Distance Spiritual Direction Training 2022/2023

This spiritual direction modality of ministry is the art and craft of skilled sojourning.  Spiritual direction finds itself in a unique place among helping professions.  It is richly rooted in the history of the church, steeped in contemplative tradition, and was in its pre-modern time, the quintessential discipline for attending to matters of the interior life.  Modernity replaced this practice with the field of psychology.  While in some ways, psychological research, Freud and beyond, served the modality of spiritual direction well, the contemporary discipline of psychology has provided an ill equipped substitute for the spiritually discerning, attuned accompaniment of spiritual direction.  This course seeks to harness both, the richness of the tradition of spiritual direction as well as the contributions of object relations psychology and even more recently, interpersonal neurobiology.  For this reason, the content spans the spectrum of graduate level and popular level reading, personal prayer and reflection assignments, as well as rigorous clinical practicum (second year).  

What makes this program distinct from other offerings is its over indexing in cross-disciplinary study and an overview approach to other relevant (but less relevant) topics.  Our points of focus are curated to ministry with Christian professionals living and working in a post Christian context.  

Overview

• 2 year training program resulting in all requirements met for membership into Spiritual Directors International and Evangelical Spiritual Directors Association.  You do not have to join these organizations, but you will need to join at least one if you want to secure insurance for your spiritual direction practice.  

• In the 1st year:

   - Nine monthly 3 hour online meetings for Group Supervision (1.5 hours) followed by Book Discussion & Instruction (1.5 hours) with a brief break in between (dates and times listed below).

   - Nine monthly 1.5 hour online Prayer Project Reivew meetings (dates and times TBD).

   - One day cohort retreat (date and time listed below).

   - Approximately one book per month of reading due.

• In the 2nd year:

   - Nine monthly 1.5 hour online meetings for Group Supervision

   - Nine monthly 1.5 hour online prayer and reflection assignment presentations

   - At least two meetings with directees per month for 10 months.

   - You must be in personal spiritual direction

   - Discernment period between first and second year where instructors will help you determine your calling into the next year.

Meeting Dates for 2022/2023 Cohort

In-Person Cohort Retreat

Retreat will happen on a Saturday in mid December or early July.

Location: TBD- will be determined based on registrants' location.

Saturdays (Group Supervision, Book Discussion & Instruction Zoom call from 9:30am-12:30pm)

2022

September 10

October 1

November 5

December 3

2023

January (In Person Retreat from 9:30am-5:30pm, dependent on participants' location)

February 4

March 4

April 1

May 6

Fridays (Prayer Project Review Zoom call from 4pm-5:30pm PT)

2022

September 23

October 21

November 18

December 16

2023

January (no meeting)

February 17

March 24

April 14

May 19

Individual Discernment Meetings regarding second year will take place in May and June 2023

Dates for 2023/2024 TBD by May 2023

Application

If you have questions please email julie@nuosformation.com or are ready to apply, send the following application materials by August 10 to julie@nuosformation.com

From there we will schedule an interview.  I would like to keep the cohort to 8 participants.  

Application Materials

Spiritual Autobiography (no more than 5 pages double spaced)

Answers to the following questions (approximately 100 word answers)

• What makes you interested in spiritual direction training?

• What is your understanding of what spiritual direction is?

• What is your relationship to Scripture?

• What are some books that have influenced your spiritual growth?

• What have you been saying to God lately?

Letters of Reference 

• One from a pastor or mentor

• One from someone who has benefited from your spiritual care

Cost

$2600 for each year 

Total of $5200 for entire Spiritual Direction Certificate Program

This can be paid each year or split into semester payments.  

Additional Costs:

Books: Approximately $200/year

Make up sessions for missed days $150/session

Personal spiritual direction $50-$160/month

About the Instructors

Julie Barrios

Julie Barrios has over 15 years experience as a spiritual director, supervisor and trainer of spiritual directors. She holds an MA in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care from the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Talbot School of Theology and an additional certificate in Ignation Spiritual Formation from Loyola Institute. Julie has found great joy in helping people grow in the craft of spiritual direction. With interests in art, technology, embodied spiritual practice and thoughtful ideas of all kinds, Julie weaves her interests to serve her passion of forming directors for a rapidly changing and dynamic world.

Courtney Towery

Courtney Towery was focused on missions, serving in Mexico, when God called her to be a spiritual director before she even knew what spiritual direction was. This call brought her to the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Talbot School of Theology for my MA in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care. In 2006, while in school, she started giving spiritual direction and became a teacher's assistant for Advanced Listening Skills, taught as an adjunct professor for Talbot's Spiritual Formation Focus, and served as a supervisor to spiritual directors. In 2009, she married my husband and eventually landed in the California bay area for his job in 2011. Since then, she has continued to give some spiritual direction, but mostly has been at home with her 3 young kids learning a new kind of spiritual direction through parenting. Spiritual direction holds such a special place in her heart. She counts it a privilege to be a part of this program and God's work in people's lives.

Jessica Lacy Driscoll

Jessica Lacy Driscoll has over ten years experience pastoring youth and families in the church and is completing her MA in Theology from Concordia University. She was trained as a spiritual director through Nuos Formation and loves the way it creates spaces for people to come unguarded before God. She sees her greatest accomplishment as having an honest, flourishing, playful marriage with her husband of five years and learning to feel secure and connected to her teenage step kids. She loves the way God works in simple and seemingly mundane circumstances to expand our capacities to give and receive love.