle with are
relationality, with voice and agency.
• Ultimately this wrestling leads to a disconnect
with self and God.
• The phenomenal and spiritual self are
subsequently lost.

13. RETRIEVAL OF VOICE
• Agency can be “defined as the ability to be an
agent for oneself in contact with others and
with one’s environment…Teresa Fry, a
professor of homiletics at Emory
• Advocating for one’s self, agency, leads to
retrieval of voice

14. VOICE RETRIEVAL
• What are those forces that encouraged the
woman’s voice retrieval and to gain agency?
• Development of a methodology for voice
retrieval:
• A methodology for voice retrieve which
engages a process whereby differences,
individual voices, perspectives, and process,
must be engaged

15. QUESTIONS
• List situations in which you use or do not use your voice.
• What encourages you to speak or inhibits you from speaking?
• How can you listen more attentively to women’s voices?
• What in our culture influences us not to listen to women’s voices
and spiritual knowledge?
• On what subjects do we really pay attention to what women have
to say?
• What are the “cultural resistances” to “hearing” women’s voices in
the church? In the congregation? In the seminary? In church
members?
• In what way might you be resistant to hearing women’s voices?
When and where are you resistant to hearing women’s voices? In
what groups or communities are you resistant to hearing women’s
voices?

16. RECALL YOUR STORY