MTS, Spiritual Formation
Spiritual Director
Transformation Coach
I truly care for people. I will walk with you as you discern what is next and how to accomplish it. Being a spiritual director is like being a midwife, someone who assists others in giving birth to a deeper relationship with God.
As I journey with you during this season of life, my prayer is that you will be able to hear God through all the noise, learn how He speaks to you, discern what He wants for your “right now” and trust Him for your “not yet”.
Contact: andrea@anchorandserenity.ca
Ann is a graduate of the Emmaus Spiritual Direction program. She brings with her a wealth of experience from 22 years as an Executive Director with Youth for Christ, and the rich mentoring relationships she has fostered with many young women. She now practices Spiritual Direction from her home in Tottenham, ON and is the Administrative Assistant at Emmaus. Ann is also the author of the Bible Study “Holy Calling: Becoming a Godly Wife”.
Ann has been married to Keith McCallum for 40 years, has 3 adult children and 10 grandchildren. Ann loves leading guided Spiritual Retreats for individuals and groups, and Meditative Hikes.
Aukje believes God is present and active in every moment of life, and enjoys accompanying
others as they explore their understanding and experience of God, and deepen their relationship
with Him.
Her own journey started in the Netherlands, followed by immigration to Canada, teaching ESL in
Japan while working with a few churches, finally finding the love of her life (Willy!), moving back
to Canada to bring up two boys while discerning her next steps. This resulted in graduating
from Emmaus Formation Centre and subsequently starting her spiritual direction practice.
Contact: aukje.dykstra@gmail.com for in person or online sessions
Carol is a graduate of the 3 year Emmaus Formation Centre Certificate program for Spiritual Direction. She also brings 30+ years of church ministry experience, most recently in pastoral care, chaplaincy and grief support.
Her passion is to be a companion and guide for you on your spiritual journey and help you to find renewed joy, hope and rest in your relationship with God.
At the heart of her ministry is the ability to create a safe place of trust and confidentiality for deep listening to your life story, while also listening deeply for the movement of the Holy Spirit in your situation.
Carol offers Individual and Group Direction via Zoom, Phone, Skype or in person. She lives in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
Download a brochure with more information. CLICK HERE
In the midst of a driven, seductive, disorienting and distracting culture, Denisa helps Christians cultivate the skill of orienting themselves toward God and others. Her deep longing is to see others move toward wholeness and is keenly interested in how engaging the spiritual practices shape our spiritual formation.
Denisa enjoys developing guided contemplation exercises, speaking and leading retreats.
Denisa Nica is a certified spiritual director with Emmaus Formation Centre from Ontario, Canada and a graduate of Regent College from Vancouver, Canada.
Website: www.lighthauscoaching.com
The Biblical Basis of my Soul and Spiritual Direction Practice is The Greatest Commandment and The Great Commission which compels me to Love the Trinity, Love Myself & Family and Love our Neighbours both far and near. Thus, I have a global spiritual direction practice and welcome those who hike with the Saints and other Global Nomads overseas and who are at home, or return home to their roots. My wife and I have an Old English Sheepdog.
Contact: duncanwestwood@mac.com
Elizabeth Millar (BA, MTS, DPT student) is confident that God is present in ordinary life and that God
desires interaction with us. With a sense of joyful curiosity and prayerful attentiveness, she is interested
in being a spiritual companion for those who want to know and experience God more. Elizabeth has
experienced living in various settings (rural prairie, inner-city, suburbia) and is now enjoying small town
life on Prince Edward Island. She is married to a minister and backyard farmer, and is mother to 5
beautiful people. Contact: elizabethmillar330@gmail.com.
Floyd has found joy in serving as a spiritual director for men since 2006. He has ministered as a pastor and chaplain in Canada and as a cross-cultural worker/teacher in Indonesia, the Philippines and Toronto.
Floyd sees spiritual direction as an experience in Christian companionship guided by the Holy Spirit. It provides a safe, caring place for men who desire a spiritual friend to be with them on their soul journey with Jesus.
Floyd enjoys walking with his wife Joyce, reading, singing with his guitar in senior homes, and sharing God’s love. He has 3 married sons and 13 grandchildren.
Contact: floyd@grunau.ca 403.826.4015 Website: SoulJourney
Are you recognizing parts of your life where you feel stuck in old patterns, overwhelmed, depleted, or are you just straight up yearning for deeper growth and breakthrough?
