Becoming A MJB-IFS Partner.

Our goal is to encourage, equip and support a network of Christ-centered spiritual directors who 1) use IFS as a tool of self-awareness for ourselves, and 2) bring the insights and tools of IFS into our work as spiritual directors.

Marty & Sandy Boller live in Iowa City, Iowa – USA, and have been in pastoral ministry for 30+ years, planting and pastoring churches in the Chicago area (1976-1986), Iowa City (1986-1990), and Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1998-2020). Since 2015, they been highly-respected trainers in spiritual direction, working alongside Sustainable Faith School of Spiritual Direction – the largest Christ-centered training school in North America. Marty has written two books on Christian discipleship; The Perfected Self (2002) and The Wisdom of Wimber: As I See It (2014); and has hosted the popular blog: As I See It, found on their website – The Contemplative Activist. ***You can read more here.*** Sandy’s true passion is to be a loving grandmother to our eight adorable grand children – ***all who live in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area.*** Besides their work with Sustainable Faith, Marty & Sandy also serve the larger body of Christ as contemplative coaches, retreat coordinators, and spiritual directors. ***Contact Marty & Sandy here.***

***Check out the Boller’s Sustainable Faith website here.***
***Check out Marty’s popular “As I See It” blog here.***

Fran Lloyd lives in Winchester, Hampshire – England, and her interest in IFS began when she was offering pastoral care in a large (for the UK!) church in the north of England. She found herself walking alongside a number of deeply-wounded folks whose ‘souls’ were disintegrated and overwhelmed. She learned so much about the complexity of our ‘selves’ and how God has equipped us to deal with negative life experiences, pain, and trauma by providing us with a core self and ‘many part-selves’. Fran’s growing understanding of the value of the IFS model was further enhanced when she found herself in therapy, having become overwhelmed by the impacts of my own early life experiences. Alongside this, Fran was training with Sustainable Faith School of Spiritual Direction graduating as a Spiritual Director in May 2023. As IFS (as a tool) became personally significant for her, she began to see how helpful it could be for others as Spiritual Directors. Fran and her husband recently retired from full-time service in the church, and Fran has a passion for leading people into deeper intimacy with God, to know Him and to be known by Him. She loves to accompany individuals on their spiritual journey as they learn to discern the ways God speaks to them and moves in and around them. She also enjoys leading retreats and making resources available for adventurous exploration in prayer, silence and solitude. Fran is a proud mum and grandmother to seven delightful grandchildren, and enjoys walking in nature and writing. Contact Fran here.

In May 2023 – after nearly ten years of successfully training Christ-centered spiritual directors, working alongside Sustainable Faith School of Spiritual Direction – Sandy & I enjoyed the wonderful opportunity to sit with Dr. Frank Rogers for two days of training, learning about his unique approach to bringing the tools of IFS (Internal Family Systems) into spiritual direction. We returned home, excited to practice IFS in our own lives, and much to our surprise, when we mentioned our IFS experience to our son-in-law – a licensed marriage & family EMDR therapist – he, excitedly said, “Dad, IFS is something I’ve used successfully in my therapy practice for years!”

Over the next year, we began gathering all the IFS material we could get our hands on, especially those resources that had been written for Christ-followers who desired to bring the benefits of IFS into their own faith practice. And just as it is in life, once you open your eyes to a new interest, it’s amazing how you see it everywhere!

As Sandy and I became more familiar with the good practices of IFS, we began not only using the tools in our own personal lives, but we began to see “parts” language popping up in nearly every supervision session we conducted with our spiritual direction students. By the spring of 2024, we felt the strong confirmation to step up our dream of taking Frank Roger’s powerful material and see how well we might “experiment” with a small group of our Sustainable Faith graduates, introducing them to the ins and outs of IFS. Over a nine month period (2024-25), we meet for five one-day modules where we covered the basics of IFS, encouraging our students to 1) begin using IFS as a self-awareness tool in their own lives, and 2) begin practicing a better awareness of how IFS might assist them when sitting with others in spiritual direction.

In May 2025, our group of 12 students – and one dedicated co-worker, Fran Lloyd – finished up our ‘experimental” cohort, and we can say, without a doubt, this has been one fruitful season. And, with the full blessing of our friend, Dr. Frank Rogers, we believe that we have the beginnings of a network of Christ-centered spiritual directors who will team together to bring IFS into their spiritual direction tool kits.

That brings us to the fall of 2025 and you…

Over this last year, we have gathered some truly talented spiritual directors who, we believe, God is forming into a small team of like-minded trainers. And, as we mentioned earlier, with the blessing of Dr. Frank Rogers, we are now planning to take his training material, add in other resources, and offer this curriculum to an increasing number of trained spiritual directors in on-line cohorts similar to the one we experienced during the 2024-25 school year. In many ways, we see MJB-IFS as being a wonderful “primer” for those who might want to go on to be trained and certified as a Level One IFS spiritual director, or for those who simply want to have the basics of IFS brought into their personal lives and/or their work in spiritual direction.

If you are interested in hearing more about our vision – which, at this time, includes directors in the USA, the UK and in Canada, we’d love to share more. We’d also like to invite you to become a financial partner in this vision as we get this little MJB-IFS airplane off the ground.