We are pleased to offer a congregation-wide workshop on “Conflict Transformation,” a way of understanding conflict as a natural and neutral part of life, with the strategies and skills to use our differences to build stronger relationships. If we approach conflict with the question of what it has to teach us, it can be transformative. International peace negotiator John Paul Lederach developed this method in working with some of the world’s most intransigent conflict in places such as South Africa and Ireland.
As applied in congregational life, as well as in our own personal lives, it offers tools for understanding and negotiating conflicts as learning opportunities.
Mark your calendar now, and stay tuned for registration and Zoom links.
Wonder why this way was picked out of all the ways to bring peace?
I would like to attend this workshop.
Great question, Nina, thanks! Conflict Transformation is a foundational workshop designed to support all other approaches for bringing people together in deeper understanding, transforming difference into an opportunity for deeper relationship. I hope many of our members will sign up for this workshop, to support our common language and understandings, and then we will schedule many opportunities to build on this foundation, including the course on Compassionate Conversation that Sue Camlin will lead later this spring, some sessions to practice asking powerful questions and learning how to use listening circles, and perhaps we could sponsor a class on Non-Violent Communication. I know you have studied and practiced NVC and it would be great to offer that at the church. These are all skills we can learn and practice in this strong faith community, and then take into our families, neighborhoods and workplaces.