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soul journey

SOUL Journey Curriculum: Waking, Walking, Wrestling & Working

Retreat #1: WAKING
January 16-20, 2023

Formation: Waking up to the theology of spiritual formation. Discovering who you are in Christ and how he seeks to meet you.  

Direction: Waking up to the art of spiritual guidance — its history, purpose and importance. Understanding the basics of how spiritual direction functions.​

Retreat #2: WALKING
July 3-7, 2023

​Formation: Walking into the spiritual practices that align your life for transformation. Facing the “false self” and entering the journey toward spiritual and emotional health.

Direction: Walking into implementation of spiritual guidance with others. The art of listening, asking questions, and discerning the Spirit.

Retreat #3: WRESTLING
January 2024 (dates TBD) 

​Formation: Wrestling with issues of brokenness, suffering and cultural captivity seeking to discover how God uses difficulty and sacrifice to form us spiritually.

Direction: Wrestling with how to process pain in the lives of those you lead seeking to discern the transformational work of God in their lives.

Retreat #4: WORKING
July 2024 (dates TBD) 

Formation: Working toward a transformational strategy in your ministry setting. Understanding your calling and the missional nature of spiritual formation.

Direction: Working as a spiritual guide with other ministry leaders. Learning to engage in group spiritual discernment within your leadership community.
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Spiritual direction is a way of companioning people as they seek to look closely, through the eyes of their hearts, at the guidance and transforming work of God in their lives.Awareness of God is one of the gifts of spiritual direction.A spiritual direction group is not your typical small group. It is not a study group or a place to simply find fellowship, although that happens. It is not a mission group, a committee, or an accountability group. It is, first and foremost, a listening group.The poet John Milton said, ‘’Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named, not good’’. God knew that human beings needed human companionship.The soul is more than the sum total of the mind, heart, spirit and body. My soul is my inner essence, my spirit, the core of my will and my desires.The purpose of this friendship is not that one person directs the other but that the spiritual director is companion to the other. In other words, the spiritual director is not really the director. God is the director.Spiritual direction is about transformational dialogue with God, not just an exchange of information between director and directee.Margaret Guenther, author of Holy Listening, calls spiritual directors ‘’midwives for the soul’’. Using another medical analogy, Tilden Edwards in Spiritual Friend compares a spiritual director to a doctor.Parker Palmer said, ‘’the soul is like wild animal …… it seeks safety in the dense underbrush, especially when other people are around’’The apostle John wrote that ‘’God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world’’ (John 3:17). One of the greatest gifts of spiritual direction is that it provides a place where we are not condemned but loved. Previous Next

Desired Outcomes of the SOUL Journey:

Instruction and learning experiences at the four SOUL retreats, along with reading assignments and participation in “group spiritual direction” between retreats, will focus on:
      1. Training in Spiritual Formation: In the midst of ministry demands many leaders fail to tend to their own inner journey, overlooking the rhythms that lead to health. At the Academy we will assist the leader in recovering an understanding and experience of how to do the inner work necessary to maintain spiritual health.

  2. Training in Spiritual Direction: Most leaders have never discovered the value of a spiritual director or “soul friend.” At the Academy we will experience the art of spiritual guidance as we learn to listen and shepherd in ways that are Spirit-led. Participation in “group spiritual direction” between retreats will help strengthen this practice in our lives.

3. Application to Ministry Setting: Academy participants will acquire a lens from which to view the overall development of spiritual formation and direction in their ministry setting back home. Together we will seek to turn learning into transformational application.

Who

You will join a community (cohort) of 30-40 Christian leaders (the majority of whom have participated in previous DeoWorks online cohorts) where experiential learning takes place… Biblical and Spirit-led discovery leading to relational intimacy with Christ and authentic ministry to others. We are currently registering for Cohort #1.

When

This cohort will meet four times over the course of 2 years. Each retreat will be 5 days in length. Participants are asked to commit to all four gatherings as each learning experience builds on the other. There will be a “Ramp-Up” for each retreat that will require reading 1 or 2 assigned books and two Zoom Meetings. And each retreat will be followed by a similar “Ramp-Down” to further process and apply the learnings of the retreat. The date for the first retreat is January 16-20, 2023.

SOUL Journey Program Model