09/09/2026
📚 What Are We Reading at RGPC?
We are starting something new!
Each week, we’ll peek over someone’s shoulder and discover what our staff and ministry teams are reading—and which books have them thinking, learning, laughing, or feeling inspired.
This week, it’s What Stephen Ministers Are Reading!
Lorraine Paffenroth is starting us off with a book that feels especially fitting for a ministry built around caring, listening, and connection.
📖 The Connection Cure by Julia Hotz
The Connection Cure by Julia Hotz is a fascinating and hopeful look at something we often overlook when we think about health: the importance of connection.
Hotz explores the growing practice of “social prescribing”—the idea that sometimes the answer to what ails us isn’t another medication or another appointment, but reconnecting with the things that give our lives meaning. Through stories from around the world, she shows how movement, nature, art, service, and belonging can have a powerful effect on both physical and emotional well-being.
What I found especially meaningful was the book’s underlying question: instead of only asking, “What is wrong with you?” what if we also asked, “What matters to you?” That simple shift changes the way we think about health. It recognizes that people are more than their diagnoses and that healing can involve purpose, relationships, creativity, and community.
I also appreciated that Hotz doesn’t present connection as a magical cure-all. Rather, she shows how the ordinary things we sometimes dismiss—going for a walk, making art, spending time outdoors, helping someone else, joining a group, or simply having meaningful contact with another person—can become important parts of a healthier and more fulfilling life.
The book made me reflect on how easy it is to become disconnected, particularly during difficult or demanding seasons of life. Sometimes we don’t realize how much we need connection until we begin to lose it. The Connection Cure is a reminder that caring for ourselves isn’t only about treating illness. It’s also about continuing to participate in life.
I found this book encouraging because its message is both simple and profound: what we do, who we spend time with, and what gives us a sense of purpose can matter enormously to our health.
This is a book I’d recommend to anyone interested in aging, mental health, loneliness, caregiving, or simply finding more meaning and connection in everyday life. It left me thinking about health in a broader way—and about the possibility that sometimes the most powerful “prescriptions” are the things that help us feel connected to the world and to one another.
—Written and recommended by Lorraine Paffenroth
