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!

The core of SOUL School is The SOUL Journey, debuting in Spring 2025 with two cohorts…

• All-Online Cohort: 12 people in a weekly online gathering for 10 weeks of soul-building insights, practices, and conversations.

• Hybrid Cohort: Another 12 people who will launch their community with an onsite retreat, followed by 6 weeks of online gatherings. The content is the same for both cohorts.

Click here for FAQ and registration!

A “prequel” of sorts is the 3-week online Evangelical Recovery (ER) Journey: This is for folks who are disenchanted with the evangelical narrative and may have left church entirely. If you feel spiritually homeless, this is the place for you!

• This community will work on the “deconstruction” side of our faith evolution before we begin the “reconstruction” side in The SOUL Journey.

Click here for FAQ and registration!

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.