The mission of the Center for Creative Contemplation (CCC) is to encourage and observe the rhythm of God’s call and our response through contemplative practices (also called spiritual disciplines or practices) and creative response to God’s call. By cultivating the soil of our souls through contemplative practices and encouraging creativity in response to these practices, we prepare to hear God’s call to creative action amid the noisy drone of a hurting, violent world, world desperately in need of creativity. The Center offers and trains groups and individuals in spiritual disciplines that strengthen relationships with the Divine and each other and attune us to the Holy Spirit working in and through us for God’s action in the world. The Center for Creative Contemplation (CCC) provides a space for individual and communal quiet contemplation to discern God’s still, small voice and a place that encourages creativity in response to discerning God’s will. The logo for the Center is a circle formed by the center’s name and tagline. The circle represents the Self that is our true, authentic selves in God. The ladder in the sky represents Jacob’s dream in Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible in which angels traveled up and down the ladder to signify that there is an ongoing dialog between God and humanity if we would stay still long enough to discern it. The waves represent earth as well as the waters of the Holy Spirit flowing in and through us. It also signifies the unconscious, the inner world in which the Spirit speaks to us through dreams, synchronicity, stories, and symbols to awaken us to God’s will for our lives and the path to healing and wholeness. The 3 C’s below the water level represent the CCC’s commitment to inner work through contemplative practices and creativity and to engaging fully in the divine dialog, the creative exchange between God and God’s creation.

Jean Homrighausen is the Director of the CCC. She is an elder, Certified Christian Educator, and candidate for ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She has a Master of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary. Jean’s sense of call is to promote the intersection of two things that have done more to deepen her faith than anything else – creativity and contemplative practices in community. While Jean does not claim to be an artist, she does claim to be a creative made in the image of the Creator. It is not the end-product but the creative process that matters. She invites you to lay aside the notion that creativity is only for the artist. It’s for all of us!

Tara Dalles is the Assistant Director of the CCC, and an elder. Tara grew up hearing the story of her birth as being an answer to prayer. As it is told, her parents said that if God gave them a child they would dedicate them back to God and so Tara’s life has been stamped with God’s seal from her conception forward. Her love for God grew in the loving environment of her childhood church which she still attends today with her husband and two girls. Her personal dedication to Jesus developed after reading through the Bible in a year and finding God more beautiful and lovely than ever before. God has used the scriptures to call her to become a small group leader, elder, seminarian and most recently a spiritual director in training. God has given Tara the gift of coaching and she loves to use this gift to help others continually grow. Specifically, Tara has a passion for helping others develop a personal relationship with God through scripture reading, prayer and other spiritual disciplines.