Centre for Practical Theology

Bringing together people, passion and practice

Welcome to CPT

In 2025, CPT celebrates a remarkable milestone: 10 years of fostering connection, learning, and spiritual growth.

Over the past decade, more than 1000 pilgrims have travelled with us to sacred sites across Spain, the Holy Land, Greece, and beyond.

More than 75 teens have found deeper meaning through our Confirmation events, deepening their faith journeys.

Through our partnerships with Huron and VST, many have continued on to MDiv studies or the Huron Certificate. We have also supported 10 people as they studied for a certificate in United Church Worship, Preaching, and Pastoral Care, and we are preparing to launch our new Certificate in Sacramental Elders Studies. Our Licensed Lay Worship Leader program has welcomed 12 graduates who continue to serve and strengthen their communities.

We also hosted the Inviting Circle, a biweekly gathering for congregational leaders, offering continuing education, shared learning, and worship.

CPT has been proud to sponsor the Lester Randall Preaching Fellowship in Toronto, supporting preaching excellence across the church.

Nearly 3000 people across Canada have taken part in our ReVITALize events, creating spaces filled with renewal, learning, and community.

Our Fairmont campus continues to flourish, a vibrant worshipping community with weekly gatherings and a thriving garden that supports the London area.

CPT also travelled through Northern Ontario on a congregational listening and encouragement tour, meeting with communities, hearing their stories, and supporting their ongoing ministry.

As we move into our next decade, CPT will begin offering Pilgrimage Studies, a natural extension of the work we have been building over the years. This new focus reflects who we are becoming, a community shaped by experience, learning, and the movement of people across sacred landscapes. Pilgrimage Studies will allow us to deepen the conversations we have already started, broaden the ways we teach and engage, and welcome more people into the shared journey of exploring faith.

Here’s to 10 years and all that comes next.

New Certificate Program

The Certificate in Pilgrimage Studies is a new collaborative program developed by the Centre for Practical Theology (CPT) in partnership with Huron University’s Faculty of Theology. Rooted in academic rigor and lived spiritual practice, this certificate invites participants into a rich exploration of pilgrimage as both a historical tradition and a contemporary spiritual discipline.

This program emerged through shared conversations between CPT and Huron around the growing interest in embodied, experiential forms of theological learning. Together, they envisioned a program that would bridge classroom study with lived experience, offering participants space to reflect, learn, and engage in pilgrimage not only as a concept, but as a practice that shapes faith, community, and vocation.

Taught by The Rev. Jeff Crittenden, DMin, PhD, the certificate allows participants to explore the history of pilgrimage across multiple traditions and contexts, while also engaging questions of meaning, movement, place, and spiritual transformation in contemporary life.

A distinctive feature of this certificate is the Pilgrimage Practicum. In addition to online learning, participants are invited into an embodied experience of pilgrimage, allowing learning to unfold through walking, reflection, and integration. This practicum grounds theological study in lived experience, aligning with CPT’s commitment to practical and accessible theology.

Program Format

The Certificate in Pilgrimage Studies is offered as a live online program, making it accessible to participants from a wide range of locations and contexts.

Live on Zoom (Mondays)
February 23; March 2, 9, 16, 23
7–10 pm EST

Registration

Early Bird Registration: $650 (until February 7)
Regular Registration: $750 (after February 7)

This certificate is ideal for anyone interested in deepening their understanding of pilgrimage as a meaningful spiritual practice. There are no prerequisites required to enroll. All who are curious about pilgrimage and experiential theological learning are welcome.

Announcing the Crittenden Pilgrimage Bursary

The Crittenden Pilgrimage Bursary was established by The Rev. Jeff Crittenden and Katherine Crittenden in partnership with the United Church of Canada Foundation. Created to mark their marriage and shared commitment to pilgrimage, the bursary reflects the central role that pilgrimage has played in shaping their lives, leadership, and spiritual practice.

As longtime pilgrims and leaders, Jeff and Katherine have experienced pilgrimage as a source of clarity, transformation, and deep belonging. This bursary was created out of gratitude for those experiences and a desire to support others who feel called to undertake their own pilgrim journeys.

The bursary provides financial support for individuals engaging in human-powered pilgrimages, including walking, cycling, paddling, wheelchairing, and other embodied forms of travel. Each year, recipients are selected in collaboration with the United Church of Canada Foundation, supporting pilgrims who are ready to deepen their lives through this sacred and transformative practice.

The response to the bursary has been extraordinary. An initial fundraising goal of $25,000 has been exceeded, with more than $45,000 raised to date. This generosity ensures that the Crittenden Pilgrimage Bursary will support pilgrims for years to come, helping make pilgrimage more accessible to a wider community.

Those who wish to support this work are invited to contribute or share the opportunity with others. Every gift, large or small, helps open the way for someone to undertake a meaningful journey. All donations receive a tax receipt.

Donations can be made through CanadaHelps

Together, we walk alongside fellow pilgrims, creating pathways of transformation, step by step.

Leisure Resurrected

Four years of hard work and research has culminated into Leisure Resurrected written by our Co-Founder and Director, Jeff Crittenden.

As the church emerges from the impact of COVID, how will it reimagine its mission? With all the disruption COVID caused comes an opportunity for congregations. How will the local church organize itself, engage with the neighborhood and world, and offer pastoral care to a planet dealing with the significant issues heightened during COVID? Returning to old patterns of behavior is a wasted chance. A theological opportunity for the church lies in rediscovering the classical aim of leisure.

The early church during the first two centuries offers us an understanding of leisure quite unique from the dominant expressions of leisure, such as Greek schole, Roman otium, and the Jewish Sabbath. By exploring early Christian practices, we can find insights about leisure for mission today. These practices include setting aside a single day of the week to worship, sharing in a common meal open to all, and, following the meal, incorporating into nonwork time care and engagement in the health and vitality of the community in the name of Jesus Christ. The followers of Jesus were consistent, if extraordinary, in meeting weekly, on the Lord's Day, to worship, eat together, and go out into the neighbourhood to live out their faith.

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