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Meadville Lombard Theological School, the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, has launched a Spiritual Direction Formation & Certification program to equip people in becoming compassionate, creative, and certified spiritual directors who can guide people in deepening their own spiritual practices and understanding.
The program, which started in fall 2022, is online, and it is open to anyone interested in becoming a certified spiritual director, including laity and religious professionals. Its first class of about eighteen students will graduate in May 2024.
Through deep listening and spiritual presence, spiritual directors support those they work with in developing their own relationship with the divine of their understanding, says Rev. Tandi Rogers, a member of Spiritual Directors International and the UU Spiritual Directors Network, who developed the Meadville Lombard program and is its director.
It differs from pastoral care in that the former tends to be shorter-term, within a religious community, and often in response to a particular need, while spiritual directors help people develop and expand their own spiritual understandings and practices.
Each cohort will be about sixteen to twenty-four people from around the world, mostly but not exclusively UU. The two-year program, which costs $5,600, consists of individual and group reflection, learning and applying skills, working directly with spiritual direction clients through a practicum, and preparing to launch one’s own spiritual direction practice.
For more information visit meadville.edu/light/spiritual-direction.