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.
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.
The next online cohort will be taught by Jonny Norridge and Emma Alldridge running from February – November 2027. Timings of this cohort will be suitable for students in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
COHORT DETAILS
School of Spiritual Direction Year 1
2027 ONLINE COHORT — Australia, New Zealand & UK
Teachers: Jonny Norridge (UK) & Emma Alldridge (NZ)
Starts: Friday-Saturday, 26th-27th February
Continues: Every Friday (Breaks taken for holidays and between modules)
Ends: Saturday, 13th November
Schedule/timings across the timezones:
| New Zealand | Eastern Australia | UK | |
| Starts: Fri 26th – Sat 27th February | 7pm – 10:30pm | 5pm – 8:30pm | 6am – 9:30am |
| Fridays in March | 8pm – 10pm | 6pm – 8pm | 7am – 9am |
| Fridays April – October | 8pm – 10pm | 6pm – 8pm | 9am – 11am |
| Fridays in November | 8pm – 10pm | 6pm – 8pm | 7am – 9am |
| Year End: Saturday November 13th | 8pm – 10:30pm | 6pm – 8:30pm | 7am – 9:30am |
(Of course, if you are in another timezone you are also welcome!)
Apply at SustainableFaith.com — Cohort reference: SSD1 2027 Online – Australia/New Zealand/UK – Norridge/Alldridge
Introducing this cohorts teachers…
Jonny Norridge
Jonny loves to accompany others through the various seasons of their life with God. A decade of volunteering in a poverty alleviation charity gave Jonny a grounding in the hospitality of listening. He loves the learning environment — as a teacher with Sustainable Faith, and also a university lecturer (where he enjoys guiding students through design projects). He treasures the joys of a sacred moment stumbled upon in an art gallery, listening to live music or out walking. Jonny lives with his wife, Meg, in Nottingham, UK (their two adult children leaving them—almost—with an empty nest). Further details about Jonny can be found on the Profile page.
Emma Ruth Alldridge
Emma is passionate about creating safe spaces for people to encounter God. For 14 years, she worked for and led Vineyard churches in both the UK and New Zealand, frequently walking alongside individuals navigating drug addiction and homelessness. Emma trained as a spiritual director in NZ with SGM in 2009; she completed training as a supervisor for spiritual directors with LCSD in 2018. Emma is married to Adrien, and together they parent three teenage children in New Zealand. She loves opening their home to international students, consistently finding that God works richly through these cross-cultural relationships. In her free time, she enjoys being in nature, painting, photography, and music.
Apply at SustainableFaith.com
SSD1 2027 Online – Australia/New Zealand/UK – Norridge/Alldridge
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 training — starting with being a student a decade ago with a cohort 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.
Our hope for the online school is to make this programme accessible to those in regions and situations who haven’t had access to this kind of formational training.
Other Teaching and Training
I love the opportunity to teach in a variety of contexts. In recent years I’ve run sessions with VCUKI’s Vineyard Leadership College and Trent Vineyard on the topics such as: ‘Spiritual Formation’ and ‘Rule of Life’ and specific sessions on various spiritual practices. Other teaching has the areas of art, creativity and culture with King’s School of Theology (KST).