The Saint Aidan Fellowship

The Saint Aidan Fellowship is a ten-month experience of committed formation with the aim to deepen a life of contemplation and conformity to Christ. The Fellowship emphasizes Holy Eucharist, the Daily Office, and Personal Devotions in its rhythms. Fellows pray, eat, study, worship, and serve together, alongside the life of Holy Spirit Anglican Church, ordering their lives around Jesus Christ for their own benefit and for the life of the world.

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Rule of Life

The heart of The St. Aidan Fellowship is a common Rule of Life—an intentional commitment that guides our shared habits and practices as followers of Jesus. As part of this Rule, you will gather each weekday for Morning Prayer according to the Book of Common Prayer. You will participate in the weekly worship and parish life of Holy Spirit Anglican Church. You will cultivate Sabbath rest each Sunday, stepping away from ordinary work, technology, and social media in order to be renewed by the Lord. And you will meet monthly with a Spiritual Director, allowing regular opportunities to attend to the work of God in your everyday life and participate more fully in what he is doing.

Shared Life

From mid-August to mid-May, St. Aidan Fellows will participate in daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythms for 10–months that cultivate transformative friendships and forge genuine friendships in Christ. Monday through Friday, you and your cohort will gather for Morning Prayer (the Daily Office from The Book of Common Prayer). This office takes you through Confession of Sin, recitation of the Psalms, an Old Testament and New Testament lesson, the Apostles’ Creed, Lord’s Prayer, Collects (prayers) for various sorts of needs in the world and in the Church, a time to offer our own personal prayers to the Lord, and singing a song/hymn to the Lord. One evening each week, St. Aidan Fellows will gather for Fellowship by sharing a meal, engaging in conversation around the table, talk about what’s happening in your lives, and encouraging and praying for one another. Each semester, you and your cohort will participate in a retreat at Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, CA. This extended time in a monastery allows you to slow down, encounter God, and pray with one another in a beautiful and secluded house of prayer.

Theological Study

St. Augustine of Hippo famously stated, si comprehendis, non est Deus, in Sermon 117 commenting on John 1:1 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,”). Augustine stated, “If you comprehend, it is not God.” God is beyond our comprehension and our language, yet he desires that we speak to him and about him in prayer and in theology. Therefore, as human beings, we will always be growing in theological study knowing God and being known by him. Over ten months, you will immerse yourself in the history of the Church and her theologians and saints–seeking wisdom from men and women who have gone before us. The St. Aidan Fellowship offers a St. Aidan Course of Readings with the guidance of a team of instructors, you will learn to think with the Church. We will consider how Christians have thought about these sorts of theological questions:

“How should we read Scripture?”
How ought we to relate to society in a secular age?
What does it mean to be an embodied creature of God?
What difference does the Incarnation (the Word became Flesh) make in the Christian life?
Why is the Church necessary to the Christian Life?

You will read the Patristics such as Cyprian of Carthagge, Origen, Augustine of Hippo, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Dante, George Herbert, Julian Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Dorothy Sayers, Alexander Schmemann, and C.S. Lewis. You will grow and deepen your life in Christ as you listen to the wisdom of the Church.

Vocational Discernment

Who am I? What is God calling me to?

All of us make two errors when it comes to vocational discernment. We assume that vocation equals occupation (What career will I do in the future?), and we assume that discernment equals decision–making (Which graduate school should I apply to?). As a result, we speak about “discerning our vocations” and what we really mean is “making ideal decisions about our future occupations.”

The St. Aidan Fellowship wants to reframe Vocational Discernment around the following definitions:

The Christian Vocation | All Christians are called to God (the call of discipleship, Follow Me). All other callings and responsibilities are secondary. This primary calling should shape all of our relationships, roles, jobs, dreams, visions, and goals. The primary re-orientation we will assist fellows in their vocational discernment is to ask each one, “What is your calling to Jesus?”
Discernment | This is part of the Christian life and it requires prayer in which we look for where God is working in us, in others, in the church, and in the world. We seek to do what God is doing with him. Discernment is about becoming more awake to recognize the voice of God as he speaks to us, seeking how to live every part of our lives in response to God’s call.

Our Fellows program seeks to foster this kind of vocational discernment. We are not primarily searching for the answers to our questions, rather these ten months will (God willing!) shape you and place you in a more faithful position to hear what God is calling you to be and do. We will offer you a one-on-one meeting with a spiritual director (a priest or a trained spiritual director), a life coach, and a mentor to help facilitate this growth in listening and awareness to God. Spiritual disciplines (guided by our St. Aidan Rule of Life) will allow you to participate in your primary vocation to follow Jesus by the Holy Spirit to the honor and glory of God the Father.

Our hope is for every St. Aidan Fellows to discern and deepen their vocation and calling to be lifelong followers of Jesus Christ.

Testimonials

"I genuinely think the St. Aidan Fellowship is such a cool idea. One of the hardest transitions for many young adults is moving from college, where faith, community, and mentorship are often readily available, into post-graduate life, where those things can suddenly feel much harder to find and maintain. I think creating a space where young adults can intentionally deepen their relationship with Christ while building authentic Christian community is incredibly valuable, and something i wish i had fresh out of undergrad. I especially appreciated the emphasis on a Common Rule of Life, daily prayer, theological study, spiritual direction, and fellowship. The vision feels both rooted in historic Christian tradition and practical for the challenges young adults face today. I can see how this type of intentional formation could be life-giving for people who are looking for deeper discipleship after college."

