Spiritual services
At its heart, spirituality reflects our human longing to find meaning and make sense of our place in life.
Spirituality
To access Spiritual Care services remotely during the COVID-19 crisis, please email or call the office directly and request an intake appointment, as a staff member is not in the office at present. Support is being offered over the phone.
Please be advised that Spiritual Care programming and in-person gatherings have been postponed at this time. Updates and changes to event scheduling will be posted when campus life returns to normal.
As humans, we’re all trying to discover purpose and meaning in our lives and relationships, and a sense of hope as we long to transcend the many challenges we face in life.
As a student you’re likely in the process of shaping, defining and adopting your own values and beliefs. This is a time of self-focus and for good reason: you’re seeking a trajectory for your life. You’re looking for fulfillment and direction in areas such as identity, career, significant relationships and independence. In short, you’re adopting a framework of meaning for your life — a spirituality.
Wisdom Wednesdays
An Inter-faith Speakers' Series.
Over the next six weeks, we will address three challenges that threaten us all:
- Despair,
- Climate Change and
- Racism.
We will dialogue and listen to diverse ways we can respond to these through:
- Hope
- Commitment to climate and
- Anti-racism action.
We will pause. We will hear from community leaders representing a diversity of worldviews and spiritual traditions. We will reflect on what we believe and what we can learn from others. And finally, we will consider how we can respond more wisely and compassionately to these challenges.
Wisdom Wednesdays | An Inter-faith Speakers' Series
Wisdom Wednesday | Shabbat: A Potential Remedy for the COVID-19 Weary Soul
The latest Wisdom Wednesday's session, an Interfaith Speakers' Series from UM's Spiritual Care covering pertinent issues facing the world today.
Wisdom Wednesday | Hope I
Hear how Ininew-Cree, Lutheran and Sikh community leaders draw wisdom from their traditions.
Wisdom Wednesday | Hope II
Hear how Therevada Buddhist, Modern-Orthodox Jewish and Muslim community leaders draw wisdom from their traditions to actively cultivate hope and counter despair.
Wisdom Wednesday | Climate Action I
Listen to the guiding values of Anishinaabe, Mennonite, and Humanist leaders that motivate and energize their response to climate change.
Wisdom Wednesday | Climate Action II
Listen to the guiding values of Jewish Reform, Muslim, and Jodo-Shinsu Buddhist leaders that motivate and energize their response to climate change.
Wisdom Wednesdays | Anti Racism Action I
Spiritual care
Sometimes periods filled with possibility and potential also come with apprehension or struggle. It might feel like there are more questions than answers.
What do you do when your values and aspirations no longer make sense? How do you deal with grief, fears and losses along the way?
Spiritual care can help you adapt to new or complicated realities and reframe your identity and values in valuable ways.
We offer one-on-one emotional and spiritual support to help you cope with roadblocks.
Spiritual care is available to all, whether you identify as spiritual, atheist, religious or agnostic. We recognize, affirm and work with your existing values and beliefs.
Meet our spiritual care coordinator
Our spiritual care coordinator, Edgar French, has a master of arts in theology, is a registered member of the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care and serves on the provincial executive board.
Edgar has had ten years of ministerial experience, providing spiritual support to individuals and families of all backgrounds and beliefs, to both the local parish and the neighbouring community at large.
In the clinical setting as a spiritual care provider and a member of the clinical interdisciplinary team, Edgar has provided spiritual care to patients facing medically-related grief and loss, particularly patients dealing with end of life matters. On campus, Edgar helps students cope with loss, crises and transitions by assessing and addressing how their spirituality provides resilience.
His method of care is respectful of the uniqueness of ideals and life-styles, including religious affinities, which shape student identity. His method draws from the wisdom of care that affirms health as not simply the absence of a physical or psychological ailment, but a person's ability to find meaning, hope and purpose in the face of suffering.
Spiritual care team
The spiritual care team is comprised of a number of chaplains, representing various faith traditions, and Indigenous Elders. Each spiritual care provider is an ordained or appointed professional in recognized religious bodies of Canada who have been called or assigned to work at UM in order to provide ministry to the university.
What we do
- We offer a variety of services that are open to the entire university community.
- We provide an open-door counselling service on all religious and personal issues.
- We develop seminars and programs on current religious, social, and ethical issues.
- We provide a non-threatening environment where students and university personnel can address basic questions of identity and meaning for their lives.
Spiritual Care general office
102 Y, University Centre
Sabina Loewen
Email: spiritualcare@umanitoba.ca
Phone: 204-474-8721
Office hours: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Each chaplain is also involved with his or her own denominational community offering worship opportunities, student activities, personal support, and programs that are reflective of their traditions. Above all, we work to be available to members of the university community by meeting with them in the ordinary course of their campus activities.
Weekly and monthly events are posted on our Facebook page.
Jewish
Hillel Office
hillel@jewishwinnipeg.org
Office hours: open daily except holidays
Hillel Winnipeg is a student-run organization open to all individuals of college or university age. Under the leadership of an elected student executive, Hillel Winnipeg offers an array of social, cultural, and community programs for Jewish Students.
Hillel Winnipeg is an affiliate member of Hillel International and is the representative and programmatic body of over 700 Jewish university students in Winnipeg. Hillel maintains over 400 campuses in Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, Europe, and South America.
General membership
Hillel Winnipeg has no formal membership. Any member of the university community is eligible to attend or participate in Hillel Winnipeg programs and activities. Hillel Winnipeg runs a variety of innovative programs for everyone.
