Expanding Your Ministry: Getting Started in Group Spiritual Direction

February 25, 2013

Most spiritual directors are trained primarily to offer one-with-one direction. As it has been in the past, one-with-one direction will continue to be an important ministry in the future.

Yet group spiritual direction may be particularly well-suited to the spiritual hungers of the twenty-first century. A unique advantage of group direction is that it helps participants notice and respond to the presence of God within a communal context. For this reason, group direction has the capacity to form both the director and the group’s participants in different ways than one-with-one direction does.

The purpose of this workshop is to give spiritual directors initial tools and ideas for expanding their ministry into group direction. The presenters will offer a rationale for group direction, lead a demonstration of group direction, discuss how working with direction groups is different for the director than working with individual directees, and talk about some of the practical considerations in starting direction groups.

About the presenters

Expanding your Ministry will be led by Marlene Kropf, D.Min., Associate Professor in Spiritual Formation and Worship (retired) and Dan Schrock, D.Min., pastor at Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship, Goshen. Marlene and Dan are also spiritual directors and co-editors of the new book An Open Place: The Ministry of Group Spiritual Direction (Morehouse Publishing, 2012).

Workshop Schedule