Cultural Challenge 8

Living God’s plan for you

Spiritual Awakening:
join a work meets faith small group. Share your concerns about your handling of some God thing at work. Help and be helped by others in work only you can do through God focused commitment to each other.

Presentation – What is a Work Meets Faith small group and why do we need one?

Video Resource
: Journey Where Work Meets Faith | Christy Manaois, https://youtu.be/Oc87CaHF88Q
10 minutes

Christy Manaois, a Kinesiologist and Fitness Specialist, will share a story of sharpening her path to God thru others. Listen to what belonging to a Work Meets Faith small group means to her.

Experienced well being
“Measures of experienced well-being are now routinely used in large scale national surveys in the United States, Canada and Europe, and the Gallup World Poll has extended these measurements to millions of respondents in the United States and in more than 150 countries…It is only a slight exaggeration to say that happiness is the experience of spending time with people you love and who love you. (From page 395 of “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, behavioral psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.)

Join a Work Meets Faith Small Group!

• Become a more God centered person.
• Get closer to God while at work.
• Learn from practical experiences of others on how to bring more faith into your work.

“Work Meets Faith” small groups of 6 to 8 people meet for 2 hours. We meet at a regular time monthly but not December, July or August. Participation is open to all who wish to bring God more into their work.

Each session includes:

• a one hour focus on one member to bring more faith into that member’s work,
  • A member makes a Declaration claiming and then turning over to God their preferred work, or
  • A God concern by the member at work is experientially shared.
  • Each month a different member chooses their own personal God centered experiential focus.
• 15 minute period to handle any time sensitive items from members relating to God centered sense of community, and
• 15 minute Emotional Intelligence education series on God centered sense of community
• 30 minute outreach: to a small group of the war torn, or to form a “Work Meets Faith” feedback group at work, or otherwise unstructured except to form a God centered identity for the group.
• a communication protocol from Loquate, a community for peace, is followed by a group facilitator leader and a trained Loquate educator who handles the educational piece on growing God centered sense of community.

You will understand the value of a God centered faith community by experiencing it. Benefits are:

• feeling heard
• feeling positive
• feeling protected
• feeling nurtured

Increasing sense of community at work, by increasing your relationship with God, benefits are feeling:

• more recognized
• more natural
• more yourself
• more God centered

Diversity brings a widened range of solutions. Feel a sense of group loyalty and group support from belonging to a diverse group that has a sense of community and are in for the long haul with a sincere desire to put God first in their work. P018:Join a “Work Meets Faith” – Community-w

Please contact Jeff Liautaud (773-621-0863 or jeff@loquate.tv)

Side 1

Work Meets Faith small groups are looking for: side 2

1. Extreme loyalty. We have a focus person assigned, or one volunteers, for each meeting. If it was within your means you would never turn your back on that person. Even if only two meet, the meeting should occur. If someone is stretched to facilitate, so be it. If those who have been trained to
   facilitate can facilitate even a little, they should facilitate as part of their responsibility. They are like the Marines, first to land.
2. A Work Meets Faith small group is more powerful than one. The group must learn to adapt to changing circumstances. All in the group are called upon equally to step forward in time of need. The focus person is always of paramount importance.
3. If the group cannot respond to the needs of the focus person, the group should disband and reform with those who are committed. Commitment can only mean commitment in the moment. Commitment to the future is no commitment.
4. Establishing loyalty around serving our focus person promulgates loyalty to a “person in need.” We allow 15 minutes to our Person in Need for matters of a timely nature which threaten sense of community for the Person in Need to be addressed and then thru prayer. Issues addressed are real and deserve a real committed response. A committed response from a group member is one in which the group member does not turn their back on our Person of Need within the group.
5. Outreach cannot occur until we have taken care of our own. We must leave no stone unturned for helpful possibilities. We must act without thought for our self. Acting for others is a first step in forming a charismatic community.
6. Prayer is the essential step to conform our hearts to the heart of the Lord. If the heart of our Lord is our heart, we will be filled with grace, like a gurgling spring outpouring the Lord’s abundance. When the spring overflows from our hearts outreach can occur. A charism is extreme value by grace from God for the common good. Seeking our cross, suffering for others, formed and uplifted by our Lord creates the charismatic cross community.
7. Outreach serving the most disadvantaged of our brethren is requested for those brethren with whom we are in community. For example, we could hook up by Skype with Leo Okonkwo’s HEAL group in Africa, widows, orphans, and the marginalized. Our Work Meets Faith group will decide what brethren elsewhere will become part of our community. Our commitment to our brethren elsewhere will be identical to our commitment to each other.
8. We want to be a charismatic cross community. We do not see our group as a casual group. We see ourselves as being in it for the long haul. Something extraordinarily good happens when we know each other very well. We are built to live in God centered community.

Christ loved and admonished Peter “Feed My sheep.” Christ asks us what he asked Peter: “Do you love me?” Three times Christ asked this of Peter. After Peter answered favorably, Christ asked Peter if he was willing to die for Christ, and Peter did die for Christ. How many times will God ask of us: “Do you love me?”

Commitment is so rare today that we ask you to plan ahead to take all necessary steps to be there. Honor the meeting as an example of your commitment to God that nothing will keep you from attending the meeting and helping each other. This extreme loyalty is what God asks of us to form our charismatic cross
community.

9. Each Work Meets Faith small group shall meet regularly and more frequently sufficiently initially in a first phase which is both demanding and satisfying for those participating to know what to expect going forward. An initial commitment of best efforts to complete the first 4 meetings must be
   made by any wishing to join a Work Meets Faith small group. Best efforts means making enough initial first 4 meetings to have an understanding of the protocol and the group.
10. Each Work Meets Faith small group shall disband and reform upon completion of the first 4 meetings. Those wishing to stop after the first 4 meetings are welcome to do so without prejudice and with nothing but admiration for having tried something new. Those wishing to continue on may do so with the added comfort that comes from a group that is in it for the long haul, is well socialized meaning the group knows each other quite well, and is comfortable with the protocol.

I would like to join a Work Meets Faith small group. Yes. No.

R025-b

If yes,

Name, address_______________________________________________________________

Phone, Email _________________________________________________________________

You will meet 9 times per year at a regular time monthly such as the third Monday of each month for two hours, but not in the months of July, August, or December. Additional meetings are optional.

What evenings of the week could work for you to meet initially: circle M T W TH

More details

1. Each Work Meets Faith small group shall meet regularly and more frequently sufficiently in a first phase of 4 meetings which is both demanding and satisfying for those participating to know what to expect going forward. An initial commitment of best efforts to complete the first phase must be made by any wishing to join a Work Meets Faith small group. Best efforts means making as many first phase meetings as possible.

2. Each Work Meets Faith small group shall disband and reform upon completion of the first phase. Those wishing to stop after the first phase are welcome to do so without prejudice and with nothing but admiration for having tried something new. Those wishing to continue on may do so with the added comfort that comes from a group that is in it for the long haul and knows each other quite well.

3. Work Meets Faith small groups are open to all. Groups that proceed to the long haul may have an open enrollment period until sufficient numbers of members exist for a robust discussion of diversity of 6-8 members present at any given meeting.