SPE Spotlight
Array of Programs Draws Pastors to St. Francis SPE
As a 60-year-old, semi-retired Presbyterian pastor, the Rev. Mike Fonfara of Otsego, Mich., could easily afford to sleep a little late most weekday mornings if he wanted. With 50 or so members, the small church he pastors doesn’t require him to put in too many long days, especially on a weekday.
But from September to May for the past two years, Fonfara has risen at 6:15 a.m. every other Thursday to drive 94 miles across central Michigan to Dewitt, just outside of Lansing.
His destination: the St. Francis Retreat Center, a 95-acre compound of gentle rolling hills and pine groves owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing. There, Fonfara spends the day studying and learning about spiritual direction as part of a two-year internship supported by the retreat center’s Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program.
“I get up at 6:15 and I get home at 7:30 at night, but it’s worth it,” Fonfara says. “This has renewed me and my ministry. Every time I go, it’s like a family reunion. The day goes by so fast.”
Founded by a group of Franciscan monks in 1955 and operated by the diocese since the 1970s, the center has long served as a focal point for spiritual life for youth and adults in the Lansing area, with a variety of retreats and other offerings for Catholics and others. With the addition of an SPE grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. in 2003, the center has dramatically expanded both its programs and its impact.
“The last thing anyone ever wanted was for the retreat center to be a country club,” says Mary Tardif, the SPE program administrator at St. Francis. “And we are anything but that. With the SPE grant, we are touching pastors and churches across Michigan and beyond.”
Fonfara is not the only one making the trek to St. Francis these days. Inner-city pastors from Detroit are learning how to minister to those affected by domestic violence. Hispanic lay pastors gather at the center for basic training in pastoral skills. A group of Christian Reformed Church pastors who serve small, struggling congregations in southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio visit once a month for peer support. Pastors from across the state come for Sabbath retreats or conferences on such topics as end-of-life care or the spirituality of at-risk youth.
The pastors are drawn by an unusually wide array of programs. In addition to the peer groups that are a hallmark of many SPE projects, St. Francis also offers Sabbath Time Retreats; conferences and workshops on subjects ranging from clergy ethics to iconography; a mini-grant program that has distributed more than $200,000 in the past two years for various projects to sustain pastors; and scholarship support to attend the retreat center’s longstanding internship program in spiritual direction.
Another key component of the St. Francis program is a Pastoral Resource Center, a multi-media facility staffed by a trained media specialist with about 5,000 books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, audiobooks and other items. The resource center is open to all pastors throughout the state and its entire collection can be checked out either in person or online.
“When we got the grant, the people at Lilly told us to go after the hardest working pastors and figure out what we can do to sustain them,” Tardif says. “That’s what we have done, in as many ways as we could.”
Fonfara, for instance, says he has been “absolutely renewed” by the spiritual direction program.
“It makes me see church and all of life in a fresh light,” he says.
“Every time I talk with a parishioner, I use what I’ve learned at St. Francis,” says Fonfara, a pastor for more than 30 years who took early retirement in 2004 after suffering two heart attacks. “It has helped me to become a much better listener. I go into their homes, and they tell about the problems they’re having, and I can ask, ‘Where do you see God in all this?’”
Since beginning the course in spiritual direction, Fonfara has introduced a variety of spiritual practices such as lectio divina and centering prayer to his congregation and has found a receptive audience. Indeed, church members are talking about starting a spirituality center, with a labyrinth, prayer room, a small library and other resources.
But for Fonfara, the St. Francis program’s greatest impact has been in his own life. Traveling to the retreat center every other week, joining with others to learn about spiritual direction, has revived Fonfara, making him feel more vital and alive than he has felt in years.
“I take very seriously this call to draw closer to God,” he says. “I hope I live to be 90, and I’m feeling healthy right now, but however long I live, I want to live every day as a sacred event. I want to experience God in a practical, down-to-earth way every day. And that’s what the program at St. Francis is helping me do.”
For more information, visit the St. Francis SPE program website.
