Many SAW communities use our simple conversation guides or "agendas" to help focus the conversation and move the group quickly to a significant level of conversation. Since most groups meet for just an hour, it's often useful to have such a focus. Below is an example of one agenda. SAW's Handbook contains forty more sample agendas as well as tips for using them effectively.
SPIRITUALITY AT WORK: Where do we begin?

CENTER: Closing your eyes if you wish, attend for a moment your body, noticing any tension there. Imagine a warm Light surrounding that tension and let yourself relax into the warmth. … Let the warmth spread throughout your body, just sitting peacefully in it. … Let your mind wander back through your morning, only be aware that the warmth of the Light is surrounding you there also, touching everyone whose life you touched this morning. When you are ready, gently let yourself return to this moment and place.

CHECK IN: Spirituality at work begins with becoming present to ourselves and those around us. Let's take a moment to do that: would you say your name, the kind of work you do and/or where you do it, and then share whatever's been most life-giving and/or life-draining about your work-week so far.

FOCUS: As we begin to explore the possibility of becoming a spirituality at work conversation community, it might be useful for us to reflect on our own experience of work. Take a moment and on the back of this "agenda" list your satisfactions and frustrations about work. · What are some of your frustrations? · What are some of your satisfactions?

REFLECT: Sometimes our work becomes so routine and automatic that we hardly pay attention to what it's really about for us. Spirituality at work conversation is about taking a little time to do this sort of reflecting. · When you find yourself alone, in a reflective mood about your work, what questions do you ask yourself about it? · Why do you work? · How is your work an expression of your deepest self?
CONNECT: Matthew Fox, in his book The Reinvention of Work makes a useful distinction between "job" and "work." 

He writes* : "...the now obsolete word jobbe meant 'piece.'... Job denotes a discrete task, and one that is not very joyful. The Middle English word gobbe, from which job is derived, meant 'lump,' and we think of the word gob when we see it. In his eighteenth century dictionary, Dr. Johnson defined job as: 'petty, piddling work; a piece of chance work." "Work comes from inside out; work is the expression of our soul, our inner being. It is unique to the individual; it is creative. Work is an expression of the Spirit at work in the world through us. Work is that which puts us in touch with others, not so much at the level of personal interaction, but at the level of service in the community."

* Fox, Matthew, The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time, (SanFrancisco:Harper.) 1994, p. 5, 6.
  • Can you give examples from your own life of both "job" and "work" as described by Fox in the quotes above?
  • Are there ways you might transform some of your "jobs" into "work?"
RESPOND: Spirituality at work conversations rarely reach "closure," but they're not intended to! Rather they are a place where we can begin to think/feel deeply about our work and its meaning, where we can begin to make connections between what we do, who we are and what we believe. They are also a place where we can begin to see how we might "walk our talk," live out more fully the values and/or faith we profess. · Is there some small way you might apply the insights of today's conversation to your work life? · When you're available, would you like to be a part of an ongoing conversation community? · If so, when and how often might such a group meet?

BLESS: We close our time together by offering the person on our left a simple word of hope or blessing for the coming week.