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Annual Examen: soul care day
Tuesday, January 7, 2025 // 9a-3:30p
Location: Franciscan Renewal Center – 5802 E Lincoln Dr, Scottsdale, AZ 85253
Catherine of Siena reminds us that our union with Christ offers a double blessing. Someday, we will see our friend and Savior face to face in Paradise, but we also get to enjoy his presence along the way in the wilderness. As Hebrews promises, we look forward to a final rest, but we can also rest where the Triune God has taken up residence in our hearts. In this soul care day, we meditate on the year that has passed and turn towards the invitations in the new year.
We will have gathered times of prayer, time for personal reflection and prayer (you’ll be given materials), sharing in a small group, and an opportunity to meet with a spiritual director, if desired. Lunch and materials are included.
Cost:
Regular Registration: $49
General Member Registration: $44
Full and Professional Member Registration: $40
Awakening each morning with God
Saturday, January 11, 2025 // 8a-9a
Location: Zoom – Online
The Psalmist prays, “I rise before dawn and cry for help” (Psalm 119:147). Sleep is like death, so that waking is often a disorienting experience. Many feel “morning anxiety,” which impacts the rest of the day. Our immediate goal, then, is to become aware of God’s presence quickly. Jesus, we are told, “rose, while it was very dark, and went out and departed to a wild place. And he was praying there” (Mark 1:35).
A note from John DelHousaye:
I’ve had the opportunity to observe Lauds, pre-dawn prayer, with the Benedictines, who break the silence together with, “Open my lips, o Lord, and my mouth will proclaim your praise.” There are other ways to begin the day with God. In this synaxeis (“a gathering together”), an array of practices, from several desert traditions, will be offered as you discern how you might awaken to God. Reading material and prayer guides will be offered.
Faculty: John Talley III, Sheli Sloterbeek, Cheryl Nance, Gavin Linderman, John DelHousaye
Cost: Free – donations accepted
Rooted & Resilient: Practicing Non-Anxious Ministry Leadership
Wednesday, January 22, 2025 // 10a-11:15a
Location: Zoom – Online
In ministry, the way we relate to God, ourselves, and others inevitably shapes the way we lead. For many of us, our default leadership style is rooted in patterns of “anxious presence,” which drains our energy and diminishes our effectiveness over time. Jesus offers something different – a way of leadership that is responsive and life giving.
In this session with Dr. Ted Wueste, Director of the Spiritual Formation Society of Arizona, we will…
- Better understand Jesus’ way of non-anxious leadership
- Learn to lead from a place of peace and security, rooted in God’s presence
- Identify personal patterns of anxious leadership
- Engage practices that help develop non-anxious presence, and more!
Cost: Free
2025 ESDA Annual Gathering (for spiritual directors)
Embrace: Training the Eyes of the Heart
January 24 – January 27, 2025
Location: Franciscan Renewal Center | Phoenix, AZ
Join us for an offering of visual arts and facilitated conversations in a retreat environment as we gather together to discover and craft embodied practices to attend to the movements of God’s Spirit in ourselves, others, and the world.
Topic: Embrace: Cultivating Your Practice of Attention Through the Visual Arts
For our member gathering this year, we have chosen a theme of “Embrace” to invite us to encounter ourselves and our ministry through the beauty of the arts. The attentive process of beholding beauty awakens us to the desire of God, grounds us in the gratuitous generosity of God and recovers our essential human being which is more often more fractured and fragmented than we even recognize. In this space, Spirit and soul enter into the potentiality of reconciliation, recovery, and the tender embrace of love.
We are those who, by vocation, “hold” – “attend to” – “embrace” others in their journey with God. In our 2025 Gathering, we will engage the visual arts through the modality of film to facilitate our practice of attention. The visual arts may be considered a type of spiritual director or a transformational apparatus for re-thinking, re-viewing, and re-imagining life.
Cost:
Single Occupancy: Private room – $690
Double Occupancy: Double room shared with another spiritual director – $540 (Roommate preferences will be considered.)
Commuter: Locals and guests making alternative lodging arrangements – $395 Fee includes meals and materials only.
*Fee includes accommodations, meals, and all materials.
2025 SFSAZ Conference
Pilgrimage: seeing the sacred as we walk with Jesus
February 6 & 7, 2025
Location: Valley View Bible Church, 4222 E Lincoln Dr, Paradise Valley, AZ 85253
Since ancient times individuals have followed their hearts on the spiritual practice of pilgrimage. They have traveled together and alone on sacred journeys near and far from their homes, for long periods of time or just a day.
