Case Studies_WIP — Wilderness Formation

In 1989, Richard and Donna Dahlstrom founded Alaythia Fellowship, a small Bible school in the North Cascades of Washington State. The classroom was the mountains. The texts were Scripture and creation, taught together. People came from cities to learn. They left changed. Over the decades that followed, Richard developed what would become the Ancient Paths curriculum: a framework for Christian formation in the wilderness rooted in rites of passage, intentional solitude, the convergence of creation and text, and the conviction that God still speaks through the wild places God made.
This wasn’t theory. It was practice. With urban people who’d never spent a night on a mountain. With pastors looking for renewal. With seekers whose faith had run dry in the city and needed the silence to hear God again.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

A new chapter, with the old roots intact.

On September 20, 2021, John Wayne Seitzler was voted in as Executive Director of Alaythia Fellowship. The organization had been quieter for some years. The vision hadn’t gone anywhere. It needed someone to carry it into a new season.

John Wayne renamed the work Wilderness Formation, with Richard’s blessing, to make the mission immediately legible to churches that had never heard of Alaythia. he brought his own experience to work: sea kayaking expeditions, mountain guide teams, and a current role as Pastor of Wilderness Ministry at Bethany Community Churh in Seattle.

The renewal kept the substance the same. The Ancient Paths curriculum. Richard’s theology. The Conviction that wilderness is one of God’s primary classrooms. What changed was the reach: a focused effort to equip churches and faith communities across the country to build thriving wilderness ministries of their own.

TWO GENERATIONS

The curriculum was developed by Richard. The program was built together.

Richard Dahlstrom developed the Ancient Paths curriculum across decades of guiding leaders, congregations, and seekers into the mountains. John Wayne Seitlzer helped build it into the program it is today, sharpening the trip systems, the risk-management practice, the leader-development pipeline, and the way it lands in a local church context.

Today, Richard continues to teach alongside John Wayne at the annual Ancient Paths Certification Week at Snoqualmie Pass and continues to write at his long-running publication, Spirit Soul Body, now on Substack.

This is a lineage, not a brand. The frameworks didn’t come from a textbook. They were forged across two generations of real ministry, in real terrain, with real people, season after season.

THEOLOGY OF WILDERNESS

We believe faith is an experience, not just a set of doctrines. Christ longs to reveal Himself through the text of God’s good creation.

Christ longs to take us, and our communities, into a new depth of relationship through formative experiences in the outdoors.

READ OUR FULL THEOLOGY

A NOTE ON BETHANY

Practice, not partnership.

John Wayne serves as Pastor of Wilderness Ministry at Bethany Community Church in Seattle. Bethany Community Church, Wilderness Community Church, and Wilderness Formation are independent organizations. The relationship is one of practice, not partnership. Bethany is where John Wayne’s wilderness ministry work lives day-to-day, and many of the rhythms we teach at WF are tested there first in weekly, year-round practice.

That feedback loop, of train, test, refine, train again, keeps the curriculum honest. It also means everything WF teaches has been used recently, in a real congregation, with real people, by the person teaching it.

TEAM & BOARD

The people behind Wilderness Formation.

A small team carrying a deep lineage forward.

STAFF

FOUNDERS & EMERITUS BOARD

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We at Wilderness Formation acknowledge that we work and play on ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, people who are still here. We express our respect and gratitude for our indigenous siblings and their Elders and for their care and protection of our shared lands and waterways.

ORGANIZATION DETAILS

501(c)(3) Nonprofit

Legal Name

Doing Business As

EIN

Headquarters

Founded

Renewed as Wilderness Formation

Alaythia Fellowship

Wilderness Formation

91-1461881

Seattle, WA

1989, as Alaythia Fellowship

2021

Want to bring this work to your church or community?

Two ways forward: a Discovery Call for churches and ministries, or registration for the next Ancient Paths Certification Week cohort.

BOOK A 15-MIN CALL

AP CERT WEEK

FOR CHURCHES

Our Approach

Wilderness Ministry Training

Ancient Paths Cert Week

Case Studies

ABOUT

Our Story

Team & Board

Resources

Give

CONNECT

Book a Call

info@wildernessformation.org

Instagram

Newsletter

Contact

Wilderness Formation is the working name of Alaythia Fellowship, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Executive Director John Wayne Seitzler also serves as Pastor of Wilderness Ministry at Bethany Community Church in Seattle.

Designed in the field.

WILDERNESS FORMATION

Equipping churches and faith communities to build thriving wilderness ministries.