Professor Roger Heuser is the Professor of Leadership Studies at Vanguard University. In February, he was in Singapore with his wife Gayle to conduct three retreats with the senior staff members of City Harvest Church. City News sat down with them on 19 February for a chat.
On the weekend of 18 and 19 February at CHC, church members were introduced to Prof Roger Heuser, Pastor Kong’s Professor of Leadership Studies at Vanguard University, and to his lovely wife, Gayle, who is trained as a opera singer, is the chaplain of Silverado Hospice in California. Pastor Gayle sang a verse of a traditional song in each of the services, bringing the congregation a glimpse of a beautiful form of worship that was different from what CHC is accustomed to.
The week preceding that weekend, Prof Roger and Pastor Gayle were in Singapore to conduct a series of silent retreats for senior members of CHC staff. It proved a transformational experience for the attendees as they learned how to commune with God and enjoy Him through different ways of silent contemplation.
Prof Roger was the son of a Pentecostal pastor in Winsconsin. Though there was the expectation that he would follow in his father’s footsteps, he took a break midway through Trinity College (now Trinity International University) to pursue music. He toured the US with a musical group sponsored by Chrysler, then founded his own band called The Crimson Bridge, in which he played trombone. After coming to the conclusion that the music industry was not his calling, Prof Roger returned to Trinity and finished his degree. This was also when he fell in love with the integration of Christian faith and academics, which would later shape his ministry and career. Prof Roger served in his father’s church in Northern Chicago as director of Christian education following his graduation. He later graduated from NYU with a PhD in Philosophy (Religious Studies) with an emphasis in leadership. In 1983, Prof Roger joined Vanguard University when it started a Masters in Arts Church Leadership studies programme, and he has been on faculty since then.
Pastor Gayle holds a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University and a Master of Arts in Leadership and Spirituality from Vanguard University. Music is a key part of Pastor Gayle’s gifting and ministry. She was a finalist in the prestigious Pavarotti International Voice Competition and has sung lead roles with the Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Midwest, Birmingham Opera Theatre, Opera Southwest, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall Series, Rochester Philharmonic, and St. Edward Chapel in Cambridge, UK. Pastor Gayle taught at Vanguard University for 15 years and has presented on the topic of music and spiritual care for the California Hospice/Palliative Care Association.
Together, the Heusers hold spiritual retreats at their home and also conduct retreats for ministers and missionaries throughout Europe, Asia, and Central America.
Prof Roger and Pastor Gayle are soft-spoken and gentle, exuding peace and calm, yet possessing a great sense of humour. They pick up and finish each other’s sentences with such ease it is like watching them play a duet. Theirs is a 30-year marriage that looks like a honeymoon—it is all the more poignant when Prof shares that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma in 2011, but the Lord healed him. The joy Prof Roger and Pastor Gayle exude is a precious reminder that all believers are given the promise of the abundant life Jesus came to give.
City News: How did you meet?
Pastor Gayle: We met on a blind date in Chicago through a mutual friend. Roger was visiting Chicago because he was writing a book with a colleague. He was just wanting to go out and with someone and this friend called me. And I said, ‘Sure, I’ll go out with him. I’m not seeing anyone.’ And we met and we went to a wonderful restaurant together. And within about an hour, I felt so comfortable with him. He just put me at ease. We just had so many common interests, and the one major conversation that we had, was that neither of us could find a church that we really loved, because we were looking for a combination of embracing liturgical elements, but where the Spirit was very free. And he was like, “We’re both looking for the same thing.”
Prof Roger: I had pastored but then I started teaching at Vanguard University. So in California, the church was just not the same after you’ve been pastoring… During our blind date, our first course was cuttlefish with black ink, so within 20 minutes of eating, we had black teeth and lips (laughs). So that was kind of an initiation into ‘Oh, do we want to go out a second time?’
PG: It was very playful. We were playing with our food. (Both laugh)
PR: There was something about our relationship… we both knew that we wanted to [be together?] . So we got married two years later, and we’re coming up on our 30th anniversary—March 27!
PG: I had just come to the point where I was thinking, ‘Well, if God means for me to be single, I’ll be content. I can do that.’ And then within a very short amount of time I get this call from out of the blue. I was very surprised.
PR: She swept me off my feet. I’m still looking up. (laughs)
That’s wonderful. Can we go back to what you said earlier about both of you looking for a church with liturgical elements but where the Holy Spirit could move freely—what did you mean by that?
