Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Project Portfolio

Degree Name

Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives (DLd)

Department

Seminary

First Advisor

Holley Clough

Second Advisor

Aaron Friesen

Third Advisor

Jason Swan Clark

Abstract

The Connecting Through Conflict project was designed to respond to the following NPO statement: “Christians are prioritizing their ideologies above core tenants, which is challenging their Christ-centered freedoms and presenting barriers to living in community.” Using a collaborative design model for discovery with various stakeholder groups, it was identified that Christian leaders do not have strategies for managing ideological conflict in their communities. This deficit, in turn led to conflicts to being avoided, driving those with minority views to perceive themselves as outsiders to their communities of faith. The resulting product was designed to empower Christian leaders to normalize the practice of disagreement within Christian groups while maintaining or improving the relationships of the members of the said groups. Access to these resources and consultation services will be available by contacting the partner organization I To We through their website. The goal of this work is not to empower Christians to convince others to agree with their viewpoint. Success will be achieved when members have increased confidence in raising minority views and that all members believe that their views have been heard and appreciated. This manual is divided into three parts. Part I is designed to introduce readers to the compelling case for civil disagreement among teams, families and congregations while Part II will take those theoretical ideals and translate them into actionable steps for preparing your team to begin to practice healthy disagreement. Finally, Part III will give practical tools and tips for facilitating initial practice Conflict Conversations.

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