Our Curriculum

The curriculum to earn the Professional Certificate in Spiritual Gerontology consists of the following 12 courses.  You may take them in the suggested order, or in any order you find most useful for you.

1) Course 105:  Get Control of your Authentic Personality and Find True Happiness in the Second Half of Life
Your God-given, one-of-a-kind personality is your most powerful resource. In this course you will take the Spiritual Strengths Profile (SSP) which clearly defines your unique spiritual personality: spiritual strengths, shadows, and compulsions that together provide the fundamental power to be all you can be.. Learn to use this unique personality to the fullest… you are happiest, healthiest, and holiest when you do. Read more...

2) Course 100:  What is Spiritual Gerontology?
Learn the surprising and compelling concepts and principles of this expanding, and so necessary, ministry. Come to deeply understand that aging is part of the “Living Water” that Christ promised and use this illumination to vitalize your interactions with those women or men you serve.  Read more...

3) Course 102: The 12 Keys to Spiritual Vitality in the Later Years.
How to transform aging from a potentially dismal time of spiritual stagnation to an ageless soul adventure. Learn how to age with grace, verve, spiritual meaning, and personal purpose. This course gives you an entirely new narrative about aging. Our culture seems fearful of aging. Learn how to overcome this by creating an environment of growth and spiritual deepening; plant seeds of a positive aging through God’s Providence. Read more...

4) Course 103: Retirement as a Spiritual Journey
What are the core psycho-spiritual ingredients that spell the difference between retirement years of fragmentation and lifelessness, and years of advancing personal meaning and fullness of life?
This course covers the 15 factors that research tells us are essential ingredients for a retirement life of fulfillment and purpose. Learn to better understand the new retirement growth, that retirement is not an ending but a brand new beginning.  Read more...

5) Course 104: Spiritual Mentoring, Spiritual Direction, and Faith Life Review: Necessary Spiritual Growth Accelerators in the Later Years.
Taking on new role of the inter-generational spiritual sage – the one who can influence later-life women and men to follow their hearts and remain ever-open to the “nudging” of the Holy Spirit.  Read more...

6) Course 106: How to Remain Well of Body, Wise of Mind, and Whole of Spirit in the Second Half of Life
Wellness is much more than physical health practices. Elders need an entirely new appreciation of living a vital and vitalizing life regardless of their age and physical condition. This new perspective requires focus beyond the physical and onto the psychological and the spiritual as well, because we are body, and mind, and spirit all together.  Read more...

7) Course 107: The 10 Essential Elder Caregiving Techniques Every Caregiver Needs to Know and Practice. 
Caregiving is everybody’s business. The caregiving role is a ministry that has mammoth potentials for spiritual growth. Without this spiritual dimension caregiving can become overwhelming, stressful, and contorting. Every church and retirement facility needs a caregiving education and support program. Everyone is a caregiver either directly and/or indirectly, and needs practical training.  Read more...

8) Course 108: How to Identify and Deal with the 5 Difficult Personalities of the Later Years.
For those days when you wonder why God ever called you to this ministry. Difficult personalities are challenging, and yet we are all called to offer the best in spiritual and personal care that we can. This course gives you the insight and the tools to deal more effectively with chronic problem personalities and save yourself in the process.  Read more...

9) Course 109: The 10 Spiritual Developmental Tasks of the Middle Years 
What happened, or didn’t, in the middle years (generally ages 45-65) is of immense spiritual importance in the later years! It is in the middle years when the story of our true later-life adult spiritual development begins and takes shape in earnest… a process that takes the rest of our lives. Consolidating what was learned in the middle years, and remediating what was not, positions us to maximize our later years in Christ.   Read more...

10) Course 110: The 10 Spiritual Developmental Tasks of the Illumination Years (ages 66+).
Making the dramatic shift from doing to being or; “What is God calling us to BE in or later years?” This course meshes the best concepts from developmental psychology with the powerful principles of lifespan spiritual growth to create a personal blueprint for ongoing spiritual growth so that the later years truly become the “Illumination Years.’  Read more...

11) Course 111: Loving for a Lifetime: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Healthy, Happy and Holy Christ-Centered Marriage in the Second Half of Life.
This course  takes the best of positive psychology and mixes it with your love for Christ and your conviction that Christ is the true center of your relationship, as well as the source of the power that animates your marriage/relationship into a happy, healthy, and holy centering of your heart and soul.  Read more...