SCHOOL
OF PRAYER
How to Join the SOP:
Please carefully look over this page, the overview page, & watch the informational videos.
Engage a prayerful, discerning conversation with a close spiritual friend, a pastor, or a spiritual director.
Fill out and submit the inquiry form.
Then we will setup an in-person or zoom meeting with you!
Practice
For the first four months, participants observe the same recommended rule while practicing group spiritual direction, reading and discussing important books, writing, and re-writing a unique, personal rule of life. In the second half of our journey, participants will be released to practice their own rules while continuing with the support of our communal disciplines.
Context
Those who seek a life devoted to God have attempted various spiritual disciplines. Some may have even crafted something like a rule of life or what Dallas Willard calls a “curriculum of Christ-likeness.” Yet, most of us seeking devotion struggle to establish a consistent, daily, year in and year out life practice that leads to deeper transformation. Almost all of us fail at these intentions because we are practicing alone without the necessary encouragement, grace, patience, and forgiveness of a community.
Most who pursue the disciplined, devotion of a rule of life are working through the wilderness in the second half of life. The first half of life is all about flourishing as we conform, as we con “with” form in a community. In the second half of life the Spirit invites us into the painful journey of moving into our deeper selves to participate more freely in God’s love. This is necessarily a bewildering movement away from the affirmation of community into solitude to be intimately alone with God.
The local church is a first half of life institution and is not yet dynamic enough to free adults to enter their solitary journey into the wilderness. The Invitation does not intend to replace the local church. In fact we hope to serve the church as it matures to become such a place.
In the SOP we create a time and space for wilderness dwellers to come alongside each other, to become a safe, graceful community of those learning solitude. We hope and pray that those who complete the SOP will bear witness to the blessedness of the wilderness journey to their respective worshipping communities. We hope this for the sake of renewal in the church both near and far.
Scope
A cohort of the School of Prayer can be made up of no less than six and no more than ten with the exception of a cohort of pastors and church leaders. In our fourth year of the SOP, 2022-2023, we are proposing three separate cohorts, one online distance learning groups, one local cohort, and a third cohort of pastors/church leaders.
The opening retreats for each cohort are at the end of August with a closing retreat in early May. Between the two retreats we will meet for a total of sixteen 2.5 hour sessions. From September to December participants will practice the SOP rule outlined here. From January to May participants will practice their own personal rule.
Communal Rule of Life September through December
*15-20 minutes of daily prayer and Scripture meditation.
*Each Wednesday, a moderate fast of one medium meal, two small meals, no snacks, desserts, alcohol, or sweet drinks.
*An intentional reduction or elimination of access to social media, news, and entertainment (TV shows, movies, sports, etc).
*Journal writing.
*Weekly exercise.
*Seven hours of sleep each night.
*Moderation in uses of money.
*Individually discerned practice of Sabbath keeping.
*Some weekly form of service to church and/or community.
Rule of Life January to May:
To be discerned, written, and re-written by you.
During the entire nine months participants will be invited to:
*read the length of or equivalent to a 250-page book every two months
*write short, reflective, journal responses to be shared in group discussion,
*practice one 32-hour retreat in silence and solitude.
Bi-monthly 630-9pm EST meetings will include: Group spiritual direction, spiritual friendship (dyad) conversations, contemplative prayer practices, book discussion, and teaching. Each participant will be asked to prepare and deliver short presentations and to begin book discussions. *A time for a pastor’s cohort depending on interest: Monday’s 10-1230pm EST.
Calendar time frame: Participants will begin and end the nine-month journey in a Saturday, half-day retreat. Two monthly gatherings will meet on most of the first and third Monday nights of each month, September through May.
Possible Locations (final location TBD depending on who participates)
The Invitation studio/retreat space in Holland, MI
and/or Mars Hill Bible Church, Grandville, MI
Online/DL via zoom
Some of our core topics & themes:
Contemplative Spirituality
Justice
Spirituality of Study
Vigilance or Awareness
Spiritual Discipline
Lectio Divina
Sabbath Keeping
Confession
Fasting/ askesis
Solitude
Community
Spiritual Direction
Silence
Prayer of Examen
Service
Risk
Books to be prayed and studied:
The Cross and The Lynching Tree, James Cone
Into the Silent Land, Fr. Martin Laird
The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, Fr. James Martin
Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman
Desert Fathers & Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained, Christine Valters Painter
TWO TYPES OF COHORTS:
We are accepting interest in two possible formats.
8-10 people in a local or a hybrid local/zoom cohort. This will be a 2-2.5 hr session on a weeknight. In the past, we've done this on Monday or Thursday nights starting at 6:30pm EST
- or -
2-4 people in a zoom cohort, 90 minute weekday session. This has made it more possible to include pastors and therapists who don't want to be away from their families in the evening. I suppose we could develop a local version of this if there was interest.
**Cohorts will be formed by August depending on interest and availability.
SAMPLE SCHEDULE FROM A PREVIOUS YEARS
August 27 Opening Retreat
August 29
Sept 12 & 26
Oct 10 & 24
Nov 14&28
Dec 12
Jan 9 & 23
Feb 13&27
March 13&27
April 10&24
May 6 Closing Retreat
Fees:
<$40k $480
$40-50k $540
$50-65k $600
$65-75k $645
>$75k $690
*Please do not let cost prohibit your interest. Scholarships of up to $200 are available. Email to inquire further.
+$75 if you plan to use the Invitation retreat space for your 32-hour retreat. Includes retreat design and one session of spiritual direction to open or close the retreat.
+$125 to add three, 50-minute sessions of spiritual direction if you don’t already have a spiritual director and would like to meet with Josh.
Fee includes:
*Access to the Invitation retreat space for one-hour time slots at any time between August and May. Available with two-days advance notice.
*Copies the individual chapter readings, handouts, some food offerings and tea on Monday nights.
Fee does not include:
*Books
*Food for the 32-hour retreat of solitude and silence in the Invitation retreat space or all the food for the half-day retreats. Participants are invited to bring food to any of the retreats or to our evening sessions.