Moulded by Prayer

Date: February 8, 2025
Time: 9:30am - 5:00pm
Location: Vancouver School of Theology (Epiphany chapel)
Price: $15.00 (Morning coffee, tea, refreshments and lunch provided)
Register: https://tinyurl.com/mouldedbyprayer
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A day for clergy and lay people to focus on our lives of worship and prayer. This day is for people seeking to revitalize their personal prayer life and, for community leaders, that of their community. Pottery and the act of moulding and being moulded is our guiding metaphor.

Adopting a retreat-like pace, we will gather for worship drawing on new resources such as Pray without Ceasing (the newly printed Morning and Evening Prayer of the Anglican Church of Canada), and Sing a New Creation (the new hymnal supplement of the ACC).

Different sessions are suitable for clergy and lay people, those new to the idea of “spiritual practice,” and those who are looking to expand their options. All sessions (except one) will follow a similar format of teaching, practicing, and reflecting. You will come away with an experience of prayer and also the tools to share and teach that form of prayer to others.

Concurrent morning sessions (75 mins)

• The Via Contemplativa (lecture format)
• Psalms for Praying
• Centering Prayer
• Praying With Collaged Images

Concurrent afternoon sessions (75 mins)

• Praying for Healing
• Lectio Terra: The Practice of Placefulness
• Listening prayer
• Praying with Youth

Following our worship at mid-day, we will engage in the ancient process of mystagogy - a simple guided way to reflect on one's experience of a liturgy. This is a form of spiritual formation the early church used to embed and develop Christian living through the worshipping life of the whole community. Again, you will come away with the ability to share this practice in your small group, parish or congregation.

We will close by reflecting on the day and discerning our next steps as we grow in our own prayer life. For community leaders, this reflection time includes discerning how to nurture the prayer and worship of those with whom we journey.

Workshop Details and Presenters

Centering Prayer Workshop
In our time together, we will:
- explore the method of the Centering Prayer Practice as a way of deepening our personal relationship with God, with people and with creation
- experience a 20-minute period of Centering Prayer
- have an opportunity to share our experience of the practice, followed by questions and response.

Bio: Christine Kesans

Christine is a Commissioned Presenter of the Introduction to Centering Prayer Program, a facilitator of Centering Prayer groups, workshops, and silent retreats. She serves on the Coordinating Team of Greater Vancouver Chapter of Contemplative Outreach International, which is an evolving community with an expanding vision and deepening practice of Centering Prayer - a contemplative practice of opening to the transformative light, life and love of the Holy Trinity. Christine is a member of St John the Apostle, Port Moody.

Lectio Terra: The Practice of Placefulness
In this workshop we will explore the implications of lectio divina, the practice of slow meditative reading of scripture, for the practice of connecting more deeply our places and our landscapes. Lectio Terra is a practice that blends forest bathing, pilgrimage and walking meditation. It is also a practice that attunes us to how the land might speak to us in troubled times.

Bio: Jason Brown

Jason M. Brown was born and raised in Southern California and studied anthropology and international development as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. He earned joint master’s degrees in forestry and theology from Yale. He completed his PhD in 2017 from the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at the University of British Columbia where his dissertation explored the sense of place of contemporary Catholic monks in the American West. As a Lecturer at Simon Fraser University Jason teaches courses in comparative religion and ecological humanities for the department of Global Humanities and occasionally environmental ethics for the School of Resource and Environmental Management. He also serves as a volunteer university ecological chaplain.

Praying With Collaged Images
Bev. will lead us through an exercise of prayer mostly without text or words. We will seek to find the quiet space within and let ourselves roam in our non-verbal space that we tend to ignore and rarely nourish. The use of collaged images will lead us into a time of prayer in that large and boundless space within that our Creator-God has gifted to us. That space where – whether we know it or not – we find the mystery of God through metaphorical imagery, the visuals around us that we daily see or the impactful images that we can seek online, in galleries and other places. Together we will seek to spend some moments in our inner world and offer praise, utter lamentation or thanksgiving and joy to our kind and loving God. Attendees do not need to be artists to participate fully.

Bio: Bev Wilson

Bev Wilson is a Vancouver artist in mixed media and seeks to live into a contemplative way of being. She is encouraged in these endeavours in the rich context of Abbey of the Arts, an online Monastery. She enjoyed acquiring a Certificate in Fine Art Techniques at Emily Carr University, Vancouver, BC completed in 2015.

