Minnesota Lutheran Via de Cristo Guidelines

The Minnesota Via de Cristo is governed by an elected council of 12 laypersons and 2 clergy. The Council has established the following guidelines:

• Via de Cristo is an ecumenical Ministry. Members of any Christian church in Minnesota are eligible to participate provided that a pastor from that church attends a weekend first.
• The first attending pastor is required to have one lay couple from that church attend at the same time for the purpose of establishing community.
• Via de Cristo is open to both single and married people. However, both husband and wife must attend the same pair of weekends.
• Weekends fill quickly. Clergy from churches which have not participated in the past are given preference in the application selection.
• The application fee is $35.00 per person.
• The weekends are operated in pairs. Men attend the first weekend and women attend one week later. Both weekends are held at the same site.
• Weekenders and Via de Cristo team members live together as a community in a host church.
• The weekends begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and end at approximately 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Complete attendance is required for the entire weekend.
• Each weekend is presented by a team; which has gathered and trained together for that weekend only. The same format and time schedule is followed for each weekend.
• Once a church has participated it can continue to send both lay and clergy to weekends. These applications will be processed through an allocation system.
• A person should be over 21 years old to attend a Via de Cristo weekend. An exception is made after discussions with the sponsor and/or Pastor.
• All Council decisions will be by simple majority.
• Selection of Rector and Rectora is the responsibility of the Council.
• Selection of dates and locations of Via de Cristo weekends is the responsibility of the Council.
• The full set of guidelines are available in Word and PDFformat.