sustain:if:able kiwi

the social impact of lectio divina: an artist reflects

There’s a fascinating article in the latest Image journal, titled “Lectio Divina under Covid.”

I’ve been researching lectio divina as part of my social impact of selected spiritual practices research, so I read the article with great interest.

The author of the article, Rob Larsen, is also an artist. So Rob’s words describing his experience of spiritual practice are stunningly paired with his art. These include a contemporary response to Rublev’s icon The Hospitality of Abraham, also known as The Trinity.

Rob describes the gift of joining an online lectio divina group during Covid and discovering a new rhythm: “sitting in silence, listening to Scripture, then mixing a color and laying it down.”

The social impact is expressed in words and visual art. Rob finds himself painting a series Into the Silence. The densely layered canvases express the movements of contemplation for Rob, including paying attention, being present and letting go. They are stunning (check them out in the Image website).

The social impact of the lectio also appears in Rob’s words. He writes of being:

calmer at work and at home, attended by an oceanic peace, even amid the chaos of trying to keep up with endless emails in one room while attending to my children’s meltdowns in the other. I sensed God’s presence in difficult moments

This experience resonates with my social impact research, where 20 participants in 3 cohorts joined me to share lectio divina for 8 weeks. I gained insight into their experiences through surveys, focus groups and inviting them to keep a research journal.

My participants shared how spiritual practices have a social impact. As one of my participants in a focus group observed:

“Stopping, breathing, listening – not just here but transfer to other areas of my life” – Cohort A Survey

The internal impacted on the external, including their sense of being more fully present and with a greater empathy toward others. I’m keen to research other spiritual practices, to see if they have the same or different impacts in community and living.

Digital faith-based activism special issue – call for papers

I’m delighted to be editing a special issue for Ecclesial Futures journal on Digital faith-based activism: grassroots and indigenous insights.

Ecclesial Futures is a diamond open-access journal published through Radboud University Press. The publisher provides human copyediting and design layout and are at the forefront of open access publishing. You retain your copyright, you don’t pay for online publishing and your publication is available to everyone, without obstacles.

The Ecclesial Futures editorial board have agreed to a special issue on Digital faith-based activism: grassroots and indigenous insights to be published August 2026. All submissions will experience double blind peer review, by an editorial team committed to growing scholarship.

The special issue builds on my IASH Edinburgh Research Fellowship in 2024 and a Colloquium earlier in 2025.

We already gave a rich set of papers, but there is space for more. Details of the Call for papers are on the PDF here. Timelines are tight, with proposed abstracts due 1 December, 2025 and papers 15 January, 2026. But there is some flexibility so if you are interested drop me a line – kiwidrsteve@gmail.com.

box half-open on the social impact of selected religious practices research project

Are you a box half-empty or half-full sort of person?

Yesterday marked the end of funding in a 12 months research project. Thanks to John Templeton, the University of Birmingham Cross-training Fellowship and the Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago, for a day and a half each week, I’ve worked away on the Social Impact of Selected Religious Practices.

I could thankfully close the box on what has been a wonderfully productive period. The outputs include

• my first every open science Pre-registration
• five cohorts exploring spiritual practices over either four or eight weeks in three different church communities
• three visits to the University of Birmingham in England – in July 2024, April 2025 and August 2025 – to be with and learn from other researching Fellows
• five sermons, shared with Dr Lynne Taylor, on spiritual practices that contribute to life balance and well-being
• my first ever poster presentation at the Psychology-engaged Theology Conference
• three academic presentations, including a paper at the International Association for the Psychology of Religion, another paper at Ecclesiology and Ethnography and a seminar for the University of Otago Theology Programme.
• two online presentations on Listening in Ministry and Listening in mission to people training for Anglican ministry
• two blog posts for the Cross-Training Fellowship, Interruptive Interviews at the Intersection of Psychology and Theology and Listening with Purpose II: A Theologian Reflects on the Interface between Theology and Psychology
• my first ever go at a Registered Report with an academic journal (a Registered Report is a form of journal article where the methods and proposed analyses are peer-reviewed prior to research being conducted)
• a Listening training in religious contexts: theoretical and empirical research resource (also uploaded to the open science platform I’m building). The resource identifies 6 practices that could be used for listening training in religious communities, as a platform for further research.

With so much work, and so many outputs, it would be fitting to close the research box with a deep sense of gratitude.

However, I’m thankful and excited that this particular research box remains half-open.

• First, a private trust is funding another 11 weeks of part-time research at the start of 2026. This will enable work to make public more of the resources I’ve developed, plus conduct several more spiritual practice cohorts to thicken up the data I’ve been gathering, looking at the social impact of silence.
• Second, I have 6700 words of results from the data gathering I’ve done to date that I need to tidy up for a journal article (or three actually!).
• Third, I have that Registered Report under academic peer review. If/when it’s accepted, I hope to crank into a quantitative study of Advent spiritual practices and I’ll be looking for congregations to work with me.
• Fourth, I’m running a webinar during 2026, as part of my Research Affiliate role with the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. This webinar will summarise for church leaders what I’ve learnt from my 12 months of research into the social impact of spiritual practices (message me if you want an invite).
• Fifth, I’m hoping to develop further research collaborations. I am looking for academics, congregations and denominations who are interested in the social impact of spiritual practices and the role of listening in the processes of change.

In other words, I’m hoping that the research box in relation to the social impact of selected religious practices is not half full, but is really half empty. And that over the next 1 to 5 years there will be more empty boxes to fill, exploring in broader and greater depth the spiritual impact of spiritual practices. If you’re interested in the results or further collaborations, email me on kiwidrsteve@gmail.com.