Posts Tagged ‘conflict transformation’

On Being: In our conversation (with John Paul Lederach) in “The Art of Peace” he calls his work “conflict transformation” rather than the more commonly used term of “conflict resolution.” Across three decades, in over 25 countries on five continents, he has sought to help people transform their relationships with their enemies.”

The witness that Christians can most powerfully offer the world is not that of a perfect people, but of a people always fully engaged in the reconciliation experience.

Faith & Leadership: A divided world does not need a church free of conflict and sin but a church that models how conflict and sin can be transformed into peace.

Conflict actually provides the opportunity for us to communicate, to discuss differences and similarities, to really listen to and hear each other, and to forge solutions which meet the needs of the congregation without harming each other and which actually lead to healing and reconciliation.

Both commitments require that I hold myself strictly accountable for how I am seeing others in every encounter. I no longer make excuses or craft ways to justify my behaviors. I own my mistakes and do everything I can to invite those I have hurt to reconciliation and wholeness again.

Groups require healthy conflict to grow and mature over time. Any group that cannot engage in constructive and healthy conflict is doomed to stagnation or implosion when unhealthy conflict takes over.

Faith & Leadership: When violence happens, CeaseFire workers, participants and volunteers respond by organizing rallies and vigils and providing support for the families and loved ones of violence victims, both to ensure that there is no violent retaliation and to change the group attitude so that people can begin to believe their neighborhood can change.

The faith I embrace and the nonviolent conflict transformation I commit to professionally rise from the life and teachings of Jesus, who measures love in the paradoxical quality of how we respond to those who wish us harm.

Craig Gilliam facilitates an event in Louisiana. “The Choice in Conflict Transformation: How do we as leaders help our congregations move through conflict in a positive, mature way?” December 5-7, 2011

Faith & Leadership: Conflict transformation doesn’t presume an inactive or non-active engagement with the world, and it doesn’t presume a non-confrontational stance with the world. But it does presume that we don’t have to stay in destructive conflicts, that they can be transformed to be creative and positive.