I offer a safe listening space to help you cultivate a deepening awareness of where God is present and active in your life and story, and how you respond. Drawing on years of experience and training in overseas Mission, Chaplaincy, Spiritual Direction, and Coaching, I help people just like you, deepen their journey to be still, be awakened, and be love(d).
*Experienced in accompanying Pastors, Leaders, those in roles serving others (here/abroad).
Josiah has worked with at-risk and hurting youth for nearly a decade. He has worked with incarcerated individuals and those struggling with substance abuse, trauma, and mental health. He is trained in suicide intervention and emotional & grief support. He believes in holistic support to meet the needs of the soul and aims to help others know the mercy of Jesus so they may be healed and formed by His Spirit. For Josiah, spiritual direction is healing the wounds of the soul.
As a spiritual director, Karen provides a hospitable and welcoming place to discover, discern, renew, and question one’s relationship with God. Having navigated many storms throughout her life, she understands the value of having a spiritual friend to walk alongside, to provide confidentiality, hope, a deepening walk of faith, and how to live out one’s calling in everyday life.
Karen has been married to Steve for 35 years and has three children and six grandchildren. She lives on a rural property near Listowel, ON, with Steve and their golden retriever. She enjoys hiking, quilting, and a nice glass of wine.
Karen is a graduate of the 3-year Spiritual Direction Certificate program at Emmaus. She believes that it is essential for Jesus-followers to tend to their spiritual, emotional and physical lives. As we do this, it has ripple effects in our families, neighbourhoods and world. Karen’s passion for social justice and for coming alongside others on their spiritual journey has led to a spirit-filled, non-judgemental approach to spiritual direction. If you are in a season of doubt, struggle, transition, ministry exhaustion or feeling like there must be more to life with God, Karen will provide a safe space for you.
I had the nudge to begin training in Christian Spiritual Formation and Direction many years ago. I discussed with two friends this yearning for the journey. Through God’s direction I found Emmaus Formation Centre, and I have been studying with Emmaus for the last two years. I am entering my third year in September 2021.
I love God and I love to see people grow deeper in their relationship with God, and would be humbled to journey with those who seek him deeply.
Kathryn lives in Ottawa with her husband Lawrence, 4 children, and 2 grandchildren.
Kathy lives in Burlington, Ontario with her husband and 4 children. She loves to come alongside people in spiritual direction and provide a welcoming space for them to explore and express their relationship with God. The intention of her spiritual direction practice is for people to grow in self awareness and God awareness so they can experience more freedom, faith, hope, and love. Kathy values family, friendship, authenticity, creativity, and learning. She likes to experiment with different creative expressions and loves all forms of skiing.
Website: www.kathygust.com
Leanne is a graduate of the 3-year Spiritual Direction Certificate program at Emmaus. She is passionate about coming alongside others, inviting them to slow down and create space to connect with their soul and Creator so they can intentionally respond to the gifts, stirrings and calling He has placed within them. Her authenticity and gentle approach creates the kind of atmosphere that makes delving into this subject safe and comfortable.
Leanne is the creator of Bringing Faith Home speaking series and the author of A Parent’s Best Gift. She lives just outside Toronto with her husband James and their four kids.
Contact: leannecabral.com
Linda is a graduate of Emmaus Formation Centre’s Spiritual Direction Certificate program and lives in Durham Region. She has over thirty years of leadership experience in corporate and healing ministry settings and loves the Word and prayer in its many forms.
Her great passion is to come alongside others as they discern where God is present and at work in their everyday lives. She provides a safe place to explore your story and encounter God’s healing and redemption.
Whether you are pursuing greater intimacy with God, navigating a difficult season, or seeking discernment, she would love to accompany you.
My greatest desire is to help those who come to me for spiritual direction learn to listen to the Spirit of God and to help them discern His presence and leading in their lives so that they can walk in the fullness of who He created them to be. Through listening to the Spirit and through spiritual disciplines we pay attention to how and where God is working in their lives to help them deepen their intimacy with the Lord. My training in spiritual direction, in healing prayer and in loss and grief through my work in palliative care assist me in journeying with others.
Contact: l.junkeran@gmail.com
Marc Gauvreau is one of our course instructors and has been with Emmaus since 2014. As a spiritual director who trained under Dr. Sandy Broadus, Marc brings a Spirit knitted blend of disarming companionship, attentiveness, and prayerful discernment to his practice.
Ordained with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada for over the 30 years, he has pastored in several congregations specializing in discipleship-based spiritual formation and small groups. He is married to Karen, his truest friend and together they have 4 boys, the youngest being 9, who in Marc’s own words, “keeps me well-grounded and always ready for an adventure.”
