School of the Spirit: Spiritual Deepening for Individuals and Meetings

January Conversation Circles

D

O YOU YEARN FOR SPIRITUAL DEEPENING IN THE MANNER OF FRIENDS? Are you led to help leaven a deeper connection with the Divine in your Meeting or Worship Group? The School of the Spirit (SoTS) is a ministry of prayer and learning that supports those who seek to be more faithful listeners and responders to the movement of the Spirit through the Inward Teacher, the inward work of Christ. 

SoTS encourages deepening through attention to the Divine in silence and spiritual practices, building supportive spiritual nurture relationships, and, as way opens, discerning how to live in the Life, power and guidance of Spirit. Programs and program leaders seek to faithfully take people to the Living Water where Spirit can do its work. 

Yet spiritual deepening is not for the individual alone. Each Friend who is ignited in the Spirit brings strength, clarity, and a sense of Divine connection to the Meeting community. Friends who serve as “leaven in the loaf” can help guide the Meeting’s adult education program into the fullness of Quaker faith and practice.  Join this conversation to learn more. 

The SoTS website describes programs and provides resources useful to individuals and meetings. Current programs include “God’s Promise Fulfilled: Encountering and Embodying Grace in the Shadow of Empire” (a two-year hybrid program), Participating in God’s Power: Tending the Root of Our Worship and Witness (a one-year program), and three-to-four-day Contemplative Retreats. An online program of 6-8 weeks duration is also under discernment. 

QUERIES

• Are you looking for inspiration to deepen your spiritual life and the spiritual life of your Meeting?

• Are you finding support with the Society of Friends to take regular “times of retirement” to seek the Divine?

• How can your Meeting support spiritual friendships or circles to foster mutual spiritual nurture?   

• What makes particular resources or connections fruitful for your spiritual seeking in your individual and your church/meeting life? 

• How can a Meeting invest in the spiritual deepening of individual Friends, bringing benefit to the Meeting as a whole?

CONVERSATION STARTERS

• Joann Neuroth, active in Red Cedar Friends (Lansing, MI) as its recording clerk, is a graduate of the School of the Spirit’s “On Being a Spiritual Nurturer” program, serves as one of two core teachers for the “God’s Promise Fulfilled” program, and is a past board chair for the School of the Spirit governance board.

• Elizabeth Evans, active in Milwaukee (WI) Friends Meeting Adult Religious Education and Nominating committees, and Northern Yearly Meeting’s Worship & Ministry Committee, is a leader of SoTS Contemplative Retreats and serves on the governance board. She is a graduate of the Siena Center’s Spiritual Guidance Training Program.

RESOURCES

School of the Spirit website https://www.schoolofthespirit.org/

SoTS Programs:

• God’s Promise Fulfilled: Encountering and Embodying Grace in the Shadow of Empire, a two-year hybrid program)
• Participating in God’s Power: Tending the Root of Our Worship and Witness, a one-year program
• Contemplative Retreats, three to four days each