About Chelsea
Chelsea resides on the Gold Coast and works at a university, providing high-level consultation and advice on strategic projects related to teaching and learning. As a tertiary educator for the past 10 years, she has helped many academics to translate theory into praxis, whether in business, education or event management. She loves to create opportunities that foster personal growth, transformation and restoration in secular and Christian settings and her Christian faith is the prime motivator for this.
In 2018, Chelsea received her PhD from the University of Queensland. Her research explored the restorative potential, experiences and outcomes of spiritual retreats for Christian clergy across four mainline denominations and she has published several academic journal articles. Just as people take an annual vacation, she believes there is a desperate need in the 21st century for people to have an annual Christian spiritual retreat where they can refocus and be refreshed and restored. Chelsea is passionate about reclaiming spiritual and wellness retreats to be Christ-centred and informed by evidence-based practice. She wants the retreats she designs to engage those who are spiritually searching – whether inside or outside the walls of the church – and provide a space for them to experience refreshment, restoration and transformation in Christ Jesus.
Fellowship project: ‘Designing restorative retreats that are Christ-centred and evidence-based
Chelsea’s Summer Fellowship project is to design and promote two restorative retreat programs that reach Christians and non-Christians with the proclamation and experience of the Good News of Jesus Christ in the power of God the Holy Spirit. This project is motivated by an awareness of the impact of today’s culture being so fast-paced and technology-dependent, full of constant information-overload, interruptions, responsibilities and deadlines competing for attention. A restorative retreat facilitates an intentional ceasing of all work and distractions and fosters spiritual, social, cognitive and emotional benefits.
The Summer Fellowship will enable the culmination of years of formal study, experience and observations to fuse together into the creation of two retreat packages that can be delivered in multiple contexts and places. Chelsea will design the retreats based on the best-practice principles emerging from her doctoral research which identified the activities, experiences and attributes that lead to immediate and enduring restorative outcomes. She will organise all the logistical and marketing elements related to implementing the retreat during the Fellowship. In the months following the Summer Fellowship, Chelsea plans to deliver the two retreats she designs in Queensland and New South Wales.