How We Are Formed
Spiritual Formation encompasses disciplines that help us to grow in our relationshipwith God, develop greater self-awareness and enable us to accompany others on their own spiritual journeys.
In order to serve your needs in whatever field God has called you to, the Centre for Spiritual Formation creates courses to equip you for the harvest. From spiritual accompaniment to short at-home retreats, our programmes are in response to the needs of God’s faithful who serve in church or the marketplace, or who simply desire to deepen their relationship with God.
The Centre for Spiritual Formation curates resources on prayer and disciplines that enable us to see Jesus more clearly, love Him more dearly, and follow Him more nearly. To this end, we offer spiritual direction for individuals and groups in order to better discern God’s presence and movement in our lives. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius is a structured at-home retreat done over several months which help us to grow in intimacy with God so that we may discern and follow God’s call inspiritual freedom.
Retreats provide the space to spend extended time with God, allowing His prodigal children to recalibrate and return to God after our daily prolonged wanderings away from God and what He calls us to be.
Certificate Spiritual Accompaniment

The Certificate in Spiritual Accompaniment (CSA) equips Christians toaccompany others at work and church through trusting and authenticconversations about their inner and spiritual life. By becoming trainedcompassionate listeners, spiritual companions facilitate and support menand women time in nurturing a deeper self-awareness rooted in God’spresence, loving action, and guidance in their lives at home, work, and church.
This programme is for Christian leaders seeking to provide spiritual care,guidance and leadership in their churches or workplaces.
For more detailed information on CSA please view our brochure: bgst.xyz/cxl-brochure
Journey Into Belovedness

Proper theological reflection should give rise to a greater love for God which, in turn, informs our knowledge of God. Unfortunately, the transition from theological learning to self-knowledge is not always straight forward. Some students don’t do so and end up having a ‘head full of knowledge but nothing much in the heart.’
For this reason, Journey into Belovedness is offered as a Spiritual Formation Practicum (SFP) to help each student renew and deepen their love for God,improve their own self-knowledge (strengths and weaknesses), and also help discern their role in Christ’s mission for the world.
Journey into Belovedness consists of 10 weeks of prayer that helps you to move the truth of your belovedness in God’s eyes from the head to the heart. You will meet with your assigned spiritual director 6 times over a course of 10 weeks in this journey of increasing intimacy.
The Spiritual Exercises
Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius is a journey of ever-growing intimacy with God leading to a deeper discerned sense of God’s calling in your life. It can be experienced as a 30-day in-house retreat at a retreat centre, or as an at-home retreat presented over thirty weeks or more. There are four movements in the Spiritual Exercises, each leading to an increasing intimacy with God and a deepened sense of calling:
- Purification – embracing our sinful nature but also, more importantly,owning our belovedness in God as sinners yet loved.
- Illumination – reflecting on how Jesus embraces his calling helps illuminateours.
- Confirmation – embracing our own passion as we embrace our calling.
- Union – living out a transformed life in union with God
The CSF has certified and experienced Givers of the Spiritual Exercises who are able to gently hold and lead you in this journey of transformation and growth.
This Programme is still in development and will be made available at a later time. However, if you are interested or want to find out mroe, please fill up this Interest Form:
Spiritual Direction
Spiritual Direction is
“… help given by one believer to another that enables the latter to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her, to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship.”- William Barry, William Connolly,
Spiritual Direction is a discipline that helps you discern God’s presence and working in your life. Your spiritual director is a co-discerner who helps you to get in touch with the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who is the real Spiritual Director in the relationship.
The focus of spiritual direction is always on the experience of the directee in his or her ongoing relationship with God. As such, spiritual direction is not psychotherapy, pastoral counselling or giving advice, although there may be elements of these in a typical spiritual direction session. This should help clear up the misconception brought about by the term “direction”, which is something of a misnomer. A spiritual director does not direct but listens and notices, and helps the directee to listen and notice.
Our team of certified spiritual directors certified come from various Christian faith traditions.
This Programme is still in development and will be made available at a later time. However, if you are interested or want to find out more, please fill up this Interest Form:
To help you understand Spiritual Direction better, here is a podcast byCSF spiritual mentors, Anthony Siow and Chan Lin Ho:
https://cathedral.org.sg/podcast/spiritual-direction
Spiritual Retreats
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
– Psalm 46:10
In the bible, Jesus retreated to be alone with God at least nine times. He also exhorted his disciples to “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place andget some rest.” (Mark 6:31)
It has been said that silence is God’s first language and everything else is just a poor translation. A spiritual retreat is an intentional time of withdrawal from the daily preoccupations of life to be with God in silence and solitude.This is a precious time of prayer and reflection, quieting the busy mind and getting in touch with how God is stirring your heart.
Spiritual retreats are vital aspects of spiritual formation and are offered for individuals, groups or church groups here and overseas. There are various kinds of retreats – preached, directed, guided, themed retreats, etc. All are rooted in silence and prayer to help us deepen our relationship with God and with ourselves. The Centre for Spiritual Formation can help you to customize retreats curated to your specific formation needs according to the demographics in your church.
This Programme is still in development and will be made available at a later time. However, if you are interested, want to find out more, or would like help in curating retreats for your personal needs, or the needs of your church or organization, please fill up this Interest Form:
To help you understand Spiritual Retreats better, here is an article by Alex Carter:
https://www.sgm.org.nz/blog/alex-carter-my-first-silent-retreatDrop