Megan, PLNU Physician Assistant Graduate Student

“I am delighted by the launch of The St. Aidan Fellowship and am thrilled to witness the work of the Holy Spirit through this community. The St. Aidan Fellowship is committed to deep spiritual formation through pursuing a common rule of life, and in a time of ever-increasing anxiety, isolation and confusion, this fellowship could not be more timely. Its program will engage in core practices-such as daily prayer, theological study, Sunday worship, and more-that have been essential to my own faith journey and continue to be rhythms that shape my life with Christ. Though we live in a culture experiencing fragmentation and superficiality, there is a generation seeking to not simply know the way of Jesus Christ, but to live it. I wholeheartedly support the heart and vision of The St. Aidan Fellowship and encourage others to partner with it in this pivotal work."

Tori, PLNU Alumna

Weekly Rhythm

Monday–Friday | Morning Prayer (7AM–7:30AM: Meet at DCBC Sanctuary to pray the Daily Office)

Saturdays | Once per month, we enjoy a special Saturday Seminar at a local pub in San Diego where we invite anyone interested in the San Diego area to hear about these kinds of topics: Digital Technology and the Soul; Vocational Discernment; Wisdom in Proverbs; Learning How to Pray; Why Every Christian Should be a Theologian; Beyond Burnout; How (Not) To Be Secular; Wisdom and AI; The Four Themes in C.S. Lewis; Irenaeus & Human Flesh; and more!

Sundays | The St. Aidan Fellowship takes Rest very seriously. Sundays are days of rest for Fellows, and we commit to a Sabbath practice of ceasing from work, our iPhones or Androids, our social media, and technology so that we are reminded by God that we are not what our digital devices tell us we are!

Tuesday | Fellowship Meal (5:30PM–8:30PM) at a Host Family home. We’ll eat and drink together as a cohort and share our stories with one another.

Thursday | Theological Study (6PM–8PM). St. Aidan Fellows will jump into the Course of Study & Readings to practice learning the richness of the Christian theological tradition in a seminar and dialogue format with a theological instructor.

Prayer | You’ll end each day by praying the Daily Evening Prayer or Compline from The Book of Common Prayer on your own or with one another on Tuesdays & Thursdays

Reading & One–on–Ones | The St. Aidan Fellowship invites fellows to devote significant time to reading the books and not asking ChatGPT to offer a summary of the core themes of the book. Rather, we believe that reading is becoming a lost skill and craft in this secular age in America, and we desire to recover and instill the practice of slowing down to read. Yes, you will spend hours reading and wrestling to figure out how to understand the content, and you may feel dumb for not understanding, but we believe that this journey of wrestling and struggling to understand is so good for our souls. St. Aidan Fellowship will partner you with a team of mentors from Holy Spirit Anglican Church (including a lay mentor, a spiritual director, and a priest) where you will meet with them about once a month for guidance, instruction, and friendship.

Employment | The St. Aidan Fellowship exists in San Diego, and we recognize the high cost of living that all of us pay in order to live here. We encourage all Fellows to work a part-time or full-time job in order to pay for rent, food, and to build a life in San Diego. The St. Aidan Fellowship can offer housing, a room for rent, or connections to housing options, if you desire to move to San Diego for this program. We have a dream in the future to offer a St. Aidan Fellows House where fellows can live together in San Diego while they are Fellows in this program for a year.

Who was Saint Aidan?

St. Aidan of Lindisfarne (590–651 A.D.) was described by the Venerable Bede as being “a man of outstanding gentleness, holiness, and moderation.” King Oswald of Northumbria desired that his pagan people would convert to Christianity, so he asked the Irish presbyters to send him a bishop whose teaching and ministry would convert the English people. His request was granted when they sent him Bishop Aidan, and the King appointed the island of Lindisfarne to be his see. The island of Lindisfarne was surrounded by sea twice a day like an island, and twice a day the tide ebbs away to connect it to the mainland. A rhythm of evangelism and sabbath was ordered by the natural tides of creation in the life of St. Aidan.

The Irish fathers originally sent King Oswald another bishop, but that bishop had no success in his preaching the gospel to the English. They refused to listen to him and he returned home defeated. They held a conference to decide the next steps, and then Aidan step forward and said to the priest, “Brother, it seems to me that you were too severe on your ignorant hearers. You should have followed the practice of the Apostles, and begun by giving them the milk of simpler teaching, and gradually nourished them with the word of God until they were capable of greater perfection and able to follow the loftier precepts of Christ.” After this wise comment, they witnessed that God gave to Aidan to virtue of discretion, the mother of virtues; therefore, they consecrated him as bishop and sent him to preach the Gospel.

St. Aidan evangelized the English people by founding numerous churches, schools, and monasteries, and his life became an inspiration to all his students. He fasted from food on every Wednesday and Friday until 3PM (the hour when our Lord died on the cross); he evangelized and instructed people for Baptism and Confirmation; he taught people (clergy, monks, and lay-folk) how to read the Scriptures and to pray the Psalms; he chose to walk on foot rather than ride his horse; he ransomed slaves from slavery then ordained them to the priesthood after years of education; he persuaded the wealthy to be generous to the poor; he prayed for miracles and God answered him; and his way of life lasted for centuries after his death.

The St. Aidan Fellowship desires to cultivate something deeper that will last a lifetime and beyond ourselves. We will continue to pray that the grace and charism given to St. Aidan of Lindisfarne would be given by the Holy Spirit to every St. Aidan Fellow for the life of the world and renewal of the church catholic. We pray that the St. Aidan Fellowship will bless all churches in San Diego and leave an indelible mark on Christianity for years to come like St. Aidan of Lindisfarne.

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