Spiritual Directors Learning Community

Exploring the Contemplative Evocative Approach

  • Are you stuck in the giving of Spiritual Direction and wonder if there is more to learn?

  • Would you like to augment what you’ve already learned during your own training?

  • Has it been a long time since you offered Spiritual Direction and you feel a little rusty? 

  • Do you wish you had a community of Spiritual Directors with which to continue developing your skills and growing in this profound ministry of Spiritual Direction?

We invite you

If you find yourself answering “yes” to any of those questions– please know that you are invited to join the Spiritual Directors Learning Community. We would love to have you! Together, over the course of three years, we will explore the contemplative evocative approach, while deepening our existing spiritual direction skills in the safety of small processing cohorts.

Outcomes

Participating directors will:

  1. Engage in contemplative prayer practices.

  2. Learn contemplative evocative skills and practical tools to support those skills.

  3. Be able to immediately apply newly learned skills in their own practices.

Benefits

  1. Ongoing ministry and personal development.

  2. A safe place to learn with like minded fellow Spiritual Directors. Designed as a three-year experience, participants are encouraged to commit to the first eight months with a view to discerning whether they’d like to continue.

  3. Ongoing education and professional development  in the field of spiritual direction with a certificate of completion at the conclusion of the third year which satisfies the requirements of renewing certification for those who are certified spiritual directors.

Facilitators

Maria Kon has completed her Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Formation at Tyndale University and has her CSDS having served for seven years as supervisor to the Spiritual Direction Internship (Practicum) at Tyndale University from 2011-2018. She has also received basic training in the contemplative evocative approach from the Souljourners Program in Atchison, Kansas and is currently completing her Advanced Certificate in Supervision.

Robynn Bliss graduated from Briercrest Schools with a BA in Christian Education. Robynn lived in India for 13 years, where together with her husband, she began a Christian Retreat and Study Centre on the banks of the Ganges River. Robynn completed the three-year Spiritual Direction Souljourners Program run by the Mount St Scholastica Benedictine Community in Atchison, Kansas. 

 

Together in 2018, Maria and Robynn, began a pilot Spiritual Directors Learning Community with four Internship graduates from Tyndale. The formal SDLC was officially launched in September 2021.