PR: I’m Pentecostal. I was raised in a classical Pentecostal church. When my dad was pastoring, he would always have a scripture reading, and he would integrate scripture with sort of like a pastoral prayer. So [having] different scripture readings from the Old Testament and the New Testament—I kind of missed that. Then, there’s liturgy. City Harvest Church has a beautiful liturgy: You start with a lot of vibrant songs. Then you move into more of the quiet songs…so you have that structure. I think that’s what we were looking for: the liturgical structure with scripture, prayer, and then having an openness where the Spirit could come in and be spontaneous.
PG: And also the sacramental aspect. We love the Holy Communion. So many of the churches that we visited, they would serve it maybe once a month, and they would not make it a holy moment and invite the Lord’s presence. It’s like ‘Oh, this is like an appetizer to the main feast of the Lamb’. But for us, it’s more—it’s very important to us.
What led you to hosting spiritual life retreats?
PR: So, when I started teaching at Vanguard in 1983, the first semester, I spent a week on a retreat, and I was introduced to some of the prayer practices [that we did with the CHC staff on the retreat this week]. And then when Gayle and I met, we both were introduced to a type of retreat that had both reflection time and time in the Scriptures. And then there was sharing time. So when I taught a class on spiritual formation in the graduate programme, I invited the students to our house as part of the class and have a four hour retreat in our home. There is enough room outside so they could go for a walk. And then we began to host others who were interested—it was all just by word of mouth, we weren’t promoting it. It was just happening sort of organically; we would host these retreats and then people would say, ‘Oh, we’d like to have another one’. COVID put a lid on that for a while, but we’re starting to open up again because it can be really life-changing for even four hours.
PG: The two of us have been on long silent retreats, like eight days. I think that if you have something big that you’re trying to discern, that’s really important. Some people go on 30 day silent retreats. That would give you a lot of clarity!
PR: So we found that the retreats were transformative. The retreat itself doesn’t change you but it creates a time and space for the Holy Spirit to enter deeply into our lives.
PG: And to transform us and make Him real inside of us. That we carry that with us for the times we get really busy or scattered. That’s why we really, both of us really believe in the little practices that we can do throughout the day that don’t take that much time. But then also regular times of retreat—longer times—so you can find your personal balance in your own life.
PR: I think that’s why last night (Sat 18 Feb) when we heard Pastor Kong preach, we were like ‘Wow, I’ve never heard this taught in a megachurch before. That [the message] is who we are, and he articulated so clearly—everything that we experience—in such a clear way. It was really touching. I’m glad I lived long enough to hear that in a church.
PG: He (Prof) turned to me and he said—because he we’ve been through this battle with the Stage 4 lymphoma and the healing process—he looked at me and he said, ‘I’m really glad I lived long enough to hear this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Here you are.’
What was it that spoke to you specifically about this message?
PR: It’s the storyline of Pastor Kong’s sermon. It started with the intro of ‘Jesus often withdrew to a quiet place’, and he interwove that with the Mary and Martha passage (Luke 10) and with John 15. Then he went into meditation and contemplation—the way he weaved those together—and then he brings in St John of the Cross! Who does that?! I was amazed—that’s from the 16th century! Who does that in a church service? It was like a weaving of the life of Jesus with a story in the Gospels, with a passage from John’s Gospel, to the Psalms, to Joshua, and all of those around a theme. That was kind of a masterful weaving. And then he gets to the end with meditation and contemplation. And then the altar call is Mary and Martha! (laughs) He would make an assertion and then he would say, ‘Look what it says in the scripture’. He’d make that assertion, and ‘Here’s how we know—here it is in Psalm 46.’ (marvels) I’ve never heard an altar call on Mary and Martha! It’s usually the sinner’s prayer!
How is silence and solitude different from quiet time? Are there steps, for example, when we come to church we learn certain steps to doing quiet time, like praise and worship, praying the Our Father, declaring the names of God etc.
