Apprentice Training in Spiritual Direction

Teresa is an ordained United Church of Christ minister, working in spiritual direction and discernment coaching with individuals, groups and organizations since 1997. She founded the Phoenix Center for Spiritual Direction at First UCC Phoenix in 2015 and began the Apprentice Training Program in November of 2019.

Teresa has been offering and teaching spiritual direction for over 20 years since graduating from San Francisco Theological Seminary with an M.Div. and Diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction. As director of the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction in Tucson (2005-2019), Teresa taught and mentored hundreds of people who came to the desert for training. Her work led her to write Spiritual Direction 101: The Basics of Spiritual Guidance (Apocryphile Press) and co-author a new book from Fortress Press, Incline Your Ear: Cultivating Spiritual Awareness in Congregations. Teresa is open and affirming of all LGBTQIA+ persons. Please hit the arrow below to get to know our two other trainers, Rev. Canon Greg Foraker and Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason.

Greg Foraker, serves as Canon for Formation and Pastoral Care for the Episcopal Church in Colorado. A spiritual director, teacher, and pilgrim, Greg has taught a wide range of courses in the art of spiritual direction for nearly 20 years. He also serves as a supervisor for spiritual directors. Greg has a passion for spiritual pilgrimage and has led pilgrimages to Israel, Canterbury, Taizé, Chartres, Lindisfarne, Iona and six times on the Caminos de Santiago. Since 2020, Greg’s team has created numerous innovative and popular hybrid spiritual formation offerings, gathering spiritual seekers online from their own homes during the time of pandemic, effectively building community through technology and welcoming participants from across Colorado, the US, and Europe.

The Rev. Dr. Kelly Murphy Mason is Community Minister for Spiritual Direction at Arlington St. Church in Boston, MA. Her pronouns are she/her/hers.

Kelly has had varied and extensive ministries in community and congregational settings around New York and New England for more than 20 years. In addition to being a spiritual director, she is a licensed psychotherapist, certified pastoral counselor, ordained minister, educator and writer. In the past, she worked as a Director of Pastoral Care & Counseling Programs at Blanton-Peale Institute, Curriculum Co-Chair at the Association for Spirituality & Psychotherapy, Pastoral Counselor at Union Theological Seminary, the In Care/In Covenant Coordinator for the Unitarian Universalist Association in Metro New York, Managing Director of the Psychotherapy & Spirituality Institute, and Senior Minister of the UU Society of Wellesley Hills. In 2017, she won the Distinguished Contribution Award from the Eastern Region of the American Association for Pastoral Counselors for “innovative and visionary leadership” and “truly distinguished” service in the field of pastoral ministry.

Currently she serves as Community Minister for Spiritual Direction at Arlington St. Church in Boston and is the convener of the Spirituality & Flourishing Interest Group in the Flourishing Network at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. She has taught in a number of graduate and post-graduate programs, including the Spirituality Mind-Body Institute at Columbia University and at the Fordham University Graduate School of Religion. Over the years, she has been a panelist and presenter at local, national, and international programs for colleges, institutes, professional organizations, retreat centers, and hospitals.

She has published in both the popular and academic press; print and online publications have interviewed her on psychospiritual matters. She has been blogging for longer than a decade now at TheReverendDr.com on the topic of ‘What heals us in our souls’.