Contact: mjgauv@bell.net
Margot began following Christ during an undergraduate year abroad, and grew in a campus ministry context back in Canada. Years later, she and her husband followed the Lord’s call to serve in Asia first as “tent-makers”, later as field staff shepherds and coaches. Returning in burnout, Margot experienced God’s tender ministry through a spiritual director. At God’s invitation, she completed a masters and trained as a spiritual director at Tyndale. She has been practicing since 2012. Margot is a certified practitioner of the Enneagram (Motions of the Soul). She enjoys supporting individuals and groups in the transformative Ignatian Exercises Retreat in Daily Life. She welcomes people in spiritual direction both in Ottawa and broadly via Zoom. If you would like to explore meeting, please contact her at mpk002@gmail.com
Mee (B.S.W., Dip.CS, M.Div., CSD, RSW) has experience working with all age groups in various settings, such as government, institution, community and church settings. Currently, she offers spiritual direction and counselling through her private practice and also serves as the education director and young adult pastor of a local church.
Her passion, shaped by our Trinitarian God, is to walk alongside people and to see them deepening their relationship with God in their ordinary, everyday lives. By attending to God’s loving presence, her desire is to offer a space where people can enter more deeply into the person of Christ and into their own uniqueness.
Mike has been a Spiritual Director, after graduating from Emmaus in 2018. He graduated with a Master of Divinity in 2007, specializing in Youth & Family Ministry from Tyndale. He worked for more than a decade as the Executive Director for the anti-sex trafficking charity Fight4Freedom.
Mike is passionate about bringing together spirituality and social justice and journeying with others to discover their uniqueness, giftedness, and strengths. He loves to journey with others in real-life situations and listen together to what God is saying.
His wife and he have two little boys and a golden doodle together.
Contact: onthejourney.life@gmail.com
Nadine Gascho; MA in Spiritual Formation, certified spiritual director through Soul Stream, Canada.
As a spiritual companion, I count it a privilege to support you in your relationship with God. I offer you a safe space to share your story and explore the journey of your heart. With the focus on listening for how God is present, I look to the leading of the Holy Spirit (as the true Spiritual Director). Whether meeting in-person or through video conferencing, the session with you is an unhurried, contemplative space. As a missionary, myself, I am particularly drawn to and have much to offer cross-cultural workers and women in ministry (but am open to all).
You can contact me at listenlife7@gmail.com
I am trained as a Spiritual Director through Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation and have a part-time spiritual direction practice (www.formationinsights.org). I have studied analytic psychology and dreamwork and have a doctorate in Christian education from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I am retired as a professor of Christian Formation and Leadership at Tyndale Seminary, Toronto. I teach in the Emmaus Formation Centre’s Spiritual Direction program (www.emmausformation.ca). I am ordained in Evangelical Covenant Church.
Peter Giokas (MTS, MDiv.) trained and worked as a Child and Youth worker. He then worked at an inner city mission serving in a variety of leadership roles. Ordained with the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec, Peter later pastored a church in Hamilton. More recently he was on staff with the Greater Ontario House of Prayer (GOHOP) with which he is still actively involved as a Companion. Now working primarily as a spiritual director, he finds delight in seeing people recognize and respond to the Spirit as He draws them into deeper faith, greater freedom and experience of God’s love. Peter has three grown sons and one grandson, and loves being married to Sandy. He is a student of old and new monasticism, the Christian mystics and is a member of the Order of the Mustard Seed.
Bachelor of Religious Education (Emmanuel Bible College);
Bachelor of Theology (Emmanuel Bible College);
Bachelor of Arts – Sociology (Waterloo University);
Master of Arts – Counselling (Providence Seminary);
Certified Spiritual Director with CCPC global.
As a former Baptist pastor, and as a trained Christian counsellor with the spiritual gift of teaching, Phil has a strong foundational knowledge of Scripture. In 2013 when God directed him to the practices of spiritual formation, it opened a new gateway into his heart that allowed his training to harmonize with the spiritual awareness of God’s presence. As a result, the Spirit of God has been allowed new freedoms to lead and transform him into a man who is daily discovering a richer joy and purpose in the Christian journey. For more information about Phil and his contact information please go to www.solidrootsministries.com
While serving as a pastor, Rick trained as a spiritual director at Tyndale Seminary and has companioned a wide variety of people in their spiritual journey over the past 12 years. Now in retirement, he especially feels called to be with pastors, supporting their soul care, healing, and spiritual formation. Rick partners with the Holy Spirit to help people recognize, experience, and engage with God in the rhythm of their everyday life. Husband, father, and grandfather, he encounters God and finds awe and delight in his family, and in people, the arts, natural environments, and gardening.
