Do these resonate with you?
Do you want to explore how these can shape your daily life?

If so, we invite you to discern if God is calling you to a year at the Center for Nature and Christian Spirituality

We engage young adults, who are in their 20s and 30s, who seek to explore the way of Jesus with others on that path, and who have a passion for nature.  Through a year of mission-service, we offer apprenticeships in nature and Christian spiritual formation.

Our mission is to empower young adults spiritually and practically to participate in the Christian church’s active engagement in caring for and restoring creation.  Together we develop capacities in young adults who long for practical skills in nature, wilderness experiences connected to their Christian faith, Christian spiritual formation and discernment skills, experience living in intentional community, and an opportunity to learn more about themselves, others, nature, and God through a year of apprenticeships and formation.

We imagine a variety of doors that a person might be attracted to in this program:

• One might be a spirituality door:  people who want to deepen their experiences and relationship with God as well as those who want to clarify for themselves how their faith can shape their daily life.
• Another might be a nature door:  people whose connection with nature shapes their spiritual experiences and/or their activism.
• Another might be a community door:  those longing to live in Christian community with intentionality and support.
• Yet another might be a vocation door:  those longing to discern their next steps in life, trusting that nature is one of the powerful ways that God guides and supports our callings.
• Finally, another might be an intelligible faith door:  those who want a congruity between what they think intellectually, feel emotionally, know intuitively, and sense physically in their bodies, as they live a spiritual life in this time when the urgency of ecological awareness is dawning more and more.

Characteristics That We Seek in Apprentices

We begin the first week of September and go through the first week of August, with four weeks break for holidays.  The program components include:

• Permaculture Training and Certification
• Spirituality Concentration at San Francisco Theological Seminary, including eight graduate level credits
• Christian Spiritual Formation and Living in Intentional Community
• Holistic Financial Planning, an integrated aspect of permaculture
• Sacred Quest, a Wilderness Rite of Passage
• Wilderness First Aid Certification
• Challenge Course Leadership Certification
• Westminster Woods’ Summer Staff for the Woods’ Christian camping ministry