This course offers a compassionate, multi-disciplinary exploration of death and dying. Participants learn practical, spiritual, and emotional tools for accompanying others—and themselves—through life’s final transitions. Topics include the spiritual agenda of dying, end-of-life care, near-death experiences, co-creating mourning rituals, green burials and funerals, medical aid-in-dying, and cultural, racial, and economic considerations. Through reflection and shared experience, students deepen their capacity to be a calm and sacred presence at the threshold of life and death. This course provides valuable training for chaplains, hospice volunteers, health professionals, and all who companion the dying.

Interfaith spiritual leaders are often called to create or lead ceremonies that honor life’s many thresholds—for people of any or no faith tradition. This course explores how to design and hold sacred space for these transformative moments with authenticity and grace. Together we’ll study the foundations of ritual, discover elements that give meaning and structure, and explore diverse ceremonies such as grief rituals, gender and name transitions, funerals and memorials, earth and climate rituals, and weddings or commitment ceremonies. Through experiential learning, participants will deepen their spiritual confidence and cultivate humility and presence as they craft rituals that speak to the wholeness of those they serve.

In many ancient cultures, the first spiritual awakenings were in relationship with the Divine Feminine.  Her traditions and archetypes have been interrupted repeatedly by the dominant patriarchal cultures that followed, to this very day. And yet, Her wisdom continues to reappear throughout the world, in myriad spiritual traditions, as well as in our understanding of our relationship with the planet. In this course we will explore Her origins, which continue to inform our primal archetypes and spiritual goddess traditions, beginning in the cradle of humanity, Africa, through Hinduism and pre-patriarchal Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, Celtic & Eurpean goddess traditions as well as the ways the Divine Feminine appeared in early Christianity.

The second in the Divine Feminine series, this course will explore how the Divine Feminine continues to speak to and through our own lived experiences, regardless of our genders.  We’ll explore how the rise of patriarchy erased not only goddess cultures but the wisdom of female prophets and teachers throughout the colonized world.  We’ll learn how some traditions have continued – in spite of such repression – to lift up and celebrate goddess culture and wisdom traditions, sometimes hiding in plain sight. And we’ll celebrate how the Divine Feminine is providing healing and wisdom for our embodied relationship with self and planet in a time of climate crisis. These two electives do not need to be taken sequentially.

Earth, Equity and the Sacred invites us to explore the astounding web of relationships that create and support life. These relationships are both ecological and economical; and to restore a regenerative future for all beings, we must use the spiritual gifts of courage, creativity and wisdom. In this course, we engage ancient and emerging practices to bring healing to our human and ecological communities. Learning with subject-area experts and spending some time outdoors, this course honors Earth as teacher and invites a deeper understanding of how spirituality and action unite in the care of our shared home.

This foundational course introduces students to the heart of The Chaplaincy Institute’s interfaith philosophy and approach to spiritual care. Together, we explore what it means to serve from openness, curiosity, and compassion while honoring the sacred in all traditions and expressions. A diverse group of teachers will guide exploration of eco-spirituality, culturally inclusive ministry, spirituality beyond religion, and spiritual care through the lens of justice and liberation. You’ll be invited to reflect deeply, engage in meaningful dialogue, and begin shaping your own authentic understanding of ministry and service.

This course invites you to explore the deep connections between spirituality, justice, and social change. Through self-inquiry and applied theology, we engage courageous questions about how faith and spiritual practice can help heal the wounds of injustice and oppression. Together we reflect on how spirituality informs social action and what it means to embody justice as sacred practice. Areas of focus include Prison Ministry, Human Sexuality and Genders, Intro to Nonviolent Communication, Deep Culture & Intersectionality, Classism & Economic Justice, and Liberation Theologies. This is a journey of heart and spirit—an invitation to expand empathy, deepen awareness, and cultivate the skills to be a compassionate presence in a world longing for healing.

In this course, you’ll be invited into a rich exploration of the world’s spiritual wisdom. Together we journey through traditions rooted in earth-centered and Indigenous practices—including those from Africa, Pagan paths, First Nation and other Indigenous worldviews—as well as ancient Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Through this study, you’ll engage not only with the beliefs, stories, and rituals of these traditions, but also with the spirit and values that continue to shape them today. Learning unfolds through lectures, dyad sharing, creative art projects, and virtual site visits, offering many ways to connect with and integrate new insights. This course honors the sacred diversity of human experience and invites you to deepen your understanding of how Spirit moves across cultures and time.

Continuing our exploration of the world’s wisdom traditions, this course turns toward the Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—honoring their sacred texts, rituals, and the shared longing for divine connection that runs through them. Together we’ll study how these paths have shaped human culture and consciousness while listening for how their teachings may speak to our own callings and questions today. Learning unfolds through lectures, dyad conversations, creative art projects, and spiritual practice sessions, engaging both heart and intellect. This course celebrates the depth and diversity of the world’s wisdom, inviting you to encounter how Spirit continues to move across traditions, cultures, and generations.

With psychedelics and plant-based theologies rising to meet the needs of the fastest-growing religious demographic, “Spiritual, but not religious,” it is crucial that theologians, pastoral counselors, and those of faith understand what these powerful substances can offer. This seminar will examine historical and present-day uses of a host of substances while also looking at the broader history of drug use in the United States. We will place the so-called psychedelic renaissance in the context of the War on Drugs and explore the use of plant and animal-based altered states of consciousness in order to gain a connection with the Divine. Race, gender, and sexual identities will also be utilized as lenses to examine what might be called a War on the Ecstatic. The insights of treatment modalities from harm reduction to 12 step programs will also be considered. This course aims to introduce all participants to the world of spiritual care that integrates psychedelics, and entheogens.

In a world marked by inequality and division, people of faith are called to become co-creators of communities rooted in justice, compassion, and love. This course inspires spiritual care providers to engage in prophetic witness, empower the marginalized, and speak truth to power through:

• Movement Ministry is More than Marches
• Prophetic Witness: Utilizing media, LTEs, Lobbying, & Public Speaking to share our Message
• Moving from Existential Dread to Sustainable Resilience
• Active Bystander & Trauma Informed De-escalation Techniques
• Empowering Others: True Allyship
• Employing our Moral Authority as Clergy
• Sacred Justice in Action

This experiential course focuses on science itself as a source of wonder, contemplation, and transformative meaning. Challenging the stereotypes that paint spirituality and science as incompatible, participants will travel between first-person experiences, depictions of the Cosmos, and key developing areas of science. This course will help to re-kindle the aptitude we all have for scientific inquiry, tapping into the joy of first-hand explorations of phenomena and perceptions. Students will take a “highlights tour” of the Universe as it has been collectively described by generations of inquirers and focus on key unsolved areas of science that offer spiritual, existential and ethical pathways towards new meanings

Spirituality and religion can bring profound healing and connection—and have also been used as tools of oppression and harm. In these times of conflict and ideological divides we need spiritual tools to meet this moment:

• Trauma Informed Spiritual Practices
• Cultivating Resilience
• Liturgies & Rituals of Protest & Hope
• Religious Wounding & Moral Injury as symptoms of Oppression
• What’s Getting in Our Way: Moving from Internalized Isms to Sacred Justice
• Prayer as Intervention
• Restorative Justice & Peacemaking Circles for Systems Change