Invitation School of Contemplative Listening (SOCL)

 

2-Minute Introduction

 
 
 
 
 

Overview

The School of Contemplative Listening is a study and practice of spiritual direction at the vital intersection between contemplation and justice.

A certificate in spiritual direction can be earned by those who complete three modular components: two years of in-person or online formation plus, “Ethics and Standards of Spiritual Direction.” If you are not seeking certification, you are invited to apply to participate to add substance and depth to your professional or lay ministry, nonprofit work, activism, advocacy, or social work.

Spiritual direction is a discipline of hearing God’s voice and cooperating with the Holy Spirit to create time and space for God. This is a discipline all Christians can practice in a variety of formal and informal ways. This practicum serves to create time and space for God with you so that you can discern the unique ways you will create time and space for God on behalf of others.

We consider this a “practicum” in the sense that we believe only the Holy Spirit can teach us to pray and form us as spiritual directors. This practicum will allow you many opportunities to attend to a significant amount of inner soul work in solitary prayer and group listening practice to help you learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. The reading and writing of this practicum will be substantial, yet our discerning focus will consistently ask how our reading and writing inspires and forms our worship and practice.

Purpose

The SOCL seeks to promote and normalize spiritual direction in and outside the church through just practices.

Prayer and justice have a reciprocal relationship: deep, transformative prayer nourishes justice and justice nourishes prayer. Prayer forms us in right-relationship not only to God, but to ourselves, to the world, and our neighbors. Prayer guides us to cooperate with the Spirit in making wrong things right.

Spiritual direction, then, cannot be reserved for spiritually elite, enlightened gurus. The spiritual health of the church and society at large depends on spiritual guidance into the deeper regions of prayer. As Richard Foster has written, "The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people." Spiritual direction cannot remain clandestine because it is the pastoral, soul-shepherding ministry that accessses the deepest self. Spiritual direction is a ministry that arises from the church and is for the church as it bears witness to God in the home, neighborhood, school, workplace, state, and nation.

A followers of Jesus is by definition someone who hears and follows the voice of God (John 10:27-28). Any person growing in faith can discern his or her own unique gift of creating time and space for God. The question for each Christian is not “should I be a spiritual director?” The question is: what is my unique charism? How do I hear God’s voice and create time and space for God in my life and for others?

The SOCL seeks to nurture justice, saftety, integrity, patience, love, and humility within a growing community of spiritual directors. Christian faith is fundamentally confessional. To hear God's voice is to first an invitation to repentance, to "truth in the innermost being," to holiness and justice in our deeper being (Psalm 51). As a spiritual director creates time and space for this sacred, just inner truth in our private selves, we trust Spirit-led ripple effects of sacred, just truth will pervade our public selves.

Scope

Applicants to the SOCL need to have completed a year of a spiritual formation program, ideally the Invitation School of Prayer. Other acceptable experiences include these programs or similar:

West Michigan: the Mars Hill School of Formation or the Dominican Center’s Foundations in Christian Spirituality.

Nationally: The Soul Care Institute or The Renovaré Institute for Spiritual Formation

The SOCL is a modular practicum based in nine-month fellowships of worship. Upon acceptance you can complete your certification within two years or extend your study and practice up to no more than four years.

With a few variations, the local cohort will meet at Mars Hill Church in Grandville Michigan, 8am-2:30pm EST on the first and third Fridays of each month.

The online cohort will meet on the second and fourth Thursday evenings, 6:30-9pm, and Friday mornings, 6-9am EST)

"Ethics and Standards of Spiritual Direction" will be offered to both local and online participants on the first and thrid Fridays of each month, 3:30-5pm EST

Outcomes

  • Thrive in your own unique prayer, your personal relationship with God.

  • Learn contemplative listening, discernment…to hear the voice of God in your own unique spiritual vocabulary.

  • Discover a personal, unique practice of contemplative listening that allows you to create time and space for God for yourself and on behalf of others.

  • Be challenged to perceive and respond to the layers of injustice and abuse inside and outside the church.

  • Develop your spiritual discipline and rule of life by experimentation and learning from your failures!

  • Deepen your spirituality of study, to integrate heart and mind, rigorous thought and prayer, reading and writing and worship.

  • Acquire self-knowledge, self-love, and self-care through prayer, group practices, relationships, and enneagram work.

  • Heal your fragmented self toward an integrated wholeness and therefore holiness in God.

  • Stretch your understanding of God and Christianity in ecumenical, cross-cultural, and even interfaith dialogue.

  • Survey the relationships between biblical study, theology, psychology, ecclesiology, mission, and contemplation.

