services

Drawing from the passions and gifts on the Vining Center team, we want to serve you in as many ways as possible. Here are some of the services we offer our community…

school of unlearning

The School Of UnLearning (or SOUL, for short) is your invitation into a deeper, more intimate experience with God. And yourself.

Unlearning? Yes, there is much we need to un-learn before we can begin to truly learn—and even then, the learning we engage is less centered in the head and more anchored in the heart. Come see for yourself!

journey retreats

The SOUL Journey has offered several different retreats so far, and more are in the works. Check our Events page to see which one is coming up next!

• Awakening Your Soul: Experience the art of retreat and incorporate its rhythms of renewal, reflection, and refocusing into your life.

• Journey to the Deepest You: Upgrade your spiritual tools with perspectives and practices from the Christian contemplative tradition.

• Recovering Your Soul: For those who have been burned by Evangelicalism, this recovery journey will help you find hope and healing within a safe community.

• Restoring Our World: Apply your contemplative skills outward to recharge your core relationships, build new depths of community, and inform a more just world.

faculty

Take a look at Jerome & Kellie’s bios here.

coaching & spiritual direction

We’re here to help support your spiritual journey, and among the six of us we carry over a century’s worth of experience walking alongside men and women as they pursue their true identity and vocation. As spiritual companions, we offer a variety of modern coaching services as well as the ancient practice of spiritual direction. Let’s introduce you to our team!

retreats & pilgrimages

There is something intrinsically powerful about getting out of our usual spaces and entering into a new geography with intention and attention. So we facilitate various kinds of opportunities for this around a variety of topics… from New Year’s Retreats to Adventure Retreats to Enneagram Retreats.

Occasionally, we go further afield with pilgrimages to contemplative sites like the Scottish Isle of Iona, the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the Taize community in France, and monastic communities in Italy. If this calls to you, let us know by messaging us below.

mediation & reconciliation

The Vining Center offers confidential, professional services to support organizations and individuals experiencing conflict, offense, and disruption in vital relationships. The best of us unintentionally give and receive hurt in our work together…and the results can fracture friendships and even destroy the churches or organizations they represent.

If you are caught in this kind of situation, you will find skilled, compassionate help here with conflict coaching and mediation based on the standards and protocols of the Institute for Christian Conciliation.

discernment

All of us come to foggy places in our lives where we’re not sure how to move forward…or even where forward is. And these decisions matter. We are here—not to tell you which way to go—but to help you listen for that distinct divine whisper.

Both for individuals and groups, we provide several kinds of discernment activities from a prayer guide to personal spiritual direction to group spiritual direction for leadership teams (what the Quakers called a “clearness committee”). If you’re at a point like this in your journey, let’s work together to move forward with clarity and conviction.

community service

Contemplation is directly linked to action. As we are transformed by love, that process necessarily empowers us to love others. In that spirit, the Vining Center organizes periodic outreaches into the High Country to serve in two primary ways: food distribution and trash cleanup.

Jesus had much to say about offering “a cup of water” to “the least of these.” And believing that creation is sacred, we want to help keep its divine message unpolluted. In these simple but powerful ways, we participate in healing the brokenness of the world. If you’d like to participate, please let us know below.