Picture this:
After a busy day on campus, you open the door to a violin’s cheerful hum and the smell of freshly baked bread. Two of your housemates are sitting on the couch laughing and recounting the day, while others work on dinner prep (homemade pizza!) in the kitchen. A candle and a stack of hymnals sit in the living room corner, ready for tonight’s worship service. Scenes like this one are a regular occurrence in Candler’s formation communities.
Focused on intentional living and spiritual formation, formation communities at Candler provide students a distinctive opportunity to live and grow in faith alongside their peers. Each formation community creates a “rule of life” and discerns a shared charism (focus) at the beginning of the academic year to guide their days together. Communities are organized around common prayer, table, and celebration. Each of these elements is coordinated by a student rector who provides day-to-day leadership and a faculty chaplain who offers worship leadership and spiritual direction.
Curriculum
Candler's program in formation communities has three primary aims: to provide a platform for vocational discernment; to form student capacities for community building and spiritual practice; and to cultivate communities of belonging that allow residents to integrate their theological studies, their vocational aspirations, their spiritual practices, and their diverse identities.
Yearly Activities
Formation community members participate in a "Rule of Life" retreat at the start of the year; community building events; monthly house meetings; a mid-year retreat; and an end-of-year celebration.
A Rule of Life
Each formation community discerns its own rule of life at the first retreat and covenants it for the year. While each rule of life is contextually suited to those in the community, they include commitments regarding shared prayer, shared table, and shared celebration. Each formation community’s rule of life is a living document that is affirmed (or changed) at the mid-year retreat.
Formation Community Options
Over the last three years, Candler has initiated several communities, each gathered around a common charism, or focus. Interested students may apply to be a part of a Candler-chartered formation community (and may apply for more than one). Applicants are selected based on their fit with the community and the community’s stated charism.
In chartered communities, Candler helps to match students with a student cohort, and match that student cohort with a property owner, property manager, or landlord. All members of chartered communities sign an annual lease that runs from August 1 to July 31 the following year. The program is currently supporting six communities for the 2022-2023 academic year.
In addition to chartered communities, Candler’s formation communities program also supports non-residential communities that covenant to a rule of life and shared charism. While these communities do not have the gift and challenge of co-living, they do have the opportunity to build a robust shared life. And like residential formation communities, each nonresidential formation community has a house rector and house chaplain and discerns a unique rule of life and charism.
Emory Neighbors
Emory Neighbors is a community focused on the formation of its members as ministers. We are focused on the holistic development of participants. We understand the importance of a wide variety of skills beyond the practical components of ministry, such as our ability to engage with one another and with God spiritually, and our ability to let go and have fun! We are committed to laughing and having fun together, to help guard against the burnout which is all too common in today’s world.
Murray House
A non-residential community made up of students in Candler’s Doctor of Ministry program seeking connection, prayer, and accountability while balancing daily vocation and academic research. Murray House is rooted in the charism of koinonia, or fellowship and partnership. We seek to provide a virtual “round table” where we gather as equals. The community’s rule of life embraces praying for and with each other, exploring spiritual practices, regular fellowship over Zoom, and mutual respect for differing traditions and vocations.
Meet the Team
If you're interested in learning more, contact us!
Kyle Lambelet
Director of Formation Communities
Kyle Lambelet is passionate about the spiritual formation that happens in and through intentional community. He has lived in a variety of formative living arrangements like the Open Door Community, a Protestant Catholic Worker community in Atlanta, and an anarchist collective in Greensboro. Ask him about these experiences: he has stories! His graduate training at the University of Notre Dame was in theology and peace studies, and he brings a conflict transformation orientation to his work at Candler. Lambelet offers…
PHONE404.727.1820
Bernadette Naro
Formation Communities Program Coordinator
Bernadette Naro 16T is no stranger to intentional communities. She was raised in the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, North Carolina, where she and her family provided hospitality to women and children in crisis, and attempted to live into Matthew 25, and practice the corporate works of mercy. Following her undergraduate career, she participated in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which brought her to Atlanta, and eventually led her to study at Candler. She has worked as a…