Meet Our Instructors
Brenda Buckwell, D.Min.
Brenda is founder and CEO of Living Streams Flowing Water (www.livingstreamsflowingwater.com) and serves as spiritual director, coach, consultant, trainer, retreat leader and educator. She is also spiritual director for the executive board of the Spirituality Network, Columbus, Ohio. Brenda is the author of The Advent of God’s Word: Listening for the Divine Whisper.
Helen Cepero, M.Div. (Inaugural Instructor)
Helen Cepero trains spiritual directors at North Park Theological Seminary and serves as the executive director of the spiritual direction formation program at the Journey Center in Santa Rosa, California. A frequent retreat leader, she is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church. Helen is the author of Journaling as a Spiritual Practice.
Fr. Stephen Coffey, O.S.B., D.Min. (Cand.)
Fr. Stephen Coffey is a spiritual director and Benedictine monk at the Monastery of the Risen Christ, San Luis Obispo, CA (sponsored by the Camaldolese Benedictine Congregation). He has served in retreat and spiritual direction ministries in New Mexico, Oregon, Hawaii, and CA and was one of the initiators of the program at Shalom Prayer Center in Mt. Angel, OR. He has also served on the faculty of the SD program sponsored by the Monastery of the Risen Christ.
Wil Hernandez, Ph.D., Obl. O.S.B.
Wil Hernandez is a trained counselor, retreat leader, and spiritual director/supervisor and the author of a trilogy of books on Henri Nouwen. A lay Benedictine oblate of Saint Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California, he is also on the editorial review panel of Presence, the journal published by Spiritual Directors International (SDI), and serves on the planning committee of SDI’s Leadership Institute.
Susan Phillips, Ph.D.
Susan, executive director of New College Berkeley of Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, is a sociologist, spiritual director, and adjunct teacher at San Francisco Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Regent College. Her great love is meeting with people for spiritual direction and for supervision. Her books that address spiritual direction are Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction and The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy.
Evan B. Howard, Ph.D. (Inaugural Instructor)
Evan B. Howard is the founder and director of Spirituality Shoppe, an evangelical center for the study of Christian spirituality. He lectures on spirituality, philosophy, and religion at Colorado Mesa University and other institutions. He is the author of The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality, among other books and articles. He leads workshops and seminars on Christian spirituality worldwide.
Lisa Myers, M.A.
Lisa Myers received her M.A. in Christian spirituality from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and her spiritual direction training from Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington, D.C. She helped design Companions for the Journey, a contemplative guidance ministry for La Cañada Presbyterian Church that has become a model for doing spiritual guidance in community. Lisa has led retreats for churches, seminaries, and other Christian organizations.
Dan Miller, Ph.D.
Dan Miller is a Catholic Christian with an ecumenical spirit who is a spiritual director, supervisor, teacher, retreat leader, and writer. Trained at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation where he completed the spiritual guidance program in 1988, Dan founded a monthly spiritual formation community called the Human and the Holy in 2003, which he continues to lead to this day at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Pomona, California.
Maria Tattu Bowen, Ph.D.
Maria Tattu Bowen is Catholic and a spiritual director and supervisor who holds a Ph.D. in Christian Spirituality and enjoys working across faith tradtitions. She is the co-founder of Together in the Mystery, a combined on-site and distance-learning program that has trained supervisors from throughout North America as well as Canada, Mexico, Ireland, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan. She writes on the topic of spiritual direction and coordinates supervision for the diploma in the art of spiritual direction program at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Larry Warner, M.A.T.
Larry Warner is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and the founder/director of B-Ministries as well as the San Diego regional director for Christian Formation and Direction Ministries. He is an adjunct professor at Bethel Seminary in San Diego and teaches for the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Talbot Seminary and the master’s in ministry program at Point Loma Nazarene University. Larry is the author of Journey With Jesus and Discernment, God’s Will, & Living Jesus.