About

Hi, I’m dwight.

Thank you for visiting my site, perusing some of my writings, and getting to know me & what I care about a little bit more… glad you’re here.

The quest of my life is to discover and practice faithful presence.  My desire is to grow in love… love of G-d, love of neighbor, love of self, love of “enemy,” love of place, love of stories, love of beauty, love of justice, love of a life… you get the idea.  I am on a venture to discover G-d’s Shalom for all and everything.  Though I can’t claim to know – in any definitive way – exactly what shalom is, I’ve had just enough glimpses of what I think it might be, for shalom to have captured my imagination. 

In some Jewish traditions shalom is understood as the inner life of G-d; this framing of shalom resonates with me. To participate in shalom appears to be a kind of mystical union with G-d in, with, and through the rest of creation. If shalom is rooted in the very being of the Divine, then I have to imagine that Shalom is paradoxically the greatest thing I can imagine while simultaneously beyond my imagination. For my imagination for shalom is always limited to my cultural formation(s), my existential experience(s), and my mystical union(s) with the Divine, yet my Shalomic imagination is clear enough to invite my faithful presence now, in this moment, in this place, with these people.

In my experience Creator Spirit offers just enough Shalomic imagination to invite my living justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with G-d here and now. As you may know, Jesus of Nazareth once summed up all scripture by saying, “Love G-d and love your neighbor as you love yourself,” at different times in my life I’ve heard different things in Jesus’ words… linear progression… primacy of loving G-d… that I am to love my neighbor the way I love myself… here’s my confession: I don’t really understand love. What is love? And what in the world would it really mean to love G-d? Seriously?!? These days I sense that the degree to which I can love myself I will love my neighbor and love G-d. It seems to me that the (lowercase “t”) trinity of G-d, neighbor, and self is a pretty good starting place for opening up to love.

Pointing me in the direction of this Shalomic hope for experiencing love, my personal mission is to, “live love & love life.” My spiritual practice is rooted broadly within the Christian tradition, though it is profoundly informed and transformed by people and practices from traditions, spiritualities, and communities from all over the globe. 

As a professional practical theologian, I describe my work as searching for the least inadequate language to describe G-d and one’s (personal & collective) experience of G-d.  I seek to be fluent within the great tradition while engaging my work with a stance of humble openness to the Divine who is while trying to resist worshiping my descriptions of G-d. 

I have an evergrowing sense that my greatest stumbling block to knowing truth may actually be my assumed beliefs.  If the G-d who is, is at all reflective of the G-d described through the great tradition then that Divine being transcends human description… yet, this transcendent G-d makes G-dself known in creation, the great tradition, and most profoundly in Jesus of Nazareth & in us and to us through the presence of Holy Spirit.

I typically use he/they pronouns, though I happily respond to them, or ze/hir and xe/xem. My desire is to grow in normalizing every person’s freedom to self-identify in the ways that give life.

The intent of my vocational quest for “even more helpful language” is in service of G-d by serving Christ’s church… and I find one of the more helpful ways to think about the church is as local groups of people seeking to discover and practice the Shalomic Way of Jesus within the particularity of their place and the complex ecosystem of relationships which sustain life together.   

I live in the Lake Hills neighborhood of Bellevue, on Seattle’s Eastside, and I consider Lake Hills home. I belong to Lake Hills, and I seek to be a responsible resident. That said, I was born and raised in the Canadian prairies, mostly in the town of Brandon, MB;  the ancestral home of the Sioux peoples, and among Mennonites (Anabaptist followers of Jesus) with an emphasis on attending to sacred texts. 

Place matters a great deal to me… I have grown to love and care for Cascadia (Pacific Northwest), the home Coast Salish peoples. Together with Lynette, and our son, Pascal we get to live in one of the most beautiful bioregions of the world… I may be slightly biased.  BTW: The photo above and on the left is of my parents and sister… yes, that’s little Dwight on my mom’s lap; to the right is me with my sister & brother; and here I am my late maternal grandmother & my son, (when he could still sit on my knee).

Lynette and I moved to Western Washington in 1996 to pioneer a new church expression.  The church expression was called “Quest-A Christ Commons” and was an emerging network of neighborhood simple churches.  Our little faith community was even identified, studied, and featured in Gibbs & Bolger’s book, Emerging Churches. I had the privilege of doing life with that faith community until 2007 when my vocational life shifted slightly from pastoring to training parish pastors.

These days I have the joy of learning alongside seminary students at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, serving as a founding board member of Parish Collective, and engaging internationally with the Urban Shalom Society in service to United Nations Habitat. From January 2022 through August 2023 I served as part-time pastor at St Luke’s Lutheran Church in North Bellevue, while the church’s pastor – Mark Griffith – was on an extended pilgrimage to Holden Village.

I also serve as a speaker and consultant for local churches, various parish expressions, denominations, para-church/community organizations, and mission agencies throughout Canada, the USA, and around the world on issues of SDGs & faith, contextual ministry, the New Parish, place, Shalomic imagination, the role of religion in (re)shaping narratives, values and design of urban life, social systems, and faithful presence.

I am always seeking creative, entrepreneurial, and generative ways to join in the hopes, dreams, and desires G-d has for the world.  I am passionate about peace-making, interfaith and missional-ecumenical conversation, and about communally & personally embodying the Shalomic Way of Jesus Christ within local context(s).

Peace, dwight

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A little more biographical info…

• Earned a Doctor of Ministry with an emphasis in Leadership in an Emerging Culture at George Fox University under the mentorship of Leonard Sweet, with Kent Yinger as his dissertation adviser.  Dwight’s dissertation explored a relational hermeneutic toward connective church structures & leadership.
• Graduated with a M.A.R. from Trinity International University where he was mentored by Robert E. Coleman, while Dwight’s thesis adviser was Michael Bullmore. His thesis explored Biblical understandings and images of Christian community.
• Dwight was ordained by the Christian & Missionary Alliance in June of 1992, until surrendering his ordination credentials because of this tradition’s commitment to exclude women and queer leaders from ordained ministry.
• His theology, practice, and background is Anabaptist, with a Textual impulse, an Emergent Missional conversational practice, deeply rooted within place, with a healthy dash of apophatic mysticism.
• Graduated with a B.B.S. from Ambrose University College now located in Calgary, 1990.
• Attended Capernwray Hall in England, competing a one year certificate program in Biblical studies.

Glimpses into Dwight’s vocational practices…

• Currently Professor of Practical Theology at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
• Founding board member of Parish Collective.
• Works internationally with the Urban Shalom Society in service to United Nations Habitat.
• Serves as a ministry consultant, public speaker, and spiritual director.
• Serves as an adjunct professor or guest lecturer at numerous colleges & seminaries around North America.
• Served as part-time pastor at St Luke’s Lutheran Church in Bellevue, Washington.
• Served on the “Faith & Order Commission” of the National Council of Churches.
• Moved into Duwamish & Snoqualmie country (Seattle area) to pioneer a church expression, Quest: a Christ Commons – 1996-2007.
• Was active with Willow Creek Community Church when attending graduate school (ancestral land of the Ho-Chunk & Illinois).
• Served as an Assistant/Youth Pastor in Crow & Cheyenne country (Billings, Montana) – First Alliance Church.
• Served as an Intern Pastor at Foothills Church in Crowfoot country (Calgary, Alberta).
• Served as an Interim Youth Pastor at McDiarmid Drive Alliance Church in Sioux Country (Brandon, Manitoba).

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