Why does spiritual direction cost anything?

Experience teaches that, in addition to helping support your spiritual director and their education costs, making some kind of offering ends up benefiting the “directee.” Our heart often goes where our wallet does, and we tend to give more of our attention when we know it costs us something.

Can I do spiritual direction online?

Online spiritual direction is increasingly common and allows you to meet with a spiritual director outside of your geophysical area.

Brian facilitates online spiritual direction through Zoom.

How long does spiritual direction last?

You can meet with a spiritual director once or through a season of discernment or transition, but many people continue with their spiritual director indefinitely. It doesn’t have to have an endpoint.

In most cases, it’s wise to try committing to a spiritual director for six months once you decide to begin. Remembering this choice can help you stick through any dry or difficult times.

How is spiritual direction different from counseling or coaching?

Counseling or therapy tends to be solution-focused. You might identify something that needs to be addressed, your counselor identifies a course to take and you work toward that goal.

Similarly, coaching typically identifies where you want to go, where you are and how to get there.

Spiritual direction centers on where you are and how God is there. This doesn’t always lead us forward. Sometimes it’s about how to be more present to what God is already doing, and sometimes it’s about responding to God’s invitation to go deeper into relationship.

Is spiritual direction Christian?

You don’t have to be a Christian to benefit from spiritual direction, and many spiritual directors come from other traditions, but it does have a long history among Jesus followers, going back at least as far as the first few centuries of the Church.

Brian is a Christian spiritual director yet also enjoys working with agnostics and other faiths and can accommodate language that’s comfortable and authentic for where you are in your journey today.

What’s a certified spiritual director?

A certified spiritual director has completed a formal training program of at least two years, including supervised practice. While there’s no professional certifying board for spiritual directors, organizations like ESDA identify training standards so certificate-based training programs can help ensure competency and accountability.

Who is my spiritual director accountable to?

Always ask your prospective spiritual director who they’re accountable to in their practice. This may be a larger network or collective of spiritual directors that requires ongoing supervision, a religious order and their superiors, or their local church and its leadership. Accountability is essential to healthy spiritual direction.

Brian places himself under the authority of the Order of the Common Life (Vineyard USA) and Scarlet City Church (Columbus, OH).