Description
Registration closed. Please send an EMAIL to indicate your interest in a future offering of this program.
Each week preachers come to a text or theme and sit with it, think about it, work with it, leave it alone, struggle with it, write it, and finally dare speaking.
Sometimes the words come easily. Sometimes they don’t. We live by words. And each week we start over, again and again.
This is not a preaching course. We come together online (Zoom) for a chance to pause and connect. We consider ways of nourishing our soul by intentionally recollecting whatever energy we bring. We ground ourselves in creative approaches that spark imagination and nurture contemplative insight into sacred texts. We try out spiritual practices, ancient and new. We find ways to support letting it all go only to begin again.
This course is delivered by Zoom and open to all who identify as worship leaders.
A Path & A Direction
April 15: Soul Knowledge & the Ancient Art of Recollection.
April 22: Acedia, Relentlessness & Creative Energy
April 29: Working with Sacred Texts: Anticipation & Sacred Reading.
May 6: Working with Sacred Texts: The Creative Process & Making Meaning
May 13: Putting it all Together & Letting it Go.
The first session is three hours from 1:30 – 4:30 (Atlantic Daylight Time)
The remaining four sessions are 90 minutes from 1:30 – 3:00. (Atlantic Daylight Time)
The Rhythm of the Session …
Arriving
Gathering | Re-collecting | Check In
Input: Soul Knowledge
Conscious Break
Spiritual Practice | Conversation in small groups | Silence & space for personal reflection
Check Out & Closing
What you receive
- A weekly workbook prior to each session with outline, practices and space for notes.
- Recurring Zoom Invitation
- One three hour session to begin and four sessions of 1.5 hours.
- Access to the Zoom recording, if requested.
Registration is limited to 30 participants.
Leader: Janice MacLean, Host of the Prayer Bench.
Steeped in the wisdom tradition and minister of a part-time pastoral ministry, I sit before a text each week. Sometimes the path opens and the words flow. Other times I sit and wait and wait and wait. Sometimes I start writing and I am amazed at the meaning leaping onto my page. Always I am amazed that words come. Always I am grateful.
Thank you to the Pacific Mountain Region The United Church of Canada for their vision in giving shape to “Soul of the Preacher” and for the privilege of offering it twice at their invitation.
Catherine MacDonald –
Janice managed to make a five week program on Zoom refreshing and energizing. Her calm presence, the practices we engaged in and her tending to our souls were nourishing and heartfelt. One new practice for me was slow reading of the text I was going to preach on as a preparation for writing and it gave space and time for the text to speak in a way that was different than other methods I have tried in the past.