Conflict Management Support Team
The Conflict Management Support Team (CMST) serves Central Plains Mennonite Conference congregations to help people address conflicts and harms in healthy, biblically-informed ways. Services range from resources and workshops on communication skills for conflict transformation to facilitation work for requested interventions.
To strengthen this work in 2020, CMST is inviting members of Central Plains churches to consider three different levels of participation:
1. Join our team as an active Committee Member (Requires some background in resolution work; includes a monthly online team
meeting)
2. Join as an Associate Member to assist in workshops or facilitation work in your region or state (Requires a sense of gifting
in guiding hard conversations)
3. Join as a Facilitator-in-Training to provide low-level dialogue supports in your own church (Next fall we hope to have an initial
facilitation training)
We ask every church to prayerfully enter into this request for new partners and to collectively discern who might be affirmed by congregations to join our work. Please contact Susan Janzen to learn about next steps or to get more information.
Workshops
Would you like to learn how we can live together in God's spirit of reconciliation even when we are in conflict? Would you like to learn more about yourself, about conflict, and about our call as disciples to live out and witness to God's reconciling love?
The Conflict Management Support Team offers a one- or two-day "Conflict Transformation Skills Workshop" that will provide you with a greater self-awareness as to how you handle conflict, and help you to become better at handling conflict in the church. The training, modeled after similar workshops offered by the Lombard Peace Center, includes information on dynamics of conflict, personal conflict styles, communications skills, and responding to conflict in the church. The training will help promote your personal growth as a disciple of Christ by encouraging thoughtful integration of Christian faith with practical skills for managing conflict.
These principles will influence your life beyond the church as well. You will be able to take the knowledge you gain into your family and your work. You may even find yourself to be more confident in managing conflict throughout your life.
To host a workshop in your congregation, contact Susan Janzen.
The Conflict Management Support Team offers a one- or two-day "Conflict Transformation Skills Workshop" that will provide you with a greater self-awareness as to how you handle conflict, and help you to become better at handling conflict in the church. The training, modeled after similar workshops offered by the Lombard Peace Center, includes information on dynamics of conflict, personal conflict styles, communications skills, and responding to conflict in the church. The training will help promote your personal growth as a disciple of Christ by encouraging thoughtful integration of Christian faith with practical skills for managing conflict.
These principles will influence your life beyond the church as well. You will be able to take the knowledge you gain into your family and your work. You may even find yourself to be more confident in managing conflict throughout your life.
To host a workshop in your congregation, contact Susan Janzen.
Other Courses and Trainings
Lombard Mennonite Peace Center offers excellent mediation skills training as well workshops on conflict transformation skills for churches. Find a list of seminars and training workshops at www.lmpeacecenter.org.
Online Anabaptist Short Course: Transforming Congregational Conflict and Communication. Taught by Betty Pries, CMed, MTS; PhD (ABD) Dates: April 15-May 26, 2020. www.ambs.edu/lifelong-learning/anabaptist-short-courses
Lombard Mennonite Peace Center offers excellent mediation skills training as well workshops on conflict transformation skills for churches. Find a list of seminars and training workshops at www.lmpeacecenter.org.
Online Anabaptist Short Course: Transforming Congregational Conflict and Communication. Taught by Betty Pries, CMed, MTS; PhD (ABD) Dates: April 15-May 26, 2020. www.ambs.edu/lifelong-learning/anabaptist-short-courses