Spiritual Directors' ASsociation Of Kenya

What is Spiritual Accompaniment?

Christian Spiritual accompaniment is a one-to-one helping relationship that has God-experience of the directee at the heart of the process.

God-experience, for a Christian, could take a very precise form as the experience of God in Jesus Christ.

A contemporary definition captures this meaningfully: “Christian spiritual direction, then, [is] help given by one believer to another that enables the latter to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship” (Barry & Connolly, 2009, p.8).

Spiritual accompaniment is an indispensable tool in our growth in spirituality.

What Spiritual Accompaniment is not …

• Spiritual accompaniment is not spiritual advising by the director who seems to be an expert who “directs” what the directee should do in their spiritual life.
• The spiritual director is not a guru who knows exactly where the directee should proceed.
• At the same time, it is not simply a spiritual conversation of a mutual sharing of each other’s spiritual convictions. In spiritual accompaniment, clearly the directee speaks and the director listens.
• Despite its similarity to some contemporary methods of therapy and counselling in being non-directive, spiritual accompaniment is quite different from counselling, psychotherapy, spiritual conversation, or the Catholic celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation.

While spiritual accompaniment is not a substitute for any of these possible interventions, it assists the directee to grow in their personal relationship with God – in responding to the God who moves them from within towards Himself.

Who is a Spiritual Director?

Spiritual Director is a Christian, male or female, a member of the clergy or a lay, who is trained in the art of Spiritual Accompaniment.

Their training in Christian Spiritual Accompaniment often follows a particular tradition of spiritual direction – the most influential of them being the Ignatian Tradition. They are usually aware of other traditions as well (Benedictine, Carmelite, Salesian). They are not usually experts in psychology but often are familiar with psychological dynamics in one’s spiritual journey and are able to do referral.

The Spiritual Director is committed to their own spiritual journey, while being mindful of their own vulnerability, seek spiritual accompaniment and committed to ongoing supervision. They are bound by a Code of Practice.

They are available to accompany other Christians for a small fee.