When we attended Caring for Our Common Home at the John XXIII Pastoral Center at Charleston in April the focus was taking care of the environment. We were surprised to see a breakout session on healthy life styles. The concept is simple. If we are to do God’s work we need to have energy. Having energy starts with eating the right food. That is what the breakout session was about. The www.trythiswv.com web site is a good place to start. But there are so many things to do on the website that it is easy to get overwhelmed. We choose to start with healthy eating at our church. The key to making a change was the small group session where, with the assistance of Joshua the leader, we developed an action plan to do something to change things. I have been to many meetings where people felt good when they left and had good intentions but nothing ever happened. The key difference here was that we left with written goals.
I teach leadership to adults in corporate America as well as to high school and college students. Written goals are a key to success. As a high school soccer coach my seniors have the courage to dream high and then write it down. This process alone has helped us to win 5 Boys State Soccer Championships. Could we get what has worked in large companies and with high school and college students to work for adults with ingrained habits in a church setting?
My players dream big and I love it. But in this case we knew that we would need to start small. A great journey starts with a single step. Our parish has Simple Suppers before mass on Tuesday evenings. We have a small group that typically attends. After getting our pastor’s approval we worked on our group and got their buy in to have healthy simple suppers. We focused on fresh vegetables and bringing fruit instead of cakes and cookies for dessert. Due to Father being out of town we had to wait until May for our first healthy simple supper. We had a small group, it was simple but it worked. We have had 3 healthy Simple Suppers so far.
Our goal is to use this group to set an example by bringing healthy foods to our church dinners and picnics. The early focus is for more fresh fruits and vegetables and less unhealthy carbs and sugary desserts. The hope is to begin to give parishioners some more healthy eating choices and maybe we can change how people think and act. Next we go after the big challenge, physical activity but that is for later. We have taken the first steps to a healthy change.
A Great Journey to Be Healthy Starts with a Single Step
