Clergy Day 2026

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Clergy Day is a time set apart for rest, prayer, and connection. The 2026 gathering will take place at Bellwether Farm on Thursday, October 1, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

A Quiet Day with Brother Keith Nelson
Clergy Day is an optional but encouraged gathering. This year, we’re delighted to be led by Brother Keith Nelson, Brother Superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Br. Keith Nelson is a monk of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, a monastic community for men in the Episcopal Church founded in Oxford, England, in 1866. SSJE Brothers make vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, and live an ordered life of prayer, worship, and service in community. Their ministries include preaching, teaching, spiritual direction and retreat-leading, and the Brothers welcome all to their chapel and guesthouse just outside of Harvard Square.

Br. Keith joined SSJE in 2014 and made his life vows in 2019. He has served as the community’s elected Superior since 2024. He is passionate about sharing Christian contemplative practices as tools for living with faithful attention, intention, and presence, as well as practices and perspectives that awaken us all to conscious kinship with the whole of God’s creation.

Brother Keith will guide us through a quiet day of prayer and reflection, with extended periods of silence and solitude, worship, and time to notice and name the graces of the day. Along the way, he will help us explore the purpose and practice of spiritual retreat—not only as something we experience together at Bellwether, but as a rhythm we can cultivate in our own lives and ministries.

Together, we will consider what a sustainable practice of retreat might look like for each of us, and how we might make space for that practice amid the demands and rhythms of ministry.

Extend Your Time at Bellwether
You are welcome to come for the day or extend your time with an overnight retreat at Bellwether, beginning Wednesday evening, September 30, with dinner at 6:00 p.m. A very limited number of overnight rooms are available, so please register promptly if you would like to stay overnight. The cost for an overnight stay is $95 and includes dinner on the 30th and breakfast on the 1st.

Registration
Advance registration is required for Clergy Day. Because we need to plan carefully for meals, space, and the shape of our time together, we will not be able to accommodate walk-in participants on October 1.

Please register by September 15 if you plan to attend.