In the midst of the noise, God is speaking to you:

an invitation to take a step deeper into his love & life.

We would be delighted to help you listen.

Finding God In the Wilderness

*The geography of transformation*

The pandemic has thrust us into a spiritual wilderness that threatens to close our hearts.

Or, we can learn to hear God’s invitation in and through the wounds.

Doubt, confusion, anger, impatience, despair become openings to love that can lead you deeper into God. The wilderness is a geography of transformation.

We offer you guidance to help you get your bearings in this sacred landscape.

In the wilderness we discover that prayer is not so much about our ability to get God’s attention as it is about God’s ability to get our attention.

Watch a video about the Invitation’s mission to the church through the prison.

We create safe spaces where you can listen to God in and through your weaknesses to:

Move beyond anxious, reckless, surface living
Learn from your failures
Know yourself & God more truly
Notice God everywhere

Find your own unique way of praying
Discover a conversational, reciprocal friendship with God
Cooperate freely with the Holy Spirit
Heal & become whole, a human being fully alive!

Become a healing presence for others

Your personal transformation matters to the wellbeing of society

our Story

The Holy Spirit began forming our understanding of contemplation & justice in a prison where we have been facilitating contemplative prayer since 2014. The prison continues to be our defining sacred space where we learn to hear God in the wilderness.
[pictured left: Josh reunites with Latorious shortly after his release in 2021.]

“It’s not that I bring Jesus to the prison. I go to the prison to find Jesus who is already there, and I know him there among my incarcerated brothers in ways I don’t experience him elsewhere, even in the church. Everything I do with the Invitation is shaped by the prison.”

— Josh Banner, Invitation Founder & Director

listen & respond to God’s invitation
In our formation schools

A nine-month study and practice of the rule of life
Work out your faith in a listening community.

school of Contemplative

Listening

discern

Continue your formation & be a healing presence for others.

Contemplation

Creating time & space for God for yourself.

Spiritual Direction

Creating time & space for God with and on behalf of another.

Justice

The holy space that defines God’s presence on the earth and dignifies those who seek him.

MOVING DEEPER & WIDER

More on The Time & Space of Contemplation & Justice

humans are like carrots

We need space to grow

Carrots carrots grow best in a loose, fluffy, well-draining soil. Gardeners call this “fertile sandy loam.” If planted in tightly compacted, rocky soil with clods and debris, carrots growth will not only be stunted. They will become twisted, distorted knots.

Human beings also need ample space, the comfort of love, patience, and kindness to flourish.

We live in an increasingly polarized world that turns to physical and emotional violence to solve its problems. We lack wisdom to find another way, so we continue inflict pain upon each other and ourselves. The result is an oppressive society.

To “oppress” is to squeeze, weigh upon, confine, to press down. Oppression tramples on human dignity.

Contemplative spirituality and spiritual direction are practices of justice as they create the sacred space necessary for human flourishing and restore a person’s dignity.

The Invitation exists within the contemplative tradition — the quiet, gentle, and yet prophetic stream of Christianity that believes Jesus’ life and teachings demonstrate that there is always more love and hope available for everyone.

Contemplation and justice exist in the very nature of God.

“The Gospel is always bad news before it is good news.”

—Frederick Buechner

“Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.”

—Fr Richard Rohr

“The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed.

Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.”

— Dr. Howard Thurman

Endorsements

“When I look at Josh’s life and what he does, the kind of human being he is, his sense of passion and inspiration, I’m a bit envious because he gets to practice spiritual direction in a prison. Josh chooses to go toward the pain.”

Chuck DeGroat, Professor of Pastoral Care and Christian Spirituality Western Theological Seminary

“The Invitation greatly serves the mission of transformation. Creating a space to hear the voice of the voiceless is a direct response to Jesus’ message of ‘love thy neighbor.’ As Josh leans in to those who live their lives in prison cells, he also leans out to the world with messages and stories that transform our hearts.”

Margarita Solis Deal, Executive Director at Mother Boniface Spirituality Center

“I grew up like Josh as a hyper-churched, evangelical kid, worship leader. All the trappings of church and worship are stripped away when you are sitting in a jail with people who are facing their brokenness, and I was able to pray with a new kind of honesty. I’ve been trying to find connections between the monastery and the prison, and the prisoners with the community and the church. This is what Josh does as a vital bridge between the church and our brothers and sisters who are in hades, in the underground in the prison. This is how we together get to meet Christ.”

Chris Hoke, Author & Director of Underground Ministries

“Practice spiritual direction in a prison? Who does that? There is an incredible thoughtfulness in Josh’s work. You get the sense that he genuinely enjoys people, and his written meditations are born out of his own life of devotion. He comes to the prison with a sense of delight that can cause you to want to go into a prison as well.”

Nathan Foster, Renovaré Director of Community Life

“I immediately recognized within Josh a kindred spirit who is deeply passionate about Jesus, deeply passionate about providing space where people can come into the presence of God and listen deeply. It’s been a privilege to serve alongside Josh facilitating retreats. I always come away from conversations with him enriched. He is a person who has listened deeply to my life. I am thrilled Josh is able to bring out to the rest of us the riches he has received from listening and learning in the prison.”

Sharon Garlough Brown, Spiritual Director & Author

“I was able to go to the prison with Josh and watched him do spiritual direction in a place most of us wouldn’t expect God to show up. I’ve visited and taught in a prison before, but my experience of spiritual conversation in the prison—this was really a profound experience for me, to watch God show up in a way that was healing, that opened my heart in a way it hadn’t been opened before.”

Dr Jared Ortiz, Professor of Religion, Hope College

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The Invitation is a 501(c)(3)