Rick will be happy to meet online or in person rtwukasch@gmail.com
Robynn’s greatest joy is to come alongside and bear witness to how God might be bringing redemption, healing and hope. As a Spiritual Director she feels like she has a front row seat to the glory of God at work in people’s stories! Robynn received her Spiritual Director training through the Souljourner program (hosted by Benedictine College) in Atchison, Kansas. Robynn and her husband, Lowell, moved to Port Colborne, ON in 2018. They have three fabulous adult children. Robynn loves hot beverages and deep conversation. She cries easily and laughs loudly! (You can find her online at www.robynnjoybliss.com)
Tammy, a graduate of Emmaus Formation Centre’s Spiritual Direction Certificate program, desires for her directees to personally connect with the Lord, discover God’s present activity and invitation. Spiritual direction is about being a companion through times of blessing, challenge, all the while searching for and noticing God.
Tammy became a Christian at Teen Ranch, and enjoyed working at camps for many years in various capacities. She lives in Port Credit with her two children: Taylor and Wesley. She enjoys her job as the office manager at Clarkson Community Church, engaging with people of varied backgrounds, on a daily basis.
Contact: tammypierce14@gmail.com
Tom Bell worked for Toronto Hydro for 31 years before joining the staff of The Meeting House as an associate pastor where he focused on pastoral counselling and spiritual direction, as well as providing support in other areas. He has a BASc (Electrical Engineering)(U of T, 1970), an MBA (U of T, 1979), and an MTS (Tyndale, 2007). He trained in spiritual direction and supervision at Tyndale Seminary and is currently in the Emmaus Supervision Program. Tom provided spiritual direction in the church as well as in private practice and has provided individual as well as group supervision.
Mutual support, fellowship, referral, peer supervision, educational events, learning groups, periodic newsletter with articles, collaboration with like-minded groups, web-page, resources
a. Graduates of Emmaus Certificate in Spiritual Direction
b. Emmaus Spiritual Directors
c. Affiliates (qualified applicants)
d. Emmaus Certificate Program students (registered in at least one course in the Certificate Programs)
• Cost: $30 for Emmaus Graduates and Spiritual Directors;
• $20 for Emmaus students; $40 for all others
• Emmaus Graduates receive the first year free
· Periodic fellowship/learning/devotional meetings
· Discount for Emmaus educational events
· Opportunity to participate in peer supervision
· Advocacy for Spiritual Direction
· Information on insurance
· Opportunity to contribute to the Emmaus Blog
· Periodic newsletter
· Resources (incl. notice of other associations, workshops and conferences)
· Consists of 3 or 4 persons including Chair, Secretary-Treasurer, Editor, and Emmaus staff representative
· Elected by members or appointed by Executive Council if 2 or less running. (Appointed by Executive Council in 1st year).
· Meets at least 2X/yearly.
· Continuing education initiatives will be coordinated with the Education Director.
· Executive Director has the responsibility to ensure the ESSD operates within its mandate.
(see Application Form below; Renewal form TBD)
· Completion of a spiritual direction training program of at least 40 contact hours and that includes both teaching and supervised spiritual direction OR at least 5 years of recognized spiritual direction ministry and a supportive pastoral/professional reference
· Agreement in principle with the Emmaus statement of values, statement of faith, ethical standards (applicants and members may note reservations with explanation)
· Active and in good standing in their denomination/congregation
· Submission of yearly brief report for membership renewal (e.g., number of directees, church affiliation, continuing education incl. books read)
· Participation in at least one event or group every 2 years.
Members will be given support within the capacity of the society and referrals for further support where warranted. Anyone who contravenes the membership expectations will be reminded of their responsibilities and given a grace period. If there is a complaint of an ethical nature, the member will meet with the Society’s Executive Committee and their case may be referred to the Emmaus Executive Director. See “Grievance Procedures” and “Ethical Standards.”
Executive committee are volunteer positions though expenses will be paid. The ESSD will be self-supporting through membership fees and event profits. (Educational events, including costs and profits, will be coordinated with the Education Director.)
Please scan and send completed application to: ann@emmausformation.ca
Or
By mail to Emmaus Formation Centre, 1422 Miraya Crt. Mississauga, ON, L5C 2T5
You will receive confirmation of receipt within 5 days.