Retreats started by San Francisco Seminary offer opportunities for spiritual growth
When San Francisco Theological Seminary cosponsors a five-day guided retreat next month, it will offer not only an opportunity for spiritual growth but also an example of how churches and seminaries can work together.
Companions retreats include incorporating the body and the arts. Photo courtesy of Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church
The retreat, part of the Companions on the Inner Way series, is scheduled for March 13–18 at Serra Retreat Center in Malibu, Calif. The featured speaker will be Dr. Susan S. Phillips, executive director of New College Berkeley and a faculty member of San Francisco Seminary’s program in the Art of Spiritual Direction. The topic will be “Stop! In the Name of Love . . .…. ,” and the scriptural focus will be Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances to his friends. Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church of San Francisco is cosponsoring the retreat.
The retreat series, which San Francisco Seminary started almost three decades ago, faced an uncertain future in 2004, when budget constraints led the seminary to discontinue several external programs. But a strong desire to keep the series going led to a cosponsorship agreement between the seminary and Seventh Avenue Church.
“There has always been a strong connection between our church and the theological seminary,” said Rev. Jeff Gaines, Seventh Avenue’s pastor.
Under the leadership of Gaines, the church invited the Companions program to become one of the ministries in the church’s family of ministries. While Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church has become the primary sponsor of the retreats, San Francisco Seminary has continued cosponsoring the retreats for the past seven years.
The retreats began in the early 1980s under the auspices of the seminary’s Center for Christian Spiritual Disciplines, now the Program in Christian Spirituality. The center provided conferences where major speakers addressed general spirituality topics.
The first Companions retreat was held in the winter of 1982, with Dr. Morton Kelsey, an Episcopal priest and author of Healing and Christianity, as the featured speaker. Ten years later, leadership was passed on to Dr. Howard Rice, then chaplain and professor of ministry at San Francisco Seminary.
Since its inception, the Companions retreats have benefited from the participation of seminary faculty and staff, including Dr. Andrew Deeter Dreitcer, Dr. Elizabeth Liebert, the Rev. Kay Collette, Joan Currey, and Ann Pope.
Two Companions on the Inner Way retreats are held each year, one in the general Los Angeles area in March and one at Zephyr Point on Lake Tahoe in August.
Open to clergy and laypeople alike, Companions retreats include presentations by speakers who are respected in the area of spirituality and prayer. The retreats also have a strong creative component designed to incorporate mind and body with the arts.
“We deal with all of the arts,” Gaines said “Visual, musical, theatrical . . . . The idea is to get all the senses of the body involved.”
The retreats also include spiritual readings and small group discussions, as well as time for silence and contemplation.
“I think people come to these retreats to develop their inner life through prayer, but also to be challenged intellectually,” Gaines said.
