Phil Cole

Philip Cole

Certified Spiritual Director with CCPC Global

Master of Arts – Counselling from Providence Seminary

Bachelor of Arts – Sociology from Waterloo University

Bachelor of Theology – from Emmanuel Bible College

Bachelor of Religious Education – from Emmanuel Bible College

Member of Tyndale Association of Spiritual Directors and the Evangelical Association of Spiritual Directors.

Bio

I was born in 1958 in the same city as I currently live, which is Woodstock, Ontario. My church affiliation has always been with the Fellowship Baptist churches of Canada, but don’t let that scare you. Pick any Evangelical statement of faith, and that is pretty much how I will align myself with the church. What you really need to know, is that I believe the Bible to be God’s spoken word to man on how to succeed in life, and how to discover purpose and direction for living within the community of this world. I also believe that God wants to actually unite His Spirit with our spirit so that we can be connected to Him in a similar way that Jesus was connected to the Father when He walked on this earth.

In my career life, I have been a pastor for 20 years and I have also worked in social housing for a little longer. Before that, I have worked in retail, camp ministry and house construction. So, I have a fairly diverse experience pool that contributes to my understanding of life at work.

In 1985 I married Carol, a beautiful young woman who I had met at Waterloo University. In our first 5 years of marriage we lived at Sunnybrae Bible Camp in British Columbia, which is where I worked as the Camp director. It was also in British Columbia where our 2 daughters, Alison and Emily were born.

In 2008 I graduated from Providence Seminary with a degree in counselling. Shortly after that I began working with the county in a program to help men who had been charged with abuse. At the same time, I noticed that God had been bringing a number of single women into our church who were coming out of abusive relationships. So, one day I gathered these ladies together and out of that meeting came the idea for developing an organization to help women of abuse. This became known as New Hope Family Ministries. It was from working with that ministry that I decided to write my first book “Discovering A More Intimate Response” (you can discover more about that book in the resource tab).

In 2014 I began to discover the insights of Spiritual Formation. As the pastor of discipleship in our church, it was not uncommon for a church member to meet me in my office for the purpose of sharing with me how dry their spiritual life had become. Their connection with God seemed lifeless and routine, their spiritual growth had plateaued and was struggling to survive in a spiritual wilderness. How was I to help, especially when in many ways I could resonate with their experience? Then one morning, the librarian from our church introduced me to a novel, which revealed to me to the exercises of spiritual formation. What I discovered was that spiritual formation was reintroducing important spiritual exercises which had been thrown out with the bathwater, when the evangelicals separated themselves from the other Christian denominations. Exercises of prayer, designed to help meditate on Scripture and discern the will of God.

In 2017 I went back to school (Tyndale Seminary) to discover more about Spiritual Formation and to train to become a Spiritual Director. During this time, I began to introduce what I was learning to my congregation and was excited to discover that those who were willing to allow themselves to come under the guidance of my Spiritual Direction were experiencing a new awakening in their connection with God. They were now much more attentive to God’s leading in their life and it was making a noticeable difference in how they interacted with family and community. The Biblical knowledge that was in their head was suddenly more closely connected to the faith of their heart.

What can I offer to you through Solid Roots Spiritual Enrichment Ministries?