FAQ

Spiritual direction is a historic practice of the church that involves accompanying others in prayerful reflection and conversation as they attend to God's presence and calling in their lives and grow in Christian maturity.

Spiritual direction can be offered in groups or in one-on-one settings. We train leaders to do both. Spiritual direction differs from pastoral counseling, Bible study, or offering godly advice or guidance. God is the true director, and the spiritual director helps a person receiving direction pay more careful attention to God's presence and activity in his or her life through prayer presence, attentive listening, and gently offered questions.

If you are enrolled as a student at Truett Seminary, please enroll in the course as you would any other course.

If you are seeking to join our program as a Baylor Extended Learning student, please request our application form by emailing Truett_SpiritualForm@baylor.edu.. You will submit your application to the Truett Spiritual Formation office. Admissions decisions will be made in early July, with notifications to follow shortly after.
 

Applications are available by request beginning in February of each year. Email Truett_SpiritualForm@baylor.edu to request an application.

The application deadline is June 1 of each year.

Yes. Applications received by our deadline will be reviewed first. If seats remain, we will then review other candidates in the order applications are received.

No. The Spiritual Direction Training Program is offered only in residence. Most of our students live in Waco or the surrounding area, but we have had students commute from other metropolitan centers in Texas.

Tuition is currently $1,095 per year, payable in August. Other program costs include textbooks and the cost of meeting with a spiritual director, which varies from director to director. Spiritual direction can be offered by directors as part of their ministry at no charge or range from $20 to $100 for a one-hour session.

The Spiritual Formation Office maintains a list of spiritual directors in our area, many of whom are graduates of our program. The Evangelical Spiritual Directors Association also has a database of directors, as does Spiritual Directors International.

If you are interested in connecting with a director, you can find a link to an interest form here.

Tuition is due in full on August 15. If you are a current student or an incoming student on the Baylor Extended Learning track, our office will email you with steps to make your tuition payment. 

The program takes two years to complete.

We currently begin one new cohort each year in the fall semester.

No. We have made every effort to reduce our costs and make this program as affordable as possible.

Applicants should have at least twelve hours of undergraduate or graduate work in religion, theology, church history, or a related field.

Class meetings often include large group instruction from a professor and small group gatherings for application and practice. 

In a typical three-hour class meeting, two hours are spent together in large group for discussion of the readings and other topics pertaining to the ministry of direction, with a third hour spent in smaller supervision groups of four to five students and a trained spiritual director. In these smaller groups, you practice group spiritual direction, and as the program progresses, you offer verbatim from your experiences as a spiritual director. 
 

Yes. In your first semester you will offer and receive spiritual direction as part of a group. By the end of the second semester, you will offer spiritual direction to others and submit a record of these experiences in verbatim.

Communicate with the Spiritual Formation Office. You will still be able to complete the program via the Baylor Extended Learning track.

Yes. Please communicate with the Spiritual Formation Office for steps for initiating this process.