About

Spiritual Ministries Institute, Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Dallas, Texas.

We serve spiritual directors as well as the broader spiritual community in our area by offering opportunities for spiritual formation through presentations, training, workshops, and retreats – typically held at local churches, retreat centers, and occasionally online.

For spiritual directors we offer continuing education, contemplative care, and a peer community. For the broader spiritual community we offer opportunities for spiritual growth highlighting the contemplative life and practices.

Values

Spiritual Ministries Institute values contemplative life which leads to compassionate action. We promote ways of life and practices which lead us into relationship with and into direct experiences of the Spirit. We seek to offer programs which enrich and challenge us, engaging us both intellectually and experientially.

Spiritual Ministries Institute believes in the Imago Dei (image of God) within all people and welcomes anyone to attend our programs, regardless of race, religion, gender, nationality, age, or ability. We are based in the Christian tradition but seek to create a space where those of any faith are respected and honored.

History

Spiritual Ministries Institute was founded in 2005 by four area spiritual directors: Eunice Cheshire, Nancy K. Dunkerley, Rev. Lee Self, and Sr. Chabanel, seeking to be a supportive community for the small number of spiritual directors in the Dallas area at the time, as well as a way to reach the extended lay community with training in contemplative practices, and exposure to the ministry of spiritual direction.

 Since then, wonderfully, the spiritual director community has grown immensely, and there are increasing opportunities in the Dallas area promoting and supporting the contemplative life. SMI has continued programming and begun collaboration with some of those organizations along the way.

HeartPaths DFW, a training program for spiritual directors, was founded out of SMI’s first year of activity, in the fall of 2006, and is still to this day a beloved sister organization of SMI.