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Summer 2008
Seedbeds of the Spirit

“Seedbeds of the Spirit” focuses on the response of seminaries and other Christian organizations to the “budding” need for specialized training in spiritual direction and formation. The need encompasses preparation and education for pastors, but it also extends to training Christian leaders in all vocations.

A seedbed is a place where things grow. Interestingly, our word “seminary” as place for ministerial training is etymologically linked to the word “seedbed.” The Latin, seminarium, is “a plot where plants are raised from seeds.” The title “Seedbeds of the Spirit” is meant to hint at the theme of this issue: a report on the spiritual awakening that is taking place formally and informally; in institutional settings and in ordinary life; in seminaries and in nature.

Download the Summer 2008 issue of Hungryhearts, the Quarterly Journal of Reformed Spirituality.

Summer 2008 bonus material

An Ecumenical Spiritual Community
Martha Gilliss, the interim director of the Master of Arts in Spirituality program at Bellarmine University, describes a unique ecumenical collaboration. Bellarmine, a liberal arts Catholic university in Louisville, Kentucky, has entered into a partnership with Louisville Theological Presbyterian Seminary in order to offer a masters degree in Christian Spirituality. The program features the study of theological themes in contemporary culture, an international component and integrated seminars.

Spiritual Formation at Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary
Mark Lomax is the founding pastor of First African Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, GA and serves as the interim administrative dean of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. Lomax offers an insightful perspective on the Seminary’s endeavor to teach spiritual disciplines across the curriculum. The idea is to enable seminarians to recognize the interdisciplinary nature of spiritual formation, identify, understand and practice spiritual disciplines, and grasp the importance of living lives of devotion to God as they grow in their vocational identities.

The Long and Winding Road
Jeri Artz is the Children’s Director at First Presbyterian Church in Collinsville, Illinois. She writes about a seven-week spiritual direction group that laid the groundwork for her entry into the certificate program at Columbia Theological Seminary.

Learning More About “The Love that Makes the Sun and the Other Stars”
Rebecca Cole-Turner, a spiritual director, retreat leader and teacher of spiritual formation classes, shares how the certificate in spiritual formation through Pittsburgh Theological Seminary helped to enhance what she has to offer her clients.

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