Well-Being Respite is a unique learning opportunity that offers spiritual renewal for members in a convenient, partial-day, remote format. Respites are offered twice each year in addition to the annual in-person Well-Being Retreat.
— Well-Being Respite attendees
Well-Being Respite is a unique online opportunity to step away from your daily routine and foster spiritual renewal and meaningful engagement with colleagues in life and ministry as you contemplate God's movement in our individual and collective experiences.
Available at no cost to all active and retired members of the Benefits Plan of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), their spouses, and surviving spouses, Well-Being Respite is a virtual space to pause, learn, reframe, and connect. Each offering focuses on a different dimension of wholeness — financial, spiritual, vocational, and health — and how the current landscape shapes our understanding and application of it.
Each respite comprises the following:
The event concludes with a charge and blessing as you return to the rhythm of your day.
Registration for each respite opens a few weeks before the event.
| Date | Title | Registration | Primary presenter |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 29, 2024 | Mental Health: Let’s Talk About It |
Registration is closed | Dr. Lorrie Miller |
| Oct. 16, 2024 | I’m a Survivor: Harnessing Resilience Amidst Uncertainty |
Register now | Dawn Geschiere |
Recordings of Well-Being Respites are available as stand-alone courses in the Board's e-learning site content library, which you can access by logging on to Benefits Connect.
Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, 1-3:30 p.m.
Registration is open through Oct. 15, 2024.
Join us in a sacred virtual space to highlight the natural resilience we all have within us and to explore practices that help us survive and thrive. During our time together, we will:
Join Dawn Geschiere and the Reverend Dr. Regina Groff and a panel as we celebrate and encourage one another to harness the overcomer in each of us as we seek to live an abundant life in Christ Jesus.
Dawn Geschiere is an empowerment life coach and entrepreneur. After 30-plus years of coaching, leadership, and facilitation experience in nonprofit organizations, Dawn founded YesToLife Coaching LLC in 2019. She is co-actively trained and certified through the largest global coach training school, the Co-Active Training Institute.
Dawn coaches, self-empowers, leads, writes, and speaks from a place of passionate authenticity, deep faith, and a calming, peaceful energy. She wants to see you showing up for yourself and others — self-empowered and living intentionally aligned with your purpose and values.
Dawn was married for 42 years and is recently divorced. She is a mom of five incredible young adults who recently moved across the country to the Pacific Northwest to live near two of her daughters.
Dawn is a lifelong learner, nature lover, and creative. She loves reading, writing, cooking, travel, and active outdoor adventures.
The Reverend Elise Erikson Barrett directs the coordination program for Lilly Endowment Inc.’s National Initiative to Address Economic Challenges Facing Pastoral Leaders, a multicohort initiative hosted by the Center for Congregations, and she serves as a learning consultant to Leadership Education at Duke Divinity School, supporting its learning from over 300 Lilly Endowment grantees.
Elise holds degrees from Duke University (M.Div.) and Hanover College (B.A., economics), and is a former United Methodist pastor and writer. Her book "What Was Lost: A Christian Journey Through Miscarriage" was named a Best Book by Christianity Today magazine, and in another part of her life, she was a singer-songwriter, both solo and as a founding member of the trio Sister Sinjin. Elise is a Ph.D. candidate in American studies at Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis, focusing on issues of economics and congregations. She lives near Indianapolis with her blended family of seven and four pets.
David Daesoo Kim, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist and an adjunct faculty member at the Mercer Medical School’s Marriage Family Therapy (MFT) program. He holds a Ph.D. in counselor education and supervision from Mercer University. He is the founder and executive director of Research Institute of Counseling & Education (RICE) LLC, located in Atlanta. His clinical, research, and teaching interests include Asian and Pacific Islander American mental health, racial and sexual identities, acculturation, intimate partner violence, culturally sensitive training and supervision, and working with immigrant populations.
The Reverend Katherine Lankford is an Associate Pastor of Christian Education and Community Engagement at Liberty Community Church in Minneapolis. She is a graduate of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta and an ordained minister in the PC(USA). Katherine has over 20 years' experience in the financial services industry and is passionate about providing healing-centered financial education.