• Phillip Stephens

    • Phillip, Program Director of Nurturing the Call: Spiritual Guidance Program, is an Episcopal lay-person and graduate of the 2006 Spiritual Guidance Class. In addition to being an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he serves as a spiritual guide and retreat facilitator. He is interested in cross-cultural studies and inter-spirituality.

Spiritual Guidance as Love Activism

In the Northern Hemisphere where I live, we’ve passed the autumnal equinox and are entering one of my favorite seasons – fall. As the days become shorter and the nights lengthen, we’re invited to lean back and settle into this fecund, pregnant, obscure season heading towards winter. During fall our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate […]

October 10, 2024 by Phillip Stephens 1 Comment

How God Works Through the Ministry of Spiritual Guidance

As a spiritual pilgrim, director of Shalem’s Spiritual Guidance Program, and associate of a Benedictine monastic community preparing to welcome a new class of associates seeking to explore their vocations as spiritual guides, I’m wondering about what light the Rule of St. Benedict might shed upon the formation of spiritual guides. What, within the core […]

November 11, 2023 by Phillip Stephens 1 Comment

Nurturing Spiritual Directors as Contemplative Leaders

On November 11, 2022, the Shalem Board approved Vision 2025: Our Ongoing Hope. The Vision offers six guiding principles for attending wholly to one’s spiritual practice while traveling through what might seem like the barren wilderness of ordinary life. As Director of Shalem’s Nurturing the Call: Spiritual Guidance Program, I find that the fifth guiding […]

Answering the Call

How did I get here? How did a singer and voice specialist end up as a spiritual director – much less the director of Shalem’s Spiritual Guidance Program? I’ve asked these questions a lot over the past year while stepping into my new role within SGP. I share the following reflections upon my own spiritual […]

September 09, 2021 by Phillip Stephens 3 Comments