This month we offer five resources to help your congregation manage conflict. Please share this digest with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers and the monthly digest.
1. In this webinar, First Steps in Understanding Church Conflict, Christy Shain-Hendricks reminds us that conflict is relational and natural. Watch and learn about a few elements that contribute to conflict and how it’s possible to make our way toward reconciliation and peace-building.
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Is there an emoji for “feeling reflective?” If so, that’s me this Thanksgiving week. Here are some reasons I am grateful for the work to which I’ve been called as a capital campaign and Strategic Solutions consultant for the Episcopal Church Foundation.
As Episcopalians, we’re big on community – on worshipping and praying in community with the faithful around the world. Most of us do that mainly through our local congregation. I get to do it with faith communities around the Midwest and beyond.
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We go to great lengths to welcome people in our homes - but those folks we invite all too often are people that we know and love already. Most folks who come to my house know me, and understand my worldview, and we probably get along socially.
And I think too often we do the same thing with our congregations?
That’s being nice; that’s not hospitality.
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