TCA-SSD - A Christ-Centered Training Ministry

In May 2023 – after nearly ten years of successfully training Christ-centered spiritual directors, working alongside Sustainable Faith School of Spiritual Direction – Sandy & I enjoyed the wonderful opportunity to sit with Dr. Frank Rogers, Jr. for two days of training, learning about his unique approach to bringing the tools of IFS (Internal Family Systems) into spiritual direction. We returned home, excited to practice IFS in our own lives, and much to our surprise, when we mentioned our IFS experience to our son-in-law – a licensed marriage & family EMDR therapist – he, excitedly said, “Dad, IFS is something I’ve used successfully in my therapy practice for years!”

Over the next year, we began gathering all the IFS material we could get our hands on, especially those resources that had been written for Christ-followers who desired to bring the benefits of IFS into their own faith practice. And just as it is in life, once you open your eyes to a new interest, it’s amazing how you see it everywhere!

As Sandy and I became more familiar with the good practices of IFS, we began not only using the tools in our own personal lives, but we began to see “parts” language popping up in nearly every supervision session we conducted with our spiritual direction students. By the spring of 2024, we felt the strong confirmation to step up our dream of taking Frank Roger’s powerful material and see how well we might “experiment” with a small group of our Sustainable Faith graduates, introducing them to the ins and outs of IFS. Over a nine month period (2024-25), we meet for five one-day modules where we covered the basics of IFS, encouraging our students to 1) begin using IFS as a self-awareness tool in their own lives, and 2) begin practicing a better awareness of how IFS might assist them when sitting with others in spiritual direction.

In May 2025, this group of 12 students finished up our ‘experimental” cohort, and we can say, without a doubt, this was one fruitful season. So, in the fall of 2025, we, once again, offered our five-session introductory cohort, and we were shocked to find 20+ trained directors (many from our past cohorts) who were anxious to take our course! As a result, in the 2025-26 school year, we have two Year One IFS cohorts, and one Year Two IFS cohort, made up of those in our ‘experimental’ group who simply wanted to go further in their IFS work!

That brings us to today and you…

Over the last two years (2024-2026), we have now gathered some truly talented spiritual directors who, we believe, God is forming into a team of like-minded spiritual companions. And, with the blessing of Dr. Frank Rogers, Jr., we are now planning to take his training material, add in other resources, and offer this as a Two-Year Spiritual Direction Training Program to an increasing number of people who desire to be trained as Christ-centered spiritual directors with an IFS twist. This cohort will kick off in the Fall of 2026, will be offered on-line, and will operate in a similar manner to the training courses that Sandy & I have been teaching now for 10+ years. In many ways, working along-side Dr. Rogers and the Center for Engaged Compassion, we see our newly-formed organization (TCA-SSD) as being a wonderful “primer” for those who might want to go on to be trained and certified as a Level One IFS spiritual director, or for those who simply want to have the basics of IFS brought into their personal lives and/or their work in spiritual direction.

If you are interested in hearing more about our vision – which, at this time, includes spiritual directors in the USA, the UK and in Canada, we’d love to share more. 

We’d also like to invite you to become a financial partner in this vision as we get this little airplane (TCA-SSD) off the ground. Quite honestly, as we work to raise up qualified teachers/trainers for our expanding ministry, we will need to raise more operating capital than our cohort tuition provides. So, if you have the ability to give a one-time gift, or become a sustaining partner with us, we’d love to have you join the TCA-SSD Team! 

For the cause of Christ and in His service, Marty & Sandy Boller