Wellness In Action
This section features how our Living Compass community is using their Congregational Wellness Advocate Training and Living Compass materials within
their
communities.
One of our CWAs, Cyndi Sax from St. Anthony on the Desert of Scottsdale, AZ has worked with her church to lead Living Compass Wellness Circles for teens and adults. Here is some of what she has shared with us about her experience with the adults:
"This morning's session was exceptional! We began with worship and played the version of "Tis A Gift to Be Simple" with YoYo Ma and Allison Kraus. That song has become very meaningful to us. Catherine gave an overview of how we came to Living Compass and how it aligns with our new parish vision/mission to build on our history as a place of spiritual well-being, with Christ at the center
I introduced the table compass exercise. We had six tables of 5-6 people each. They were instructed to complete the exercise within the context of their ministry at St. Anthony. Members of our Spiritual Well-Being team served as scribes at each table; our rector and I floated the room to add additional support.
Kathy Phillips guided them through creation of individual Faith Steps and we had a few share theirs with the room.
Our rector then presented a resource guide that she created, which includes links to the Living Compass website, as well as a slew of other resources. We closed with worship in our Chapel of St. Luke the Physician.
It was a time clearly blessed by the Holy Spirit."
Cyndi also shared with us her experience leading a teen group with her church:
"I wanted to share with you news of how the first Teen Compass session went at St. Anthony last weekend, especially in light of all the help you provided me.
We ended up starting with the "heart" quadrant of the compass, so that we could follow the same sequence as the Parents' group is following. For the first session, I combined the three sections in the Relationships unit.
We started with a listening exercise for the notebook, then the self-assessment. I facilitated a short debrief on the assessment, then we moved into "learning and living it". Then we read a reading from the notebook together, and took about 10 minutes for each of them to answer the questions with the reading. As they finished, they paired up with someone else in the group and shared their responses. This segment went unbelievably well! I was very impressed with their level of participation and ability to dive pretty deeply on their thoughts.
We talked briefly about Feel - Act - Think versus Feel-Think-Act, then right into an explanation of Faith Steps. I walked them through writing a Faith Step and they all came up with one! Amazing Grace!
Finally, we stood in a circle holding hands for the closing prayer. I got it started and then had each youth share one word that expressed their gratitude for some aspect of their relationships that they had discovered that evening. Some of their responses were expected, like "friendship". Others blew me away with their unexpectedness, like "forgiveness".
During each of their next three youth group meetings, our youth minister will check in with them to ask for any stories about progress they've made on their faith steps and to keep it uppermost in their mind. I'll be back with them again on October 23rd, when we will explore Emotions."
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