Meet the Trexo Trainers

They’ve got 1,800 years of experience

And they’re here to help you grow in relationship with God.

You don’t have to figure this out alone.

The Trexo Trainers are the Church Fathers and Mothers — the monastics, bishops, mystics, and teachers who received the Practices from the people who knew the people who knew Jesus, and spent their lives living them, wrestling with them, and passing them on.

They know what it feels like when the Practice is hard. They know what it feels like when it starts to change you. They have seen every struggle, every excuse, every moment of breakthrough.

And they have something to say about all of it.

Hear directly from the earliest spiritual directors

Wednesdays at 3:30pm ET, we gather live at Trexo for Coffee with Coaches.

In each session, we sit down with one of the Trainers - drawing on their actual writings, their documented wisdom, their lived experience of the Practices - and interviews them using the same five questions
(usually! Sometimes the Trainer or the topic suggests different questions, but we generally follow this pattern):

Why did you practice this? What difference did it make?
Where do I start?
What did people in your time struggle with?
This is hard. What is your advice?
What will look different in my life if I practice this way?

And each interview closes with a blessing - a direct quote from the Trainer, in their own words, for you.

Join the gym as a paid subscriber and join us for Coffee with Coaches Wednesdays at 3:30pm Eastern.

Already a gym member?

Find your favorite Trainer in the Coffee with Coaches archives:

Coffee with Coaches archive

Meet the Trainers

Each Trainer has a distinct personality and coaching style. Part of the joy of Coffee with Coaches is discovering which ancient voice speaks most directly to you.

Here are some of the Trainers you will meet at Coffee with Coaches:

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) The most influential theologian in Western history — and a man who knew what it meant to struggle.

He was the quintessential ‘bad boy’ of the fourth century - a brilliant rhetorician who lived for a decade in a common-law marriage, fathered a son out of wedlock, and famously spent his early years oscillating between high-society parties and fringe religious cults.
His story is not one of easy piety, but of a grueling, intellectual, and moral struggle that eventually led him from the pursuit of pleasure to the pursuit of the Divine.

Lord, make me chaste… But not yet!

Basil the Great (330-379 AD) Bishop of Caesarea. One of the architects of the Nicene Creed. Founder of the first hospital. A master of the athletic metaphor who understood that askēsis — spiritual training — was the same word used for a gymnast preparing for a race. Rigorous. Precise. Eyes on the prize.

In order to acquire spiritual muscles, you have to go to the spiritual gym.

Benedict of Nursia (Saint Benedict) was a 6th‑century monk who became known as the “father of Western monasticism” and the author of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which shaped communal religious life in the West for centuries.
Amidst the social and cultural ruins of a collapsing Roman Empire, Saint Benedict of Nursia established a revolutionary document known as the Rule of Saint Benedict, which sought to create a stable community through a balanced integration of prayer and work, encapsulated in the maxim ora et labora.

Those who are without a shepherd... pen themselves up in their own sheepfolds.
Gorgonia (330s)
Macrina - Sister of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa
Gorgonia - Sister of Gregory of Nazianzus
The two ‘Gregs’ + Basil = the Cappadocian Fathers
So Macrina and Gorgonia were the Cappadocian Sisters!
The families were foundational theologians and teachers in their own communities - and throughout Christian history till today. All of them - and especially the women - held authority and power granted not by title or rank, but by the obvious holiness with which they led their lives.
May every joy and every wound draw you nearer to Him’
John Cassian (360-435 AD) The Bridge Builder The monk who brought the wisdom of the Egyptian desert fathers to the emerging communities of Europe. Practical. Gentle. The Trainer who meets you exactly where you are and gives you the next small step.

The Seven Deadly Sins: Pope Gregory the Great later adapted Cassian’s list of eight vices into the “Seven Deadly Sins” we recognize today.
The Rule of St. Benedict: St. Benedict of Nursia was so influenced by Cassian that he explicitly recommended Cassian’s Conferences as daily reading for his monks. Much of the Benedictine lifestyle is a refined version of Cassian’s teachings.

