Care IQ Discussion Guide

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WELCOME!

Hey Fabric Groups! We’re refreshing and re-committing to our Care IQ at a consequential time for us as neighbors and citizens. Care IQ means building a dependable life-time toolbox for your interpersonal relationships to process and respond in healthy ways to the challenges of a reactive world. And like so many worthwhile endeavors, it takes a team for mutual learning, support and accountability. Thank you for being about that together, each Group in your own way. May your Care IQ grow and flow from there into all the places you will be these weeks and months to come. And may these ideas help.

This Guide offers a basic pattern to lean into through the series. Facilitators - read through to prepare your own thoughts; choose what feels helpful right now for you and your Group to grow in connectedness. If you find other things that take your Group to new places, please share. In comments here, with Melissa or staff. Thank you!

-With gratitude, admiration and love, Melissa Lock and the whole team

BEGIN

The hardest part is done. Getting here. [Facilitator - name one of your own hopes for this set apart time together. Maybe a Care IQ tool or insight that’s resonating with your real life this week, or something you appreciate about everyone showing up. Invite others to add if they wish. Either way, take a breath with it. Perhaps light a candle for all the spoken and unspoken hopes for this set apart (aka sacred) time together. Welcome!]

WARM UP IDEAS (10-15 mins)

A reminder about the Group Practices. These help us remember why we are here and that it’s a pause from business-as usual.

  1. Time to share names. And… something or someone you appreciated in your day today. (Is there anything else feeling particularly weighty that would help to name here? Let the group know along with what feels helpful for now. Maybe just the chance to name it, a listening session later, help widening your circle…)

  2. Time to claim your Care IQ wins this week. This isn’t about doing it right or even doing anything necessarily as you might think of it. It is about trying something new, even just noticing a care IQ situation instead of avoiding it, blocking it out, being consumed by it or giving up on it. Name a win and give yourself credit. Note your wins in your zine! Partner up to share Care IQ wins from your week.

DIG IN IDEAS

Weaving the “God” strand into Care IQ

isn’t just saying a prayer, meditating, reading a bible verse or any particular practice. What it asks and invites is for you to look and listen for the bigger picture you are part of and take a step of trust. Then another…

Loving one another is what life is about. The Bible, other traditions and our own intuition tells us that. What they don't tell is how. Not because it's a secret, but because it can only be known and lived out in the context you are in. Caring in the tough places of life doesn’t have a formula, it is hard-earned learning and experience passed on from generation to generation. You are part of that practice and passing along right now!

  1. Think about the Care IQ wins you shared. How did your three-strandedness show up in that situation? Here are some ways into that: How did you love others as you love yourself? How did you love yourself? How is loving God as you understand God related to loving yourself and others? Replace the word “love” above with the word “trust.”

  2. Zine talk time. How did you mark up or what did you add to your zine this week? Pick something you’d like to talk about more. Maybe it’s a reminder you really need, or something that feels particularly relevant to a situation you are in. Maybe it feels stuck, hard or confusing and some perspective would help.

  3. Dive Deeper. The Bible isn’t an instruction manual. It tells stories - all kinds of them - about love being worked out well, and not well at all. And how people are loved and loveable anyway. (Can we be that accepting and that honest about our wrestlings with how to love well?!)

    Read the Homework and ROAM invitations in the Sunday Paper (find here each week!). Choose one of them to dive into together.

    • What Care IQ tools are at play?

    • Thinking about a stuck situation, are there novel options this deeper dive reveals that you hadn’t seen or considered before? Does it cause you to reconsider anything you’ve taken for granted as just being how it is?

    • Strong reactions are full of information. Have any as you dive in here? They are not wrong or right, they just are. Noticing them gives you the chance to work with your reaction instead of it working you.

CLOSE (5-10 mins)

  1. Share one thing you will take away from this time that you want to remember this week.

  2. Confirm your plan for next time.  When, where, who will coordinate, facilitate, provide hospitality or other needs?

    Remember, anyone is welcome to serve the group in these and other ways. In fact, it is a way you will grow and connect! Here’s a printable Fall Fabric Calendar you can use to plan.

 

There are table tents with these available on sundays or email melissa@fabricmpls.com