PR: Those are all good. They’re wonderful. In a sense, they’re like a personal liturgy. But as we grow in faith, the disciplines can be a mirror to how dry we are, when they no longer provide the sustenance that they once did. When you first become a believer that could be exciting, to pray the names of God! Then there may come a time when you think, ‘Why do I feel so dry?’ It could be that the Holy Spirit is saying, ‘Those are all good, but I want a deeper life in you. I want to be in you, and be more intimate in our relationship.’ And so we’ve discovered a whole variety of ways that we can do that. Like the meditation of maybe just one scripture, and you can do a Lectio Divina1 on one scripture. [Another is] Doing contemplative prayer. We do that together every morning. So we spend at least 20 minutes or so together, no words. We just come before the Lord together in the same room, and we’re just silent with each other before the Lord. And then we often will say the Lord’s Prayer and then we’ll go for a walk and then that’s when we will do our intercession for others.
PG: So we’ve also been drawn to a lot of healing prayers for healing, but they’re not a petition but a receptive posture. Like we’re standing there for people, receiving the Holy Spirit’s healing, like living water. It’s like letting yourself be loved and be transformed by God and not doing anything. It’s a very receptive posture.
PR: So even though I’ve been in remission since 2015, Gail still prays over me for my healing. It’s become a daily discipline that includes prayer for healing. I think that part of it too, is enlarging our framework. Could it be that a walk outside and just looking at God’s nature could be a spiritual discipline? Or going to the museum and looking at art? I could we could see that as a spiritual discipline. We met some here who are artists—is their artistic expression a discipline, where they feel something connected inside with the Lord while they create something beautiful? I think the Spirit wants us to be really open and creative to ways in which it’s not trading one (spiritual discipline) for the other. That’s just expanding our awareness of practices and discipline that acknowledge Who God is, and His love for us. His justice, His mercy, the companionship of Christ, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence.
PG: There are some spiritual directees who really need to take to be moving when they pray. Their body type needs to be hiking or walking and that’s when they feel good. That’s when they can connect (with God) most easily.
PR: My dad was a classical Pentecostal preacher. And he would get up every morning early and pray for a couple hours. And I would hear him pace back and forth, he would start with “Halleluuuuuujah”, then he would put a little vibrato into it (laughs), then he would move into more prayer. The whole process was very organic for him. It was almost like a Pentecostal mantra! (laughs)
How can we encourage people to practise silence and solitude if they haven’t been to a retreat?
PG: We know that when we have a desire, a holy desire for something, it’s because the Spirit put it in us already. And the Spirit is at work in us doing it already. We all experience some kind of holy longing, and sometimes it’s really tiny. So (you want) to fan the flames of that, and honour that and just see how God wants to unfold that without discounting it or moving past it. In my own life, I know that I have had many of those moments where I’m like, “Oh, I really want to do this thing”, and I couldn’t start in a small way because I’m so committed with other demands so I think, “Well, I’ll do it later”. Then I’ll pay attention to this later. I wonder if that is a way to introduce silence and solitude without prescribing it, because it’s so individual.
PR: The devotional life is not just doing the devotions. There is a devotional life that is more receptive to God’s invitations. Two words: attendere and intendere. One is to attend to God’s invitation. And then now that we attend to God’s invitation all around us, what is our intention? So the “do” comes after the listening, rather than the doing, then the doing, then the doing. We workaholics we think our spiritual life is doing spiritual things or doing our devotions.
PG: (Here’s) One example the little niggle, the little urge: for years, since I was probably like 20, I was fascinated with the Celtic harp. It was during Covid that I started really saying, “Okay, it’s time to do this.” And I started to follow that urge, and I started to play a little bit every day, and now I can play for people. So I can take my harp to a retreat and play and it’s just such a deep, nourishing spiritual practice.
PR: When she practices at night, it’s right in the next room and I can see her. So now, her spiritual practice of practicing the harp is ministering to me—it becomes my spiritual practice. I’m resting in the beauty of harp music that quiets my heart.
One of the things you taught us at the retreat was that knowing God also involves knowing yourself.
PR: I would say it this way: I think it’s not just knowing God, it’s being known by God. Together that enhances one’s intimacy with God. As we are being known by God, it then is an invitation for us to know ourselves since He knows us. How can we know how He knows us without knowing ourselves? God wants to let us in on what He knows about us so that we can then know ourselves and then we can respond to God’s love out of intimate awareness of ourselves.
PG: [It takes] Trust, a deepening trust that we can let Him see us.
PR: So Martha must have come to the realisation that “He knows me. He didn’t agree with me. But somehow he knows me that I’m overworked. I’m anxious in the kitchen.”
