by Rose Mary Dougherty, S.S.N.D.

Praise for Rose Mary Dougherty’s previous book, Group Spiritual Direction

“[A] great introduction....To date there is no other book on this subject, so it is wonderful that it is written by someone with years of experience.” — Robert J. Wicks

“Dougherty offers…both spiritual insights and practical suggestions related to forming and sustaining this kind of small group.” — Spiritual Book News

“This book taught me more about group spiritual direction—enough so I really feel I have a grasp of it…It will be a significant contribution to our world.” — Gerald G. May, M.D.

In The Lived Experience of Group Spiritual Direction, Rose Mary Dougherty brings together first-hand reports by twenty-two people who tell their experiences as facilitators or participants in small groups of pray-ers. Here are people—clergy and laity, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish—who have sought group guidance in their own spiritual journeys. For some, the experience had a set duration, but for others it stretched across years. Groups have formed in workplace settings, in houses of worship, in seminaries, among teens, and among government workers. In all of these, the group process has helped and supported people in their journeys to God.

Says Tilden Edwards in his foreword to this book, spiritual direction that happens in groups “can help meet the widespread hunger of many people for a safe, challenging, accountable group of spiritual friends with whom to probe the deep mystery of God’s presence in the unfolding of their lives over time.”