Seminary Study

The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America offers a complete set of programs in preparation for the invitation to be consecrated into the priesthood.

Essentially, the whole training is a schooling in the arts of speaking and listening. Can the student tune the soul in such a way that it can hear the divine speaking? Can we hear this Word speaking in nature, in scripture, in the life lived in community, in our own heart?

And can the student learn to speak in deep authenticity and clarity - from the heart - what they hear there? Can we creatively reveal the Word that is at work in the world, in our lives and in prayer?

The path to developing these capacities move through the seminary’s three core programs. Their names express the development the seminary seeks to support:

“Knowing Christ”
“Walking with Christ”
“Working from Christ”

The first two programs give students the opportunity to deepen their Christ-discipleship, a path that cultivates in us our truly human calling to make sacred all aspects of life through the power of wisdom and love. This is the path to the “priesthood of all believers.”

In our “Working from Christ” program, the focus is directed towards work in the world. It is a kind of “mission year” where all that has been cultivated can be put into practice.

Ultimately, a priest will be called to do three things: to proclaim the living, healing presence of Christ, to minister pastorally to the souls God sends them, and to celebrate at the altar the seven renewed sacraments. This training is a preparation for fulfilling this calling.

“Without a deeper knowledge of the human being there can be no social life, without knowledge of the human being there can be no renewal of Christianity.“

- Rudolf Steiner

Knowing Christ

The overarching goal of the first year is to deeply engage with the question of the nature and reality of Christ Jesus. In a very real sense, the goal is to deeply pursue an answer to the question that he himself poses to his disciples: Who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16:15). The curriculum cultivates a way of knowing that can lead to an independent experience of the truths of Christianity. For the first time, the seminary will be offering a pilot hybrid on-site/offsite program for Knowing Christ in 2024-25. Click here for program details and dates.

Christian Spiritual Formation
• Who is Christ?
• Christ Discipleship
• Elements of Living with Christ
Bible Class
• Basic, whole Bible orientation, with particular emphasis on Genesis, the Torah & elements of the Gospel of John
Inner Life or “Shepherding”
• Moral Development
• Devotional Bible Reading
• Prayer
Anthroposophy or “Spiritual Science”
• Epistemology
• Trichotomy of the Human Being
• The Kingdom of the Heavens
• Christianity as Mystical Fact
Speech & Eurythmy
• Cultivating a deep sense of the living Word and the ability to reveal it.
Priest Formation
• June Course
Art
• The art of seeing
• The world of color and line
N.T. Greek
• Can be accomplished in the “off months” of June-September or during the year.
FINAL PROJECT
A core study of something from biblical literature with a written paper and 30-minute oral presentation with peer review and feedback from seminary directors.

Walking With Christ

This program takes deeper steps on the Christian discipleship path. This includes a renewed vision of the Word at work in the world around us, developing an esoteric Christian cosmology, renewed sacramental theology and the beginnings of sermon writing. It also includes a deeper step into the spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation and moral development. Participants are welcome to participate in a three-month-long follow up course of independent study in Canada or a student’s home country. This is made possible through online communications with the directors.

Priestly Formation
• Priest Course: Autumn 1921
• Working through the seven guiding images of the priestly self.
Bible
• Gospel of St. John
• Gospel of Mark
• Apocalypse of St. John
Christian Spiritual Formation
• Fundamentals of Meditation
• Deeper practices in moral development
Anthroposophy
• The "Michael Letters"
• Cosmology: "Esoteric Science" and/or "Inner Aspects of Evolution"
Sermon and Phenomenology
Speech and Eurythmy
Art
• Altar Iconography
• Phenomenology/Art History
• Artistic Process/Social Process
Language
German - Proj. Trimester and Summer
Final Project
An original project defined by the students connected to a need they see in the world.

Working From Christ

This is an internship program involving placement in a local congregation or other service-oriented initiative anywhere in the world. The nature of this internship, and where it takes place, is determined in conversation with the Seminary directors.