Council Guidelines
The following is a summary of some of the guidelines. The full set of guidelines are available in Word, PDF, or RTF format.
Guideline Summary
The Via de Cristo Council in Minnesota 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 program. Members of any 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 $30.00 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.
- Weekends are held in a host church where all of the participants and Via de Cristo team members live together as a community.
- 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 must be over 21 years old to attend a Via de Cristo weekend. An exception is made for married or engaged couples where one person is less than 21.
- The maximum recommended number of weekenders per weekend is 36.
- All 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.