UNDERSTANDING AND
WORKING WITH CONFLICT
VIRTUAL WORKSHOP
November 15-16, 2023
The time to prepare to work with Conflict is
BEFORE the Conflict.
That time must be now!
Conflict in our congregations is inevitable and it can come from many sources – anxiety about money, different worship style preferences, clash of personalities, different opinions about the clergy leadership, and other emotionally-charged circumstances.
Clergy and congregational leaders often don’t understand the sources of conflict, nor how to work with it or manage it. They can be frightened by it. They may want to avoid it. They don’t have the skills to deal with it, let alone deal with it effectively.
This two-day VIRTUAL workshop is designed to train faith leaders, who can then train their leadership team(s) to work constructively with conflict in their faith community. You will become a better manager of conflict and will feel equipped to transform situations of conflict into something positive.
At the conclusion of this workshop, you will be fully prepared to guide your lay leadership through a process to better understand their personal history, their approaches to conflict, and help them develop constructive courses of action to address their situations of conflict. Those who choose to train their leadership team(s) will purchase Facilitator’s training material separately.
Workshop Leader and Facilitator:
Rev. Dr. Norman B. Bendroth is a Professional Transitional Specialist trained by the Interim Ministry Network and serves on their faculty. He has served as a settled pastor in two United Church of Christ congregations and as an Interim Minister at 15 churches. Norman is editor of Transitional Ministry Today: Successful Strategies for Churches and Pastors (Rowman and Littlefield, Dec. 2014) and Interim Ministry in Action: A Handbook for Churches in Transition also with Rowman and Littlefield. Norman is a Board-Certified coach and consultant. He received his D.Min. from Andover Newton Theological School where he studied theology and family systems theory.
During this workshop, as a participant, you will:
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- Gain deeper understanding of emotional processes in congregations, the role of anxiety and reaction in conflict, triggers for group anxiety, and key concepts in emotional process.
- Be equipped to recognize conflict, and the level of conflict, when it emerges and intervene before it escalates.
- Explore a variety of ways of approaching conflicted situations.
- Explore the structure of conflict and gain an understanding of conflict scale.
- Learn (or review) the basic intervention points of the Role Negotiation Cycle.
- Learn how to teach your lay leaders to:
- Recognize levels of conflict that require outside intervention so that conflicted situations can move from being destructive to creating the possibility of transformation.
- Use two frameworks to help gain perspective in conflicted situations: Emotional Process in Congregational Systems and the Structure of Conflict.
- Craft at least a “triage” response to conflict so that effective and timely responses can be made.
- Create a local church conflict response procedure, equipping them to proactively address conflict and know when to seek outside expertise.
Cost, Class Schedule & Registration
The 2023 tuition is $365.00. Current IMN Members may register for $249.00 (a $116.00 discount).
Your registration fee includes the Participant workbook and the Kraybill Style Matters Inventory which you will complete in advance of the workshop start time.
STEPS TO REGISTER: Go to date and click on the registration type. Then add to cart. Follow the instruction in the shopping cart.