May God grant you a heart so pure that it becomes a mirror of His glory.

John Chrysostom (347-407 AD) The “Golden Mouth.” Archbishop of Constantinople.

A monk, theologian, and a pivotal figure in Christian mysticism. He is best known for acting as a bridge between the East and the West, bringing the spiritual wisdom of the Egyptian desert fathers to the emerging monastic communities of Europe. He focused on “purity of heart” and provided the practical, bit-by-bit “tips” needed for long-term spiritual formation.
Fasting of the body is food for the soul.

The Didache (late 1st - early 2nd century) The Voice of the Apostles The oldest surviving Christian training manual. Not one person but a collective voice — the first followers of Jesus showing us the Way of Life that set them apart from the world. Direct. Communal. Radical.

“If you can bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you cannot, do as much as you can.”

Ignatius of Antioch. Around the year 107, under Emperor Trajan, Ignatius was arrested for his faith and sentenced to execution in Rome. On the long journey there - under guard, in chains - he wrote seven letters to different Christian communities. Those letters are some of our earliest windows into how the first generations after the apostles actually worshiped, organized, and understood the Eucharist.

Let the Eucharist be your school of courage.

Ignatius of Loyola. a 16th century Spanish soldier, who was injured he was hit by a cannonball. So he had to spend a lot of time in recovery and he only had two books with him - the Bible and the Life of Christ. He spent all of his time reading them and he came to Christ and he became a great spiritual leader and monastic. He eventually founded the Society of Jesus - also known as the Jesuits, which is a Roman Catholic religious order.

He was one of the first people to call spiritual exercise ‘a gym for your soul’.

The soul, like the body, requires exercise. Not merely thinking or feeling, but doing.
Leo the Great (440-461 AD) The Strategic General The Pope who stood down Attila the Hun and navigated a falling empire. He viewed the Christian life as strategic warfare and the spiritual practices as armor. Fierce. Clear-eyed. Absolutely serious about the stakes.

No one is so holy that he ought not to be holier, nor so devout that he might not be devouter.

Macrina the Younger (c. 327 – 379 AD) was a pivotal figure in early Christianity, often referred to as the ‘Fourth Cappadocian’. While her brothers - Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, along with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus - are the famous trio known as the ‘Cappadocian Fathers’, Macrina was the intellectual and spiritual teacher who shaped their theology.

Do not imagine that holiness requires a different life than the one you have

Philemon of Gaza was a 6th century monastic whose role in the community was that of gatekeeper. His life and religious practice was a balance between hospitality - welcoming people in - and silence - spending long hours alone at his post.

Philemon was known for his humility, gentleness, patience, and most of all for his passionate - almost romantic love of God.

Whether my praying is so very wretched doesn’t after all matter, the important element lies in the love with which an offering is given.

Vibia Perpetua (203 AD)was a 22-year-old noblewoman living in Carthage, North Africa (modern-day Tunisia)

She was educated, well-connected, nursing an infant son - and a brand-new Christian, still preparing for baptism, when she was arrested and publicly executed under the Emperor Septimius Severus’s persecution of the church.
Every time you come to that table, you are saying yes to something.
You are saying yes to Jesus.
Amma Syncletica (4th century) The Captain of the Soul A wealthy noblewoman who gave away everything to live in a desert tomb. One of the Desert Mothers — women whose wisdom was so sought after that people traveled across the known world to find them. Poetic. Embodied. Battle-hardened.

In the beginning, there are a great many battles and a good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God - but after that, indescribable joy.

The Trainers didn’t create the Practices

They received them - just as you are receiving them now. They wrestled with the same kind of longings you do. They wanted to grow closer to God. They struggled with the same resistance, the same distraction, the same longing.

Which means when it gets hard - and it will get hard - they are exactly the right people to turn to. Not because they had it all figured out. But because they kept practicing anyway.

And they want to tell you what happened when they did.

Already a gym member?

Find your favorite Trainer in the Coffee with Coaches archives:

Coffee with Coaches archive