Anam Cara CPE Marks One Year of Civilian Clinical Pastoral Education

Meridian, Idaho — September 17, 2026 — The Spiritual Care Collaborative is marking the first anniversary of Anam Cara CPE, which began welcoming civilian students on September 1, 2025, following the expansion of the School of Military Spiritual Formation.

Before Anam Cara, the program operated as the School of Military Spiritual Formation, providing Clinical Pastoral Education designed around the particular needs of military chaplains. As interest grew beyond the military community, Anam Cara CPE was created as a CPE International program serving a wider range of chaplains and spiritual caregivers.

The School of Military Spiritual Formation continued its specialized military mission. Today, SMSF serves military chaplains through both Anam Cara and the Center for Integral Spiritual Formation, its ACPE-accredited sister center, while also offering Spiritual Counseling Education within the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps.

The creation of Anam Cara allowed the program to preserve what had been developed through SMSF while opening CPE to people serving in healthcare, hospice, corrections, congregational ministry, community settings, and other areas of professional spiritual care.

In its first year, Anam Cara has grown into one of CPE International's largest affiliates. At the same time, its students, graduates, educators, and leaders have received national recognition and moved into significant positions of leadership across professional spiritual care and military chaplaincy.

In March, Anam Cara Director Dr. Rick Capezza received the Order of Aaron and Hur, the highest honor presented by the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps to a civilian or non-regimental individual. Capezza was recognized for sustained contributions to Army chaplaincy, including his work educating and developing military chaplains and training more than 1,000 Army National Guard chaplains and instructors.

In April, Matthew Button, a graduate of the School of Military Spiritual Formation, was named an Outstanding Graduate by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, CPE International's accreditor, during DEAC's Centennial Celebration in Washington, D.C.

That same month, Chaplain Justin Lansdowne, an Anam Cara Supervisor-Educator, presented "The Art of Soul Care: Lessons Learned from St. Martin of Tours and Sun Tzu" at the Spiritual Care Association's Caring for the Human Spirit Conference and Westberg Symposium.

In May, former SMSF supervisory student Michael Rivera was named Civilian Chaplain Endorser and Director of Clinical Pastoral Education for International Ministerial Fellowship following his retirement from the U.S. Army after 28 years of military service. When International Ministerial Fellowship later decided to establish its own Clinical Pastoral Education program, Rivera turned to Capezza and Anam Cara for assistance. Anam Cara helped develop the center and provided oversight as IMF pursued recognition through CPE International. Rivera has since returned to Anam Cara as a Training Supervisor-Educator, where he now supervises students and develops new educators through the same community in which he received his own supervisory training.

In August, Lt. William Bevins, another former supervisory student from the School of Military Spiritual Formation, received the Professional Naval Chaplain Excellency Award at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. Bevins also serves as an instructor in the Navy's Pastoral Care Residency program and has returned to Anam Cara as a Training Supervisor-Educator, with particular attention to developing future CPE educators.

September brought two more examples of former students carrying this work forward.

Lt. Col. Lance Sellon, who completed Clinical Pastoral Education through the School of Military Spiritual Formation and later supervisory education through Anam Cara, became State Command Chaplain of the Florida National Guard on September 12. Sellon assumed the position during the Florida National Guard's first Changing of the Stole ceremony, becoming the senior chaplain responsible for religious support and spiritual care for Florida's Soldiers and Airmen.

Sellon has described CPE as one of the most meaningful experiences of his ministry, particularly because of the way it changed his capacity to listen—to God, to his family, to Soldiers, and to people whose faith, experiences, and perspectives differ from his own.

"I learned to be comfortable with discomfort, calm in the face of challenges and confrontations, comforting in others' pain, and how to be still," Sellon said of his experience. "I learned to listen. Then I learned how to listen better."

Also in September, Matthew Button returned to Anam Cara as a Supervisory Education student, beginning his own preparation to become a CPE educator.

There is a pattern in these stories that has become increasingly visible during Anam Cara's first year: students returning as educators, graduates moving into positions of leadership, and people carrying what they learned in CPE into institutions and communities far beyond Anam Cara itself.

That pattern is also shaping what comes next.

As Anam Cara enters its second year, many of the educators involved in building the program are helping launch Sacred Life Seminary, extending the same emphasis on formation into the academic education chaplains need for professional ministry.

Sacred Life is a pathway connected to the Spiritual Care Collaborative through which eligible students may pursue an ATS-accredited Bachelor of Arts or Master of Arts in Leadership, Master of Divinity, or Doctor of Ministry through Kairos University, while working with mentors who understand chaplaincy and professional spiritual care.

For chaplains, that creates the possibility of bringing theological education and Clinical Pastoral Education into the same developmental journey and training community rather than treating academic study, clinical training, mentorship, and professional preparation as separate pieces that have to be assembled through different institutions.

The next chapter is not simply about adding another program, but about creating a more connected way for chaplains to be educated, formed, and accompanied across the course of their vocation.