Sunday, July 13, 2025
5:00 – 6:00 PM ET
On Sunday, July 13th we had a celebration to honor the conclusion of our Jubilee year (July 1, 2024 – July 1, 2025). We gathered in sacred community online to share light, wisdom, story and ritual. It was an opportunity to come together to be held, heard and seen. You can watch the video recording HERE and join the celebration.
Celebrating 50 Years of Guild with a Year-Long Pause
And an opportunity to hear from the Guild Community and Friends – see below
The Board of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance and the Envisioning Team have made the decision to gather together for a year of weekly prayer in order to more clearly discern the organization’s call into the future. During this year-long pause, (July 1, 2024 – July 1, 2025) all new programming will cease and meeting time will be greatly reduced. Please continue reading for the story of how this decision evolved and what you can expect the year to look like.
Fifty years is a good time to ask, “Where do we go from here?”
“Where do we go from here?” is exactly the question the Board engaged. Fifty years is cause for celebration; it is also cause for a pause. In scripture, we read that the ancient Hebrews were mandated to honor a “Jubilee Year.” Jubilee, from the Hebrew, was to be a time of honoring what had been; a time for rest and gratitude and pondering God’s next steps for the people’s future. As recorded in scripture, before the beginning of the Jubilee year, preparations were made to store food and to provide for the ongoing needs of the community during the pause time. Jubilee was to be a time of economic, cultural, environmental, and communal reset; a time when the land was to lie fallow and the people rested; when slaves were released from servitude, and debts were canceled. It was a time for prayer and pondering God’s call into the future; for listening to God’s new plan for the future.
The Guild board and the Envisioning team have heard this call to Jubilee and have committed to a year of prayerful pause. A structure has been put in place to ensure organizational well-being during this time of prayer.
A bit of history…
Fifty years ago, the Guild founders, led by John Yungblut, gathered with the intention of sharing and listening deeply to each other and the voice of the spirit. These intentional questers and questioners were intuiting that traditional religious practices were useful in the growing life of the spirit but could only take one so far in that journey. What was the path, or a way, to move more deeply and consciously into the abundant wholistic life that spirit offered?
The small group gathered and met for a number of years – John Yungblut, Henri Nouwen, Morton Kelsey, Walter Wink, Nan Merrill, and Madeleine L’Engle – sharing their personal journeys of spiritual growth and formation. They shared the readings that were speaking to them of broader, deeper integrative spiritual growth. They explored the work of Carl Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and the mystic voices that spoke across time, place, and culture.
In 1977 the first Apprenticeship cohort was offered – a two-year immersion in learning to listen to the ways spirit speaks through psyche, cosmos, mysticism, and community and speaks personally and collectively in the process of nudging us toward increasing wholeness. A two-year immersion in learning how to listen deeply to God, self and others. Almost 50 years and almost 300 AP graduates later, the Guild continues to remain committed to offering a place of hospitality and deep listening to the questers and questioners of today and tomorrow.
How will this Jubilee year affect Guild members and friends?
Recognizing the importance of maintaining ongoing community, the Guild graduate offerings: Tuesday morning café and Thursday morning meditation will continue to meet. The Guild Book and Film Discussion which is open to the public, will also continue to meet quarterly.
There will be no new program offerings from July 1, 2024, through July 1, 2025. There will be no new AP (Apprenticeship Program) cohort beginning in 2025.
The Board and the Envisioning Team will meet for 30 minutes of silent prayer and discernment every Monday beginning July 8, 2024. Following the first three months of silence, will add an additional 30 minutes for sharing those questions that arise from the silence. This will be a time of deep spirit listening for the community.
Never doubt the difference your presence will make as we engage
together in this most important work toward the Guild’s future.
Please use the contact form on this website to contact the Guild Administrator with any questions. Or email info@spiritualguidance.org
What is our hope?
The founders birthed the Guild into being by perceiving the spiritual needs of the country in the late 1970’s and created a program to meet those needs. Fifty years later, we too are being called to discern the needs of the spiritual seekers of today. What, we wonder, are the new unique needs of today, and how might the Guild respond? Or are the needs of today beyond the Guild’s ability to respond? Both questions are essential and must be asked and explored with integrity, time, and within community.
As we pause to ponder these essential questions, we hope and pray as well for a revitalization of the organization through new leadership, new programming, and new sources of funding to meet the new needs and challenges that are identified. Our hope is to move together into a healthier, more holistic organization serving the world with care and commitment to its needs.
We trust…
…that over the course of this year, spent in prayerful discernment together every Monday morning, something new will emerge. We trust in the practice of deep listening to reveal a future for the Guild that is within our ability and meets the spiritual needs of today. We trust in our presence together as the Guild for Spiritual Guidance.
With gratitude, trust, and all hopefulness,
The Board and the Envisioning Team of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance