Solitude 02: The Quiet Place with John Ortberg
Rule of Life
Practicing the Way
4.8 • 802 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2023
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jesus regularly oscillated between rich time in community and beautiful time connecting with God in solitude in the eremos. The “quiet place” was an intentional space Jesus entered to be alone with God and himself. As apprentices of Jesus, we desperately need to set aside time for this too.
In episode 1 of the Solitude season, Bethany Allen and John Mark Comer interview John Ortberg. John Ortberg is a longtime pastor, speaker, and author, and the founder of an online ministry called BecomeNew.Me. He and his wife Nancy live in Northern California. Born and raised in Rockford, Illinois, John graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in psychology. He holds a Master of Divinity and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Fuller Seminary, and has done post-graduate work at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
This podcast accompanies the Solitude Practice, developed by Practicing the Way. Thanks to the generosity of The Circle, all our resources are free. To learn more about The Circle or to run a Practice with your church, community, or small group, visit practicingtheway.org.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The pursuit of spiritual life in deliberate spiritual practices. |
| 0:05.0 | I mean, the practices are not all of life. |
| 0:07.0 | They're a means to an end, but they are something to engage in. |
| 0:11.0 | But that that pursuit was much more experimental than I ever had any idea. |
| 0:16.0 | I always thought it was just, here's the stuff you do, then you've done your devotional things, |
| 0:20.0 | and then you'll change, and to into realize, now I will have to approach this with a very curious, open mindset to see what is there that I can learn from this and how does it impact my life or does that impact my life. |
| 0:47.3 | You're listening to the Rule of Life podcast by practicing the way. |
| 0:52.7 | In each season, we explore an ancient practice from the way of Jesus and its relevance for the modern era. |
| 0:54.4 | This is Season 4, Solany. |
| 1:27.0 | Good morning. So good to be with you. |
| 1:29.7 | We're also here with John Orberg, but don't say anything yet, John. We're going to pretend that you're not here. We're going to intro you. And then you get to talk for the whole rest of the time. But the magic behind the podcast. |
| 1:41.5 | So here we are, episode two. Yeah, episode two. So today we begin to explore |
| 1:45.6 | four conversations that we're going to have with some special guests about the practice of |
| 1:49.9 | solitude. And like you said, up first is John Ortberg. Now, a lot of you already know this, |
| 1:56.0 | but John is a longtime pastor. He was the pastor of Menlo Church in the Bay Area, right by Stanford, for many years. |
| 2:04.6 | But he's best known as an author of many books, which I'm sure a lot of you have already read. |
| 2:10.3 | But these books include soulkeeping, eternity is now in session, and who is this man? |
| 2:17.0 | John, one of my favorite things about you, I'm supposed to pretend that you're not man? John, one of my favorite things about you. |
| 2:18.3 | I'm supposed to pretend that you're not here yet, but one of my favorite things about you is I don't think a lot of people know, |
| 2:23.3 | because you're so known as a pastor and writer that you train as a clinical psychologist. |
| 2:28.3 | And I love the way you blend together psychology and spirituality and bring, you you know these two things that have |
| 2:34.5 | been tragically separated in Western culture in recent history not historically |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Practicing the Way, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Practicing the Way and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.