  • Embrace suffering through the vocabulary of the desert fathers and mothers.

  • Explore cataphatic and apophatic spirituality through St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Augustine.

  • Value and treasure the contemplative tradition in Protestant, American sources like Jonathan Edwards and the Puritans.

  • Be inspired by deep contemplative, prophetic voices of social justice like Thomas Merton and Howard Thurman.

  • Learn with world-class, leading authors and thinkers like Sharon Garlough-Brown, Chuck DeGroat, Jared Ortiz, Tom Schwanda, and more.

  • A “certificate of completion” allows you to develop a service for fee ministry in spiritual direction.

  • A certificate of one year of completion may be obtained upon request for those who choose to complete only one year.

Not all who participate in the School of Prayer and the School of Contemplative Listening will pursue a formal, certified practice of spiritual direction. More than credentialing the professionalization of ministry, the SOCL exists to nurture a contemplative listening community. Anyone who participates in the SOP or the SOCL for any length of time will forever be considered a part of the Invitation fellowship with an open invitation to any future Invitation retreats, classes, guest presenters, and community events.

SOCL participants will have indefinite access to the SOCL audio and video teaching materials.

·      Attend to your own spiritual growth with a rule of life and monthly spiritual direction.
·      Attend two, 2-night retreats. At least one of the two offered retreats needs to be attended in person. The second retreat can be completed virtually.
·      Begin intentionally finding directees and practicing spiritual conversations.
·      Complete all reading and writing assignments.
·      Attend and actively participate in all sessions.
·      Listen to or watch all assigned teaching materials prior to scheduled, corresponding session.

Required

Josh Banner & Cami Mann are co-directors of the SOCL. They will offer the bulk of instruction with two sessions of special instruction from these world-class scholars and practitioners:

Sharon Garlough Brown, cataphatic spiritual direction, lectio divina, lamentation
Chuck DeGroat, cataphatic and apophatic spirituality in St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle.
Jared Ortiz, cataphatic and apophatic spirituality in The Confessions of St Augustine.
Tom Schwanda, cataphatic spirituality in the Puritans, apophatic spirituality in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

Instructors

Thursdays 6:30-9PM EST & Fridays 6-9am EST

Fridays 8am-2:30pm

In-Person

August 4 Family Camp not required
August 5-7 Opening Retreat
August 20
September 3 - 17
October 1 - 15
November 5 - 19
December 3
January 21
February 4 - 18
March 4 - 25
April 8 - 15
May 6

Distance Learning

August 4 Family Camp not required
August 5-7 Opening Retreat
August 26 & 27
September 9 & 10 - 23 & 24
October 7 & 8 - 21 & 22
November 11& 12 - 21 & 22
December 9 & 10
January 8 – 10 Winter Retreat
January 27 & 28
February 10 & 11 - 24 & 25
March 10 & 11 - 24 & 25
April 7 & 8 - 21 & 22
May 12 & 13

Alternate
Certification

Those who have completed a two-year spiritual formation program that has nurtured a discipline of hearing God’s voice are welcome to enter into discernment with Josh and Cami about attaining certification through the SOCL in one year. Please email us your interest before completing the application.

Spiritual Directors
Continuing Education

Seasoned spiritual directors who have already completed certification are welcome to enter into discernment with Josh and Cami about participate in the SOCL at half the current tuition rates to receive a one-year certificate of spiritual direction of contemplation and justice. Please email us with your interest. Depending on your current ministry you may or may not be asked to complete an application.

  • For this first year of the SOCL, 2021-2022, we are offering an introductory, early-bird rate of $2000/year if you apply by May 28.

  • After May 28, $2100

  • Cost for 2022-2023 will be $2400.

  • This annual fee includes instruction, monthly mentoring with an experienced director, and class materials.

  • This annual fee does not include retreat lodging, food, books, individual spiritual direction.

  • We believe our approach to contemplation and justice is especially unique and may be valuable to currently practicing spiritual directors. Directors already certified are invited to join the SOCL at a cost of $1000 per year.

  • Retreat costs TBD. This will likely be around $250

  • Financial assistance. An application form is included at the bottom of the application and reference letter forms.

Tuition

Application Process

1.     Submit your application and two references, one from some form of pastor or spiritual leader and one from someone other than a family member who can speak to your character.

2.     Pay $25 non-refundable application fee here: https://theinvitationcenter.org/donations

3.     Complete an interview with Josh and Cami.

4.     Once accepted, you will secure your place in the SOCL by submitting a $400 non-refundable deposit. Payment of the full tuition can be submitted in one lump sum or by setting up a monthly schedule on the donation page: https://theinvitationcenter.org/donations