Jan 28, 2020
This week’s podcast is with lifelong minister of the gospel Leighton Ford, who shares with Steve his story and how it became a personal history of listening for God’s voice. He recounts the different ways God has spoken to him, and the different ways he has learned to listen.
What emerges is not just an account of a long and faithful life of Christian service, but a picture of the Christian life―the life of listening.
It's a conversation you don’t want to miss!
Leighton Ford is president of Leighton Ford Ministries, which seeks to help young leaders worldwide to lead more like Jesus. For many years, Ford communicated Christ around the globe through speaking, writing, and media outreach, addressing millions of people on every continent. He served from 1955 until 1985 as associate evangelist and later vice president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and was featured as the alternate speaker to Billy Graham on the Hour of Decision broadcast.
He served for nearly twenty years as chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, an international body of Christian leaders. He chairs the Sandy Ford Fund and has served as a board member for World Vision U. S., the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He received the 1990 Two Hungers Award, recognizing his contributions to addressing the physical and spiritual hungers of people around the world. In 1985 he was selected as Clergyman of the Year by Religious Heritage of America and TIME Magazine singled him out as being "among the most influential preachers of an active gospel."
Dr. Ford is also author and co-author of numerous books. Places of the Heart is Leighton’s latest four-color book and features the author’s imaginative watercolor paintings, poetry, and reflections on a life formed, redeemed, empowered, and directed by God and for God’s glory. Leighton lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife, Jean (who Billy Graham introduced him to - she was Billy’s sister!)
Their children are a married daughter, Debbie, Kevin who partners with him in LFM, and their older son, Sandy, who died after heart surgery in November 1981.
RESOURCES MENTIONED ON PODCAST
Books by Leighton Ford (mentioned)
- The Life of Listening
- The Attentive Life (used in Potter’s Inn Soul Care Institute)
Becoming the Beloved by Henri Nouwen
Simone Weil – French philosopher and activist
Cultivating Daily Examen Podcast
“The heart has many dungeons. Bring the light! Bring the light.” - Mary Oliver
My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman
John Polkinghorne, physicist and priest
Moment to Breathe - Now I Become Myself by May Sarton