_ contemplative space

Becoming a Spiritual Director

If you desire to journey with people as they seek to deepen their experience of God, undertaking a formational Spiritual Direction course may be for you.

Jonny received his formational training with Sustainable Faith’s School of Spiritual Direction in Amsterdam and has since become one of the teaching team at SustainableFaith.com

Choosing a spiritual direction course as part of your on going formation

There are now many good places to engage in the process of formation and training as a spiritual director. The breadth and diversity of SD training across denominations and networks is a delight to see, and expresses something the generative and generous character of God.

The emphasis of a good spiritual direction course is on formation rather than simply training. As the Retreat Association also notes: we live in a time where there can be an over-emphasis on “the task we are engaged upon rather than the person in front of us… on training in functionality rather than personal transformation.” And so any teaching of spiritual direction needs to attend to the development of the whole person including “inner qualities and disposition that will be manifest in their practice of spiritual direction.”

The excellent curriculum developed by Sustainable Faith is a course that exemplifies this formational approach. I have personally benefited from this — starting with being a student on the course in Amsterdam, NL (2015-2017). This has been followed by several years teaching cohorts in the UK (with training run in: Oxfordshire, South Wales, East Yorkshire, Nottingham and the EastMidlands), and now online.

Sustainable Faith Inc is a non-profit organisation based in the US with courses accessed by students across the world.