Spiritual Direction Certificate Program
A practice of listening, presence, and accompaniment
If you feel drawn to sit with others in their questions, longings, and moments of discernment, without needing to fix, direct, or advise, this program offers a grounded path into the art of spiritual direction. The Spiritual Direction Certificate Program is designed for those who wish to offer one-on-one spiritual accompaniment in a private practice or helping context, and who expect to work with people from many spiritual, religious, and non‑religious backgrounds. Participants often arrive with curiosity, a desire for deeper listening, or a sense that this quiet, relational work matters in today’s world. This training is also valuable for anyone who works closely with people in moments of transition, vulnerability, questioning, or growth. While some students go on to offer spiritual direction in a private practice, others bring these skills into healthcare, education, nonprofit leadership, community work, chaplaincy, counseling, and informal caregiving roles. The capacities cultivated here, deep listening, presence, and compassionate accompaniment, are transferable to many settings where people long to be heard and met with care.
Please enjoy this conversation with Rev. Dr. John Mabry, Program Director and Rev. Lauren Van Ham, Core Faculty about What is Spiritual Direction and About the Spiritual Direction program at the Chaplaincy Institute.
What is Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual direction, sometimes called spiritual accompaniment or spiritual companionship, is a non‑directive practice rooted in deep listening and trust. Rather than telling people what to believe or how to live, spiritual directors create a spacious, attentive presence that helps individuals listen more fully to their own inner wisdom, values, and sense of meaning. In our interfaith approach, we hold the understanding that each person is the primary authority on their own spiritual life. With time, reflection, and attentive presence, people are capable of discerning what feels most life‑giving and aligned for them. This program teaches the skills and builds capacities that support that kind of discernment: listening beneath words, noticing patterns, honoring silence, and accompanying others with care and humility.
Our orientation & approach
This program is grounded in an openness to something larger than the individual self, however that is understood or named. Participants describe this reality in many ways: God, Spirit, Presence, the Sacred, Buddha Nature, Life itself, or simply a deep sense of connection and wholeness. You are not asked to subscribe to a particular theology or belief system. What matters is a willingness to engage questions of meaning, transcendence, and inner life with curiosity and respect, for yourself and for others. We welcome people whose understanding of spirituality is religious, interfaith, earth‑centered, humanist, atheist, or spiritually curious.
How the program unfolds
Independent & integrative study
Students engage in extensive asynchronous learning at their own pace, along with reading, reflection, practicum work, and spiritual practice. These course learnings culminate in a our Intensive Learning Weekends on Zoom. Community connection continues through online platforms, faculty interaction, and peer engagement.
Intensive learning weekends (online)
The program is offered through a series of weekend intensives held on Zoom. These weekends focus on practical skills, spiritual direction competencies, and working sensitively with people from diverse backgrounds and life experiences. Learning is guided by a team of faculty and blends theory, practice, reflection, and creative expression. Sessions move between teaching, small‑group work, experiential exercises, and contemplative practices.
Core areas of learning
Rather than training toward a single formula, the curriculum supports depth, flexibility, and discernment.
Foundations of Spiritual Direction
History, definitions, and approaches; directive and non‑directive models; cultivating holy listening; methods of spiritual discernment; working with individuals, groups, and supervision contexts.
The Inner Life & Spiritual Experience
Spiritual life stories, images of the Sacred, faith styles, prayer and contemplative practices, dreamwork, addiction and longing, and experiences such as doubt, dryness, and the dark night.
Interfaith & Cultural Awareness
Introduction to major religious and wisdom traditions including Indigenous traditions, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with attention to how belief, culture, and practice shape spiritual experience.
Personal Development & Integration
Ethics and boundaries, confidentiality and self‑care, generational and relational dynamics, sexuality and spirituality, discerning one’s call, and establishing a sustainable spiritual direction practice.
Learning through practice
Students deepen their formation through lived experience, reflection, and supervision:
- Ongoing individual spiritual direction with an approved director
- A supervised spiritual direction practicum with real‑world clients
- Regular supervision sessions to reflect on practice and integration
- Commitment to a personally meaningful spiritual/reflective practice
Completion requirements (overview)
- Seven courses which include self-directed Moodle online learning culminating in a weekend Zoom course
- Retreat required for cohorts starting in the Spring. Cohorts starting in the Winter are fully online
- Individual spiritual direction sessions
- Supervised practicum and supervision sessions
- Assigned reading from spiritual direction texts and selected sacred writings
A student reflection
"ChI offers you an opportunity to become more fully connected with your spiritual sense and whatever you may call your higher power, and you leave the program with tools that you can use to help you on your way. And because it is interfaith, it gives you a sense of confidence and a sense of know-how and knowledge about the direction to go, and it just connects you with a platform from where to start. It gives you a sense of home, a place to belong, because you develop new relationships with people that you can call upon that you didn’t have before, and it doesn’t matter what they may call their higher power because the language is universal. I just love everybody at ChI . It is an amazing experience."