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The application period for the 2025-2027 cohort will open early 2025.
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Earn your certificate in Spiritual Direction and Social Transformation our virtual education program. Our 2-year program builds upon existing spiritual direction practice and training, but particularly emphasizes spiritual direction as a social practice.

Most programs present spiritual direction primarily as a one-on-one discipline in which a practitioner works with one spiritual directee at a time or, perhaps, with a small group of spiritual directees. While this program prepares participants for that work, our aim is to go beyond the one-on-one framework to include training for work in organizations, activist spaces, and from within larger social systems.

We train spiritual directors and guides whose desire and calling is to discern and give attention to how the Spirit moves to bring liberation in the world. 

Our courses draw upon the insights and experiences of those experiencing marginalization and oppression. Our instructors are committed to deepening their engagement with movements and theologies of liberation (including, but not limited to Black, Queer, Indigenous, Womanist, Disability and Worker’s movements). Increasingly, our cohorts include POCI students, international students, and LGBTQ+ students—each adding an important perspective to our shared learning environment.

With every module, we invite you to increase your self-awareness, broaden your analysis, deepen your listening skills, expand your experience of spiritual practices, and integrate your spirituality with radical action.

Our program includes online learning modules and facilitated supervision.

Prerequisites:

Our program is for someone with some theological education or someone willing to do some theological self-study as part of the program.

This program assumes some experience within helping/healing professions. That could be ministry, non-profit work, social work, or a healing arts profession.

These expectations are important for several reasons. First, this is a fairly short course of study; we cannot cover the amount of material required for someone who has no background in a related field. Second, to teach clinical skills in a fairly short amount of time, we need students with some working experience with people and within organizations designed to help people.

Format:

This course of study includes seven core modules and a project seminar. We will also offer additional electives. In order to graduate the full program, we require participants to take all seven core modules and at least two electives. More information about these courses is provided on the Courses and Schedule page.

In addition, each student must be in supervision for most of their time in the program, as well as working with a mentor for their program project.

More information on supervision and project hours is included on the Supervision and Student Project page.

We also urge participants to see a spiritual director for themselves as part of their own training in becoming a spiritual director.

We’ve designed the program so that a participant may graduate in 2 years.

We structure Fall and Spring semester modules as 2 hour online class sessions over 10 weeks with additional reading and projects.

Summer and January term electives are usually 2.5 hour sessions over 4-6 weeks.

Students will spend 5-10 hours per week on work outside of class. 1.5 hour supervision meetings happen four times per semester, on average. This load allows most participants to keep up with coursework while working full time. Nevertheless, it is a substantial time commitment.