Spiritual Direction, Online
Spiritual direction at BetterFaith is discipleship: a trained guide who helps you notice where God is already at work. 50-minute virtual sessions.
Somewhere in the last year or so, prayer went quiet. There was no crisis behind it and no argument with God, just a slow thinning out, until the thing that once felt like conversation started to feel like talking into an empty room.
Church still happens every Sunday. The faith is still there on paper. Something underneath it has gone still, and naming what would take longer than most people have on a Tuesday night. That season is what spiritual direction is for.
At BetterFaith, spiritual direction is discipleship
Some traditions treat spiritual direction as its own profession with its own credential, and hand it to someone called a director. We do not work that way. Direction here is one of the shapes discipleship takes, and it is offered by our discipleship guides: everyone on the BetterFaith roster who is not a biblical counselor.
That is a deliberate call. The word "director" implies someone steering, and steering is the opposite of what the hour is for. A guide walks alongside and pays attention with you. Nobody is going to announce what God is doing in your life, because nobody can see that from the outside.
What healthy spiritual direction looks like
Three parties are in the room and only two of them are visible. The guide's whole job is helping you hear the third.
In practice that means a great deal of listening and comparatively little advising. A guide asks about the moment you skipped past. They notice when your voice changes. They circle back to the thing you mentioned at minute four and then dropped, because the dropped thing is usually the one worth staying with.
The practice is old, and it came back into Protestant and evangelical churches through Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, and Henri Nouwen, starting around the late seventies. Much of evangelical discipleship since the Reformation has run through teaching and doctrine, which is real and necessary and also leaves a gap. Direction fills the other half: the slow, attentive, unmeasurable part of following Jesus.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
1 Kings 19:12
Elijah had just watched fire fall on Mount Carmel. Spectacle was his normal, and he had every reason to expect God in the loud thing. The whisper asked for a completely different quality of attention, and he caught it only because he had gone somewhere quiet enough to hear it.
Direction is where that attention gets practiced on purpose, well before you are desperate enough to need it.
What your guide will not do
Trust in this kind of conversation depends on the guide staying inside real limits. Here are ours.
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No pronouncements about your interior life
A guide will not tell you what God is saying to you, what your motives really are, or what your future holds. They help you sort through it. The discernment stays yours.
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No dual relationships
Your guide is your guide, not a friend you also grab dinner with, not a business contact, not somebody who turns up in your social circle. That boundary protects the honesty of the hour.
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No clinical work
Direction is pastoral. If what surfaces belongs with a licensed therapist, your guide will say so and help you find one.
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No pressure toward an outcome
Nobody grades your prayer life. Some months the honest report is that not much happened, and that is allowed to be the report.
Where direction sits next to our other work
The same guide can often hold more than one of these. What separates them is what the hour is organized around.
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Organized around
A struggle
Biblical counseling
Something has gone wrong and there is repair to do. Carried by our biblical counselors specifically.
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Organized around
Growth
Discipleship and mentorship
Someone a few steps ahead walks alongside you and you build toward something.
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Organized around
Attention
Spiritual direction
Nothing has to be broken. The ordinary week is already full of God, and this is where you learn to notice it.
You are here
The rhythm
- Session length
- Fifty minutes, virtual, from wherever you are.
- Cadence
- Every two to four weeks rather than weekly. This works on the scale of months, and meeting every seven days tends to flatten it into a status report.
- Inside the hour
- Silence shows up in most sessions, and it stops feeling awkward faster than people expect.
- Between sessions
- Often one small thing to pay attention to before the next one, sometimes a psalm and sometimes a particular hour of the day.
- Cost
- $100 per session, charged after you meet. Church partners and reduced-rate options are on the pricing page.
Who tends to come
- Long-time Christians whose faith has quietly become information.
- Anyone standing in front of a decision who would rather think it through with God than around him.
- People drawn to silence, scripture, and slowness, with nothing in their church that makes room for any of it.
- People who came through a hard year intact and never got to ask what it meant.
Ready to take the next step?
Get matched with a vetted guide who shares your faith, and start whenever you are ready.
Book a session
Related reading
What is discipleship? A practical guide to faith-based mentorship
Discipleship is faith-based mentorship - someone walking beside you as you grow. Here's what it looks like, why it matters, and how to find it.
What is pastoral care? How spiritual guidance works and who it's for
Pastoral care is spiritual guidance from someone trained to walk with you. Here's what it looks like, how it differs from therapy, and how to access it.
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