Discovering Individual Spiritual Direction
Typically, Spiritual Direction sessions are scheduled once a month and extend for 50 - 60 minutes, allowing time for meaningful exploration and contemplation.
In the realm of Individual Spiritual Direction, expect a safe and confidential space to open up and share your personal narratives.
Here, you can delve into the depths of your spiritual journey, cultivating a keen attentiveness to God's guidance, even in seemingly ordinary aspects of life.
Our aim is to provide a warm and welcoming context, where you can recognize and reflect on the divine movements in your life and explore your heartfelt response to God's presence.
Come Away With Me
Retreats
Three retreats. Three invitations to slow down, listen deeply, and encounter God in the midst of everyday life.
Listening for the Voice of God • Restoring Your Soul • Living in the Now & Not Yet
Herb and Lynn have hosted contemplative day retreats at the peaceful A Rocha Farm in Surrey, BC, and at Peace Portal Church in South Surrey—creating space to step away from the noise and demands of everyday life and become more attentive to God’s presence.
Each retreat has explored a different theme, while sharing a common invitation: to slow down, listen deeply, and notice how God may already be present and at work in our lives.
Through practices such as Lectio Divina, Visio Divina, Gospel Contemplation, silence, prayer, and guided reflection, participants are invited to engage with God in ways that go beyond simply learning about Him. Spacious periods of personal reflection are woven together with teaching and meaningful conversation, allowing each person to listen for God’s unique invitation to them.
Whether you arrive needing rest, clarity, encouragement, or simply some unhurried time with God, these retreats offer a welcoming place to come as you are, pay attention to what is stirring within, and make room for what God may want to reveal.
What Others Say
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I really enjoyed the retreat lead by the Canbys. Lynn & Herb set the tone for our time together by sharing insights on drawing closer to God. The atmosphere was calm and peaceful.
Retreat Participant
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Lynn & Herb gently guided us in meditating on the Word, being silent, and listening to what God was saying to us personally.
Retreat Participant
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What stood out most from the retreat at A Rocha Farm was the sanctity Lynn & Herb brought to the group, welcoming the Holy Spirit's presence. I was profoundly touched by the intimacy and sacredness of the gathering.
Retreat Participant
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The Spiritual Retreat provided me with an opportunity to draw closer to God through an awareness of His presence. The most impactful for me were Herb & Lynn's guidance in the Spiritual Practices of Lectio Divina and Silence, Solitude and Stillness. With thanks.
Retreat Participant
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Participating in this Spiritual Retreat helped me reclaim the practice of being still and listening for God's voice. The retreat provided a very safe space to grow my faith.
Retreat Participant
Reading Suggestions
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By M. Robert Mulholland
About 'Invitation to a Journey'
In Invitation to a Journey, Mulholland helps Christians new and old understand that we become like Christ gradually, not instantly. Not every personality is suited to an early morning quiet time, so Mulholland frees different personality types to express their piety differently. He reviews the classical spiritual disciplines and demonstrates the importance of undertaking our spiritual journey with (and for the sake of) others.
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by David B. Benner
David G. Benner is a pioneer in the movement to blend insights from psychology with the wisdom of Christian spirituality. His latest work, Sacred Companions, is further evidence for the importance of his voice for those who desire to better understand soul care and transformation. This book has both substance and accessibility. It will inspire the reader's own spiritual journey while simultaneously providing instruction on how to be a spiritual friend and director for others. Perhaps the greatest gift this book provides is its inviting portraits of the process of spiritual friendship and direction. I believe Sacred Companions will be around for a long, long time.
--Gary W. Moon, Vice President, Psychological Studies Institute, director, Charlie Shedd Institute for Clinical Theology
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by Henri Nouwen
Henri Nouwen—beloved author, priest, and internationally recognized spiritual master, counselor, and guide—offers gentle wisdom for universal questions of the spiritual life:
Who am I?
Where have I been and where am I going?
Who is God for me?
Where do I belong?
How can I be of service?
As a priest, pastor, and professor of spirituality at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, Nouwen offered spiritual direction to many students, but his famous course on spiritual direction was never recorded during his lifetime. Now, in Spiritual Direction, the first of a series, one of Nouwen's students (Michael Christensen) and one of his editors (Rebecca Laird) have developed his courses and practice of spiritual direction into a book of profound wisdom for living a deep spiritual life.
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By Nan C. Merrill