This week, we are reconnecting with Dr. Susan Phillips, who has been a long-standing presence at Regent Summer School. This year, she will be back teaching Contemplative Listening: The Foundation of Spiritual Friendship and Direction from July 20-31. Susan has many years of experience as a spiritual director, researcher and teacher. In this conversation, she shares with us about listening as vocation and sanctuary. She also shares helpful perspectives on the transformative power of listening, why it’s so hard to listen, how we slowly build trust in listening relationships, and balance empathy and self-care. As you listen, we hope you receive an invitation to slow down and notice the kind voice of God in your life.

Susan's Bio

A spiritual director and professor of sociology and Christian spirituality, Susan S. Phillips earned a PhD in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as the Executive Director of New College Berkeley, an affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union, from 1994 to 2022. In addition to teaching in a number of institutions within the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and serving on its doctoral faculty, Susan has taught for many years at Fuller Theological Seminary, Regent College, and San Francisco Theological Seminary. Her books, like her teaching, explore the intersection of Christian spirituality and social science, and include the award-winning Crisis of Care: Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Helping Profession (Georgetown University Press, 1995), Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction (Morehouse, 2008), and The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy (IVP, 2015). Susan loves listening to people as they pray and seek the Holy in spiritual direction, retreats, and everyday life. 

Related Content

Previous Podcast Appearances

On Spiritual Practice (Nov 2017)

Spiritual Direction, with John Lunn (June 2018)

Spiritual Practices in Community (Nov 2021)

Regent Vine Article

Advent: God Forges a Path (Dec 5, 2025)

Regent College Podcast

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