In 1978, after years of attending silent retreats at a Roman Catholic Cenacle and receiving spiritual direction there, I recognized this missing piece in my own tradition and suggested giving a similar retreat for the women at our church. Not being able to find a leader, I was asked to do it and share what I had been learning. The response showed a spiritual hunger that confirmed the need for this type of ministry. A few friends joined me, and we began offering retreats designed to deepen one's love relationship with God through prayer. We made personal prayer counseling available.  

Our team met weekly to learn more about prayer and to plan and pray for our retreats. Along with many other contemplative classics, the writings of the great Carmelite contemplatives, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, became the basis for teaching and the spirituality of our group. As with many new beginnings, these were wonderfully rich and deepening times, and it wasn't long before people asked to join our weekly gatherings. By 1985 this hand full of Lutheran women had grown to an ecumenical community of almost 50 men and women. We had formal consecration service where we took a vow to keep a discipline of prayer and other spiritual practices for the sake of the Church and the World.

That year we incorporated as a non-profit ministry calling ourselves Praise of His Glory (Ephesians 1:12) so that we could buy land where we could have our own facility to better carry out our ministry. Based on the spiritual guidance program I completed in 1984, we developed a two year program to better prepare our prayer ministers to offer spiritual guidance to the many people who had begun to look to us for guidance.

Having a dream of our own facility to better carry out our ministry, we set out to raise money. Through individual donations, bake sales, and garage sales we raised a down payment to purchase 50 acres of woods and wetlands where Christos Center for Spiritual Formation was built in 1990. All the work on the building was done by members of the Community so it was a building framed in love. It was dedicated as a sacred place for people to come away to solitude and silence and to be invited into deeper relationship with God through a prayer centered life. After the building was finished and the ministry grew, the members of Praise of His Glory Community gradually decreased as some members chose to serve in their churches while others retired. Some stayed on to serve in various ways and became the board and staff of Christos Center. As people became busier in our culture, Christos Center began offering more one day retreats and workshops as well as classes and retreats for churches in the surrounding area.

By 1991, many people of all christian denominations looked to Christos Center for spiritual guidance, so we began to offer our preparation for spiritual direction program to others. In 1997 Pat Hendricks was hired as coordinator of the program, Tending the Holy: Preparation for the Ministry of Spiritual Direction. In a few years Pat became assistant director of the Center, and under her leadership, we expanded to include distance learners. People from over a dozen states and five foreign countries have completed this program.

In 2001 Christos alumni in the western Chicago area, who had finished the distance learning program, invited us to offer the Tending the Holy program there. After a period of prayerful discernment and organization, that program began in the fall of 2002. Also in that same year, a nine-month Personal Spiritual Deepening program based on the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises was born under the direction of Janet Palmer.

In 2003 Christos Center celebrated 25 years of ministry, Joann Nesser retired and Pat Hendricks was chosen to be Executive Director.

Joann Nesser, Founder

Joann Nesser and husband Joe Nesser

 

Christos Center for Spiritual Formation is a nonprofit tax-exempt organization under Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Christos Center has a Board of Directors who meet regularly to discern, advise, and attend to the financial and operational decisions of the organization. Christos Center employs a staff, that includes an executive director who is responsible to the Board.

Christos Center is funded in four ways: tuition for its programs and workshops/retreats; revenue from building rental and spiritual direction;
donations; and grants.

 

 

 Dan Johnson, Board Chair, Pat Hendricks, Paul Radunz at Christos 30th Anniversary

 

Janet Hagberg, Stan and Jeannette Bakke at Christos 30th Anniversary

 

Janet Hagberg, Tom Allen at Christos 30th Anniversary