Join us as we consider our life in Christ as pilgrimage, Matt and Julie Canlis will be sharing around themes that give us context and encouragement for this life. Matt will look at resting in our identity as well as living out of our baptism into Christ. Julie will look at pilgrimage in the early church, people and places. Breakout sessions by SFSAZ staff and friends.
Conference will be followed by a pilgrimage in the City of Phoenix, the Camino de Phoenix.
For cost and registration click the button below.
Walking Home: Reflections on the Psalms of Ascent (120-134)
A 7 week Daily Devotional Through the Lenten Season
Begins February 25, 2025
Location: Zoom – Online
Walking Home is a seven week daily devotional/reflection during the season of Lent. Walking Home takes us through the “pilgrimage” prayers or Psalms of Ascent the people of God have been praying for centuries (Psalm 120-134). The daily devotionals (offered online/or sent to your email) are written by Ted Wueste and will include prayers, spiritual exercises, and reflection questions. Join with others in 5 online sessions, led by Ted, which will give space for reflection, prayer, and questions surrounding what is being experienced as you walk through the daily reflections.
For the online sessions, we will be meeting for 90 minutes from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm (AZ TIME)
The dates for the online sessions are as follows:
February 25
March 11
March 18
April 1
April 15
Cost: Free (donations accepted)
Formational Prayer Seminar
For more than 20 years Healing Care has trained clinical counselors, pastors, spiritual directors and Christian leaders to help people experience lasting change and hope.
The approach of Formational Prayer/Care integrates practices of the behavioral sciences, neurobiology and counseling with Christian spiritual formation and biblical teaching. This unique modality has proven to be an avenue of healing for thousands of hurting individuals around the world.
Topics Include:
- Stages Of Healing
- Core Longings
- Types Of Trauma
- Positioning For Episodic Experience
- Caregiver As Empathic Witness
- Attachment & The Love Of God
- Ministry Of The Holy Spirit
- Spiritual Warfare
- The Lost Art Of Lament
SEMINAR FORMAT
Lectures (live & virtual) / Small Groups (practice and processing) / Formational Prayer Demonstrations / Activities & Experientials for personal growth
Location: CHRIST CHURCH – 5811 N. 20th Street, Phoenix, AZ 85016
Cost:
REGULAR RATE: $499
SECOND TIME ATTENDING FPS RATE: $279
SECOND TIME ATTENDING FPS RATE W/ NO SMALL GROUP: $200
**Registration limited to 30 participants**
No SFSAZ membership discounts with this event
Silent Prayer Retreat
July 21-25, 2025
Location: Prince of Peace Abbey – 650 Benet Hill Rd, Oceanside, CA 92058
Need a quiet space to rest? Perhaps you’d like to set a rhythm of retreat. Come away and rest with Jesus in prayer. Join a small group for a five day silent prayer retreat near the Pacific coast at beautiful Prince of Peace Abbey. We will gather for a short opening together and set off in silence and come together to close the time.
All rooms are single rooms. All materials and meals are included in the cost. Transportation to the retreat center is not included in the cost.
Cost:
Regular Registration $695
General Membership $625
Professional & Full Membership $590
Refund Policy
In-person events: 30 days or more prior to event: 100%, 14-29 days before event: 90%, 7-13 days before event: 60%, 1-6 days before event: 30%
No refunds available after an event.
Ongoing Contemplative Prayer Offerings
Be/Still
Contemplative Prayer Group
Taizé Prayer
Other Offerings
Renew
Renew: individual private retreats designed by our SFSAZ team to fit who you are and where you are in your life with God. Retreats include accommodations and meals at a retreat center as well as time with a Spiritual Director and Pastoral Counselor to help process all that you are experiencing as you spend time with God. Retreats can be anywhere from 2-5 days. Let us know and we can consult with you in designing a retreat. Great for times of discernment, transition, and/or simply needing the space to reflect and be renewed in your life with God and the ministry to which He has called you.
Please fill out this form to initiate the process https://sfsaz.breezechms.com/form/0f32fd
FORMATIO: the art of caring for souls
A two-year cohort journey in learning the art of soul care. Based around six retreats, participants will learn to more fully care for their own soul as well as coaching others in the ways and rhythms of Jesus. The art of caring for souls is companioning someone in their journey of experiencing God in awakening to the love of God, growing awareness of self and God, increasing attentiveness to His presence and voice, and abiding in/with God. This invites a lifestyle of intentional practices and rhythms that form us in the image of Christ. Some of those practices include: silence and solitude, prayer and listening, and discernment and detachment in the context of Scripture and community. Click here for more program information.