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Greetings!
Welcome to the second issue of a refreshed CREDO Connection. We believe staying connected as a CREDO Community is essential so we renew a commitment to effective communication with this monthly newsletter. The design is for a brief update on CREDO work and initiatives, with periodic invitations to explore other avenues and resources on wellness. We trust it will be helpful to you in your ministry.
--G. Herbert Gunn
CREDO Director of Communication
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"Kouraj pou vwayaj la-Ayiti"
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 With CREDO conference leader Ron Crocker serving
as project coordinator, a nine-person faculty team returned to the
Dominican Republic this week to host the second five-day Strength for the Journey CREDO
conference for church leaders from neighboring Haiti.
The first "Kouraj pou vwayaj la-Ayiti" (or Strength for the
Journey-Haiti) conference was held June 21-25 for the Diocese of
Haiti
clergy and their families. The second conference this week is for
lay leaders. The Diocese of Haiti, along with the whole country,
is recovering from the January 12 earthquake.
CREDO Managing Director Bill Craddock attended the first and second conference, and reported this week, "One hundred lay
leaders from all over Haiti, including many very rural areas with no
transportation other than horses and bikes, traveled to Santo Domingo in
neighboring Dominican Republic for the five-day CREDO conference." (See two first-hand reports HERE: Tuesday and Wednesday.)
The conferences have been held in Santo Domingo
because many of the
buildings in Haiti were destroyed by the earthquake that left two
million
people homeless.
Some participants, Craddock reported, had never traveled out of Haiti and were uncertain whether their Santo Domingo hotel would stand--reflecting the general state of anxiety throughout their Haiti communities.
Bishop Jean Zaché Duracin helped plan the series of conferences for church leaders of his diocese and has attended both the June and July conferences, which are designed to give the church leaders a chance to step back from the stress of earthquake recovery in Haiti.
"As we start to rebuild our churches, we must rebuild our personal selves to give us the strength to carry on. We now have a deeper understanding of the feelings that come with a disaster and how to cope with the stress and the pain. For many of us, it was the first opportunity to relax in a safe place because we feel the earthquake within us," said Bishop Duracin.
The Church Pension Fund is underwriting the cost of the
pastoral response after the devastating January earthquake and turned to CREDO to plan and facilitate the series of conferences.
For additional information on the Strength for the Journey-Haiti conferences, SEE HERE.
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In Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, Quincy, Fort Worth
Strength for the Journey booklet offers four reorganizing dioceses resources on spiritual practice
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For the four Strength
for the
Journey conferences in the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, and Quincy, CREDO prepared and published A Guide to Spiritual Practice.
Written by CREDO faculty members Renée Miller and Brian Taylor, the booklet introduces and explains a range of spiritual practices and disciplines--from Centering Prayer and Spiritual Writing to other manners of being that include music, art, and even the mindfulness of movie-going.
As Brian Taylor explains in the introduction, "Spirituality is how we are in relationship to God, to other people and the world around us, and to ourselves. [It is] the process of staying engaged in these relationships ..."
 A Guide to Spiritual Practice was made available to participants at each of the two-day conferences in the four dioceses as well as the two eight-day, CREDO-facilitated Strength
for the
Journey conferences for lay employees and lay leaders in May and next September. CREDO will provide participants in 2011 CREDO conferences A
Guide to Spiritual Practice.
Strength for the
Journey is a multifaceted initiative to assist in the reorganization moving forward in the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, and Quincy. Over 100 people attended the Pittsburgh conference on May 21-22; 78 attended the San Joaquin conference June 4-5 in Fresno, Calif.; and 122 attended in Quincy. The fourth CREDO-facilitated Strength for the Journey conference will
take place in the Diocese of Fort Worth (Texas) September 24-25.
[See the news story in the San Joaquin diocesan newspaper HERE.]
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Strength for the Journey initiative captured in short video
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Strength for the
Journey, a CREDO initiative to reach Episcopalians in the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth,
San Joaquin, and Quincy with resources for respite, recovery, and reorganization, has been underway since late 2009.
 Made possible by a generous pastoral response from the Church Pension Group and developed and facilitated by CREDO, the project is making possible a series of two-day conferences in the four dioceses, three CREDO eight-day conferences (one for clergy in November 2009 and two for lay employees and lay leaders in May and September 2010) as well as other wellness resources.
SEE a short video on Strength
for the
Journey HERE.
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Transformed and Renewed:
2009 Annual Report
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| CREDO Institute, Inc. and the Church Pension Group have promoted health, wellness, and transformation in the Episcopal Church for over ten years. Bishops, priests, deacons, and lay employees who are enrolled in the Church Pension Plan have been invited to embrace personal self-awareness, transformation, and renewal principally through an eight-day conference experience referred to as the CREDO Benefit.
During the eight-day conference, participants explore a deeper sense of who they are and where God is calling them by moving around a cycle of Identity, Discernment, Practice, and Transformation.
CREDO itself is engaged in a similar course of transformation and renewal. Without wavering from its essential core values as a steward of health and wellness in the Episcopal Church, CREDO is constantly assessing its identity, discerning God's will, responding in new and creative ways, and changing.
READ the 2009 Annual Report HERE.
CREDO Annual Report 2009  |
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