Praying With Youth
Come on in. Take off your shoes, sit down and breathe. When we bring our whole body and self into a sacred space, things shift, and we become able to be who we are, before God, and focus all our attention and thoughts on God and what God is calling us to. But this takes practice, and not everyone is as practiced at say a silent retreat leader who has been doing this for 40 years. When we create sacred in church space that attracts youth, we need to find ways that engages them and focuses them, it needs to be a little more involved. When we are teaching liturgical and creative prayer life practices to youth, and expecting them to think outside of the box, and look away from a screen, we need to do the same. This workshop is not a one-size-fits-all, but a tasting menu of ways you could do as you create your own sacred spaces and prayerful contemplative experiences that will benefit youth and other folks too! With some discussion and introduction, we will then as participants experience some of my tried and true creative modes for prayer, get ready to get hands-on experience of these different ideas, inspiring hopefully for your own too! We will then debrief our session together at the end. Come ready to learn, get ideas and pray together!

Bio: Lauren Pinkney

Hi, my name is Lauren, and I will be leading the workshop “Praying with Youth”. I have nearly 15 years of experience in youth work across both secular and faith-based settings, many of which revolve around taking youth away and introducing them to creative and contemplative ways to experience worship, prayer and liturgy, in every setting; from Cathedral lock ins, to camping & hiking, summer camps and retreat houses. I have personally created many prayer resources and come up with endless ways to connect youth to the subject in creative contemplative ways that stick with them for years to come. I have a solid foundation of formal education in the field, a Bachelors in Christian Youth Work (JNC) from Chester University, and my Masters in Public and Pastoral Leadership from VST. From attending Soul Survivor and Greenbelt as a teen to going on Pilgrimage to Linsifarne and Taize, I have seen prayer and contemplative worship done in so many ways. I have run a 72 hour prayer event, multiple 24 hour prayer events, as well as National Events for the Church of England, and NPC member and chair of the CLAY (Canadian Anglican Lutheran Youth) gathering for 2023 & 2025. I am passionate about youth ministry and empowering youth in our churches, structures and prayer life, my goal is always to make a positive impact and empower youth and leaders alike, affirming their significance in the Body of Christ, here and now, as they are in this moment.

The Spiritual Practice of Listening Prayer
"That is prayer - listening to the voice of the one who calls you Beloved." - Henri Nouwen
Listening Prayer is a spiritual practice of becoming quiet to listen for what God is speaking or making known to our hearts. In this offering you are invited into a sacred pause to connect with God, to explore the ways we hear from God, and be intentional to listen for what God is making known through facilitated meditations and reflections.

Bio: Katherine Murray

Katherine is passionate about spiritual formation and transformation, and spiritual practices that deepen our awareness of God. 
Katherine is a friend, daughter, sister, aunt. She is a spiritual director, retreat facilitator, and the Associate Director of the Centre for Spiritual Renewal at St. Dunstan's Parish. 

Praying the Psalms
Benedictine communities focus on praying through the 150 Psalms each week. But most of us do not live in monastic communities and, given the conditions and demands of modern life, our prayer lives are often by necessity solitary and our time limited. In this workshop, we will explore understanding the psalms as a communal practice – a communal consciousness – that we can import into (and use as a support for) our individual prayer routines. We will pray together a selection of psalms and reflect on ways that this practice may be transformational not only for ourselves, but for our communities and the larger world.

Bio: Leah Postman

Sr. Leah-Teresa of Avila, OSBCn (Leah Postman) is a Spiritual Director and a vowed religious with the Canons of the Society of St. Benedict, a dispersed Anglican religious order. She holds a Certificate in Spiritual Direction from SoulStream and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. A lifelong Vancouverite, she is the mother of two grown children and lives in the South Hill neighbourhood with her husband, Brent, and their wire-haired dachshund, Baby.

The Via Contemplativa: Philosophy and Prayer
In this discussion, we will look at philosophy as a practice of attention that prepares the soul for prayer.  The talk will focus on the Western philosophical tradition, tracking where priorities on the vita contemplativa gradually give way to those of the vita activa (force, will, reduction, control). We will end by suggesting ways in which philosophy might return to its first and most vital emphasis on wonder.

Bio: Jay Irwin

Jay teaches philosophy at Corpus Christi College. He holds an MA in philosophical theology from the University of Nottingham, and is currently completing his PhD.  He lives in Vancouver with his wife and three children.