Students of the Way undergo three primary stages of training: Discipleship (private instruction with a teacher), Fellowship (group classes with peers), and Mentorship (passing on what they learn), adding each onto the next toward the status of KNIGHT.

Read more on what each of these stages look like through the menu above! At each stage, students engage with the philosophies of nobility, the practice of service to our community, and with the spiritual disciplines that tether these all together.

The ultimate goal of our Order is spiritual formation. This sharpening of the soul involves moral formation, training in habits like prayer and service, as well as in the training of our intellects. Dialectical methods (good conversations) bring these truths to the forefronts of our brains in a direct manner. The spiritual life has center stage for us: what we know informs what we do, what we do informs what we believe, and our beliefs inform what we know. Because of this we target each students initial strengths (thought, action, or conviction in the spiritual life) as our tarting place to sharpening the whole soul.

Student’s ranks and progression are accordingly marked by seasons of being poured into by a teacher (discipleship), coming alongside others in practice and communion (fellowship), and finally turning back to take on an apprentice of their own and pass on what they’ve learned (mentorship). In these three arenas, we grow and nurture the whole individual, believing that everyone needs all three of these in order to attain the Knighthood.

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KNIGHTHOOD

This composition of training for CrossSwords students finds its nexus in the image of the KNIGHT. The Knight (essentially: a Black Belt in spiritual formation) is one marked by heroism, grace, humility, conviction, and integrity.  The way to this kind of Knighthood with the whole self: the whole soul. The sharpening of this soul is more than about wielding a body as a weapon… its about wielding their weapons as tools for cultivating nobility in themselves and in their world.