A workshop style conference: April 19-22, 2024
Queen of the Apostles Retreat Centre, Mississauga (Toronto), Ontario
This conference will gather small teams from across the country who are motivated and excited to see strong cultures of spiritual formation in their parishes, communities, regions, or dioceses. We will learn and do spiritual formation together and then bring back a plan to ferment spiritual formation in our own places.
All accommodation and meals will be paid for. Travel subsidies will also be available. Teams will only have a $100.00/team registration fee if they are selected as attendees.
Organized by: The Spiritual Formation for Discipleship Network which is organized in partnership with the Faith, Worship, and Ministry department of The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. See our Facebook page.
Apply
Fill out a short application form (if your team is selected, it will serve as your registration too.)
Gather
Arrive Friday, April 19, 2024 with some reflection and data on your context.
Learn
Learn, do, and reflect on spiritual practices across 4 workshop streams + worship.
Plan
Develop a doable plan to teach and develop practices in your context.
Follow-up
Receive support and coaching for implementing your plan and developing next steps.
Spiritual formation is
• the source, the furnace, the leaven for everything else we do/are
• an individual and communal responsibility
• about putting first things first
The Anglican Church of Canada has identified deepening our life in Christ as being at the centre of our aspirations and the driver of our transformation.
Engaging in spiritual formation helps protect against anxious reactivity; sustains hope; equips us for passing faith on to the next generation; provides a firm grounding for all that we do as a people of faith
• clergy
• children/youth/family ministers
• small group leaders
• church musicians
• Sunday School teachers
• bible study leaders
• prayer group leaders
• wardens, parish council leaders
• diocesan and national church missioners
• diocesan committee members
• people who are excited by the work of spiritual formation
• people who are seeking to deepen their own spiritual formation
• people who are eager to support spiritual formation in their communities
• people who are leaven in their communities
Workshops will be in four streams. You will take one from each stream, plus another from a stream you’re most interested in.
• Prayer & Worship: the way we pray & worship together
• Life in Community: the power of shared meals, silence, community discernment
• Study and Learning: how scripture, tradition, and theological reflection form our spirituality
• Action & Service: how our spirituality is lived out in love of neighbour
Workshops will weave together elements of teaching, practice and reflection, all with a focus on spiritual formation. You will leave having learned about and experienced prayer, reflection and action practices that you can begin to share and implement in your home contexts to encourage spiritual formation.
The Workshops + Worship
Time: 60-75 minutes
Part 1: explanation and teaching (15-20 min)
Part 2: practice the activity or spiritual discipline (30-35 min)
Part 3: reflection on your experience and possible application in your community (15-20)
Workshop leaders
Workshop leaders are ordained and lay leaders, locally sourced practitioners who are active in the Anglican Church of Canada. They will be participants in the conference as well. This is not a conference for keynotes. Everyone will learn and participate together.
Worship
Each day will be wrapped in Anglican prayer and worship. Each liturgy will be followed by a time of mystagogy (guided reflection on the particular experience of worship)