If you desire deepen your spiritual life and journey with others as they explore their experience of God, undertaking a formational spiritual direction course may be for you.
I received my training with Sustainable Faith’s School of Spiritual Direction in Amsterdam and now teach as one of the team at SustainableFaith.com I will be leading two online courses this year:
School of Spiritual Direction
Formational training in the art of and practice of spiritual direction.
The Contemplative Primer
A grounding in the contemplative life and spiritual formation.
School of Spiritual Direction
Sustainable Faith’s School of Spiritual Direction is a 2-year certificate program preparing you to serve as a spiritual director. The training is a deeply formative, immersive and integrated. The modules cover: Story & Conversation, Self-Awareness & the Enneagram, Discernment & Group Direction, and Stages of Faith.
A new Year 1 online cohort meeting weekly on Wednesday evenings starts September 2026 (continuing through the year to early June 2027 with breaks between modules).
This Year 1 cohort will meet early evening on Wednesdays at a time suitable for those in timezones: GMT, WET, CET, EET, WAT, CAT — perfect for those in Iceland, British Isles, Portugal, Central Europe, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Nigeria etc).
Apply at SustainableFaith.com
— cohort reference: SSD1 26/27 Online UK – Norridge
Primer
Sustainable Faith’s Primer course provides a grounding in the contemplative life and deepening of spiritual formation. It also offers space for discernment and preparation for further training in spiritual direction.
The 9 monthly modules will cover: Presence Over Performance, Desire Over Duty, (Inter) Dependence Over Self-Sufficiency, Vulnerability Over Self-Protection, Gratitude Over Entitlement, Embodied Over Fragmented, Mercy Over Judgement, Mystery Over Certainty, Consent Over Control.
A new Primer meeting monthly on Mondays starts September 2026 (continuing through to May 2027).
This Primer cohort will meet Monday mornings in the UTC+0 timezone. This equates to the afternoon for those in UTC+4, will be: 17:30–20:30 for those in TimeZone UTC+8 (West Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong).
Apply at SustinableFaith.com
— cohort ref: Primer 26/27 Online UK – Norridge
Becoming a spiritual director & 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 in contemplative spirituality and the key practices of a spiritual director. The breadth and diversity of SD training across various communities 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, Netherlands (2015-2017). This has been followed by several years teaching cohorts in the UK (with training run in: Oxfordshire 2017, South Wales 2018, East Yorkshire 2021-22, Nottingham 2022-23 and the EastMidlands 2023), and now online.
Sustainable Faith Inc is a non-profit organisation based in the US with courses accessed by students across the world.