Hillel Winnipeg counselling service
Hillel Winnipeg provides short-term counselling for any university student, whether there is a problem with family, a roommate, a spouse or significant other, the law, red tape with the university, grief, anger, religious questions, depression, or academic stress. Our directors are consistently available to help.
Lutheran
Michelle Collins
mcollins@elcic.ca
Mennonite
Inter-Mennonite Campus Ministry (Menno Office)
Rev. Mark von Kampen, BES, M.L.Arch., M. Div. - Chaplain
mvonkampen@gmail.com
Website
Office hours: open daily except holidays
Chaplain's hours: Tues 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (can change if meetings, holidays, etc.)
Why visit the Chaplain's office?
- community
- questions
- personal
- worship and discussion
- values
- crisis and stress
Events
- Menno Talk: weekly discussion forum
- Chewy Chewsday: monthly free lunch together with students from other chaplains' offices
- Joint Worship -- quarterly worship services
- PB Jam Day -- annual community service events
- Interfaith Shabbat -- interaction with other faith groups
Inter-Mennonite Chaplaincy Association
The Inter-Mennonite Chaplaincy Association is a partnership of three Mennonite Church conferences working together to provide a Mennonite presence and chaplain on the University of Manitoba campus.
The church conferences involved in this Association are:
- Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference
- Evangelical Mennonite Conference
- Mennonite Church Manitoba
Inter-Mennonite Chaplaincy Association objectives:
- Provide a Mennonite Christian ministry, that relates to a ministry, that relates to a diverse, multi-faith campus, environment
- Service as a Christian resource which invites relationship and encourages growth in discipleship among students and staff
- Offer pastoral care for students and staff
- Advocate for a safe, respectful campus environment
Ukrainian Orthodox
Fr. Roman Bozyk
Room 102 C, University Centre
Thursdays only, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (can change if meetings, holidays, etc.)
Please note: Room 102 C is the main office of Edgar French, spiritual care coordinator, except on Thursdays
Pentecostal
Pathfinder Christian Ministry (PCM)
Chaplain:
Dr. Elmer Chen
M.A. (couns., theol.), PH.D. (theol.)
Location: TBD
Mobile: 204-380-3932
Email: chen@apprenticeu.ca
Please contact Elmer for an appointment, or if you are interested in any of our events and services.
You are invited into this safe and welcoming community, to be yourself as we learn to love one another and to encounter Christ in one another through the Holy Spirit.
How we serve students:
- Community – Find friends and Christian community among fellow students.
- Bible learning and Christian thought – Engage in worship and honest conversations around a variety of topics and texts as we seek to cultivate a Spirit-shaped intellectual life.
- Formation – Receive assistance in spiritual and personal development.
- Pastoral care and friendship through the ups and downs of student life. Whether it’s a small worry or a life-shaking issue, we are here to walk with you through it. Together we seek the wisdom and love of Christ that overcomes the pressure, the pain and the shame.
- A safe place in which you are respected and accepted as you are … and invited to become your best self.
Events
- Weekly Bible Study/Community Group
- Occasional Gathering Events with Food and Fun included
- Other Informal Gatherings
The PCM vision for Christian spirituality
This is not an “entrance requirement.” You are loved and honoured right where you are. But we hear the call to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart … soul … mind, and … strength.”
- Passionately pursue Christ in learning to love God and neighbour
- Holistic devotion to the God who owns it all
- Question your assumptions in pursuing God’s truth
- Offer your body as a living sacrifice
- Transformed desires, transformed imagination, transformed character
Pathfinder Christian Ministry seeks to provide community, discipleship, counselling, and learning resources from a Christian perspective, serving students, staff, and faculty from a broad range of backgrounds.
Muslim
Natasha Ali
Natasha.Ali@umanitoba.ca
Phone: 204-474-7980
Call for appointment and hours
Temporary Muslim Prayer Space
The Muslim Prayer Room that was situated in E3-160, Engineering and Information Technology Complex is under renovation until the end of April. In the interim:
- UM Muslim community members are invited to attend Friday Jumma gatherings in room 125, Education Building
- Room 207 in 55 Chancellors Circle (the former Fitzgerald Building) has been reserved for daily prayers during the week
- To get there, enter the building from the front doors, go up one flight of stairs to the foyer, then turn left
- Over the season of Ramadan, Iftar meals will be packaged and made available for pick-up at 55 Chancellors Circle, room 207
Colleges on campus with a chaplaincy
In addition to the chaplains located in UMSU University Centre, three of the colleges on campus also have their own chaplains. To learn more, click the links below to visit each college's website.
Indigenous Elders
Elders-in-Residence provide cultural and spiritual guidance to students and employees of the University of Manitoba. They lead cultural teaching sessions, ceremonies and events on our campuses, and are also available for individual and group consultations by appointment.
Contact us
Fort Garry campus
339B UMSU University Centre (Temporary location)
University of Manitoba (Fort Garry campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6 Canada
To access Spiritual Care services remotely during the COVID-19 crisis, please e-mail or call the office directly and request an intake appointment, as a staff member is not in the office at present. Support is being offered over the phone.
Email or call in advance to confirm appointments.
204-474-8721
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
(closed statutory holidays)
Bannatyne campus
S211 Medical Services Building
University of Manitoba (Bannatyne campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6 Canada
Important Notice: Effective March 17, 2020, Student Services at Bannatyne Campus will be meeting with students and residents through phone and email only. No in-person appointments will be made at this time.
Spiritual Care provides personal counselling services on Bannatyne campus to all Rady Faculty of Health Sciences students.
Call Student Services at Bannatyne Campus office in advance to request an appointment.
204-272-3190
Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.