PG: I’m wondering how that felt to her, to feel like, “Someone saw me and said, You don’t have to continue down this path. There’s a better way.”
PR: I think that knowing God without knowing ourselves, we almost objectify God and make God transcendent. So we know about God, but how can we really know God without knowing ourselves? Because knowing God imminently automatically assumes that we are having a deeper knowledge of ourselves and deeper awareness of ourselves, of our brokenness, our frailty, our shame, the voices that are getting in the way or our resistances.
PG: Or [it may be] the beauty of the soul that we can’t embrace. We don’t know how beautiful God sees us as.
PR: That reinforces being created in God’s image, with all that beauty, creativity, agency. As image bearers, we are powerful, but we use power as God uses power—not for ourselves, but for the service of others. At the same time, then, that we can access that belovedness: God says you are my beloved child and beloved son, beloved daughter. That is a liberating knowledge of ourselves: we are mindful at the same time, then, of that proclivity to our human frailty, where we [each have] our unique story of the Fall that comes to bear, who we really are, in which we then need healing. And we need God’s grace to say, though God loves you as you are, you don’t need to stay as you are.
What are some of the most dramatic and memorable transformations you’ve seen following a spiritual retreat?
PR: I think people have reported a new awareness of their belovedness. This has freed them. It’s a new way of framing reality, a way of framing their lives. And there’s something different in the way they interpret it because life is messy, and it can be burdensome. [After the retreat] there’s sort of a lightness—actually a deeper entry into life, but now with more of a lightness. So it’s more intimate, and yet, not as heavy. Maybe it’s like going from mono into stereo.
PG: And then surround sound. (Both laugh) The core thing is there’s a real deepening, visceral sense of belovedness and being just being loved and being enough. I am more than enough in exactly who I am. I don’t need to strive to be someone else that I think I need to be so that God will love me more. That freedom of ‘I’m more than enough, just exactly who I am’ and the unconditional love, it affects people’s actions so they don’t feel the compulsion to be running so hard or doing so much or having to please people. It can come out in a variety of ways. But when I know for myself when I’m tapped into that sense of ‘I’m enough’ and ‘God likes me this way who I am and he’s growing me into who he thinks I should be’, then I feel like I don’t need to try to impress other people, I don’t need to work harder, or add more to my schedule so I feel more important. All those things that would be compulsions.
You’ve said tears can be healing. How do we know we have been healed?
PG: For some people healing is really quick and instantaneous. We saw some of that at the second retreat: there were some major burdens—people realised it and they did something about it in that moment. They set it down and they shared it with the group and the group embraced them. Other times, I think healing is a long, slow process that we are not even aware of. Then we look back and go, “I’m not reacting to that in the same way anymore”. Or, “It’s easier to forgive this person. I don’t need to set a judgment about this person anymore. I’m free of that.” And, “Maybe five years ago I wouldn’t have been in the same place.”
PR: Somebody described it as peeling back an onion layer by layer. Makes your eyes water (laughs)
PG: There’s are so many sacred moments in the Scriptures of human tears, how God feels toward human tears, He keeps our tears in a bottle. That He wipes every tear. David cried out with tears…
PR: …Jesus wept over Lazarus in Jerusalem.
PG: Last night in the service, I had a really deep feeling of transformation when Pastor Sun was singing, and I could just feel like water releasing from my heart. It’s something I’m really going to have to hold and sit with: What was God doing and what is God asking of me?
On that point of “sitting with” something God has done, a lot of time we are very busy and we think we’ll do that later, but you don’t. How do you bring yourself back to that so you can process it?
PG: Sometimes during centering prayer2 ideas come to us and we can’t write them down. We just wait and let it come back to us.
PR: When we’re waiting on the Lord, the Holy Spirit will bring up stuff that we should not forget. That’s one of the benefits of contemplation. It’s one of the graces of contemplative prayer that when you’re when you’re still before the Lord without an agenda, then you’re waiting for the Holy Spirit to have His agenda to bring up what the Holy Spirit wishes.
PG: John 16:24 says the Spirit is the one who calls things to memory.
PR: That’s the gift of the Holy Spirit.
1 Lectio Divina is a contemplative way of reading the Bible which was established as a monastic practice by Benedict in the 6th century
2 Centering prayer is a form of contemplative prayer that centres on the awareness of the presence of God
