Jeanie Miley is a writer and columnist, a retreat leader and speaker on topics of spiritual growth and wholeness. She is the author of nine books, with her latest titled: Joint Venture: Practical Spirituality for Everyday Pilgrims.
With a belief that the goal of any spiritual growth process being to heal, transform, liberate and empower individuals, Jeanie’s personal mission statement says that whether she is writing or teaching, her intention is “to connect people to God, to their own souls and to each other through writing and teaching.”
Retreat Leadership
Jeanie leads retreats that inform and educate about practical, relational spirituality.
Besides the topics listed below, Jeanie leads contemplative retreats, using a variety of material. She also leads workshops and retreats based on her book, JOINING FORCES: BALANCING MASCULINE AND FEMININE.
She leads a workshop or retreat on the process of transformation through suffering in the book of Job, based on her book, SITTING STRONG: WRESTLING WITH THE ORNERY GOD, as well as numerous offerings, using the life of Jesus and the book of Psalms. She has led numerous workshops and retreats on the processes of recovery from codependency, the discovery of gifts and calling, the healing of loss, emotions and memories.
Jeanie’s basic retreat or workshop offering is “Joint Venture: Practical Spirituality for Everday Pilgrims”, in which she provides a lifeline of spiritual formation, discusses the True Self and the False Self, what it means to be made in the image of God, the joint venture between God and the individual that facilitates the growth of the True Self, the barriers to the True Self and ways of overcoming the barriers. This material is presented in her new book, Joint Venture: Practical Spirituality for Everyday Pilgrims, which was recently released by Smyth and Helwys Publishing.
Jeanie is a trained facilitator for Centering Prayer workshops, and has been trained to lead various other workshops.
General Topics for retreats
Making Space for Grace
Teach Me to Dance
Let Your Light Shine
Mary Magdalene: Woman of Faith
Sitting Strong: Wrestling with the Ornery God
Joint Venture: The Growth and Development of Faith, of Practical Spirituality for Everday Pilgrims
Joining Forces: Balancing Masculine and Feminine
Keeping Hope Alive
Love: Giving it/Receiving It
Contemplative Retreats
Encounters with Jesus
Becoming Fire
Christheart
Creative Silence
Praying the Psalms
Beside Still Waters (Parts 1 and 2)
Workshops
Leading Relational Bible Studies
Gift Discovery (based on the workshop, Volunteer Career Development: Self-Assessment and Self-Management)Spiritual Formation and Growth
Contemplative Prayer
Using the Scriptures in Prayer
Centering Prayer
Speaking Topics and Sermon Topics
Choosing Life, Making Peace, Giving Love
Forgiveness as a Way of Life
The Power and Practice ofGratitude
The Whisper of his Grace (from Job)
Made in the Image of God
Love — The Real Thing
More About Jeanie Miley
Since her college years, Jeanie has been fascinated by the integration of psychology and spirituality, forming a deep belief that religious practice or dogma means nothing unless it makes a difference in the everyday life of the individual and in personal relationships. One of the most frequently-heard comments about Jeanie’s teaching and writing is that it is “practical, meeting everyday-needs of persons of all ages.” (Check out Jeanie’s blog).
Jeanie has read and studied broadly in the areas of spiritual growth, and her teaching rests, as she says on a “four-legged stool” — Bible study, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, contemplative prayer and Jungian psychology.
As a minister’s daughter, her earliest training was in the teachings of the Bible, and in 1971, she was introduced to the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, identifying immediately that the principles of the recovery program were consistent with the teachings of the Bible.
In 1979, she began a quest in the area of contemplative prayer and meditation, and has studied under Thomas Keating at the Benedictine Monastery, in Snowmass, Colorado, and Keith Hosey, the former director of the John XXIII Retreat Center in Hartford City, Indiana. She is a trained facilitator for Centering Prayer workshops. Jeanie has been a student of the teachings of Carl Jung, through her own analytic process of many years. She has studied under Dr. James Hollis, Pittman McGehee and other instructors at the C. G. Jung Educational Center in Houston, Texas, since 1998. Through the analytic process and her study, she has come to a deeper understanding of Jesus’ teachings about “the kingdom of God within.”
Graduating from Baylor University in 1967, Jeanie has continued to receive training in the areas of Marriage Enrichment, Couples Communication, The Thomas Concept Relationship Seminars and parenting seminars. Jeanie is a graduate of the Spiritual Direction Institute at the Cenacle Retreat House, in Houston, Texas, and has a full practice of directees.
Jeanie teaches a popular women’s Bible study at River Oaks Baptist Church, in Houston, Texas, and at other sites in the Houston area. She is a frequent retreat leader for groups across the country. In 2001, she taught the concepts in her popular book, The Spiritual Art of Creative Silence, for 450 women in a school for women leadership in Seoul, S. Korea. Her book, The Spiritual Art of Creative Silence, has been translated into Korean by Tyrannus Publishing Company. The English version of that book is in its twentieth year in print and continues to be a practical guide in contemplative prayer.
A sustaining member of the Junior League of Houston, Jeanie has served on numerous boards and committees, including the editorial board of Interfaith Ministries in Houston, the Spiritual Formation Task Force and the Coordinating Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Jeanie Miley has been married to Martus Miley since December, 1967, and they are the parents of three adult daughters and grandparents of seven.
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