[1]Would you like to improve the relational dynamics in your church, ministry or business? If so, I encourage you to host a Discovering Relational Wisdom Seminar as soon as possible.
As reported by former students [2], the benefits of this training include stronger friendships, healthier marriages and wiser parenting, better workplace performance, less conflict, reduced staff, volunteer and member turnover, increased impact and outreach, and, best of all, a more credible Christian witness.
Interest in this seminar is growing so rapidly that we are scheduling events well into 2016. There are still a few weekends open this fall, however, (see our Seminar Calendar [3]), so now is the time to act if you’d like to sponsor this training in the near future.
To learn more about the content of the seminar, see the Detailed Course Description below.
To see a list of previous Training Hosts, click here [4].
To learn how to host a seminar, please see our Seminar Hosting Guidelines [5].
To invite one of our Certified RW Instructors [6] or me to present a Discovering RW Seminar (or a shorter custom presentation), please complete our Speaking Request Form [7].
We look forward to serving your church, ministry or business as you seek to equip your people with relational skills that display the redeeming love, transforming grace, and practical wisdom of Jesus Christ.
– Ken Sande
Detailed Course Description:
Session 1: Pursuing Relational Wisdom – Relational wisdom, in essence, is the ability to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. This session describes the major benefits that flow from cultivating this ability, including: deeper and richer relationships, healthier marriages and wiser parenting, enhanced workplace performance and career advancement, less conflict, increased credibility and influence, reduced staff, volunteer and member turnover, a more credible Christian witness, and improved organizational team-building, productivity, impact and outreach.
Session 2: The Challenge of Emotions – Relationships are fueled by emotions, both positively and negatively. They can bring us our greatest pleasures and also cause us our greatest pain. This session provides an integrated biblical and neurological view of emotions, describes the downward spiral of amygdala hijacking [8] and emotional flooding, and explains how relational wisdom can help us to harness the power of emotions to build richer relationships and more productive ministry.
Session 3: Defining Relational Wisdom – The Bible provides a highly effective way to deal with relationships and the emotions that fuel them. These truths may be organized into a discipleship paradigm called “relational wisdom,” which is essentially a user-friendly systematic theology for life. This session introduces this paradigm, compares it to traditional emotional intelligence [9], and shows how the gospel is the key to developing and practicing relational wisdom [10].
Session 4: Applying Relational Wisdom – Relational wisdom is so simple a child can apply it, yet so complex you can spend the rest of your life developing it. In this session we will move from the theoretical to the practical by unpacking two simple acrostics that will help you to practice relational wisdom at home, in your church or ministry, and in the workplace. The first acrostic is, “To be relationally wise in all situations, practice the SOG plan [11] (Self-aware, Others-aware, and God-aware).” The second acrostic is, “To become more God-aware and God-engaging, follow a reliable GPS [12] (God-Positioning System, namely, Glorify God, Pursue God, Serve God).”
Session 5: Applying Relational Wisdom – In this session we will continue to study practical acrostics for learning and applying relational wisdom. The third primary RW acrostic is, “To become more self-aware and self-engaging, READ [13] yourself accurately (Recognize your emotions, Evaluate their source, Anticipate the consequences of following them, and Direct them on a constructive course).” The fourth acrostic is, “To become more other-aware and other-engaging, SERVE [14] every person you meet (Smile, Explore and Empathize, Reconcile, Value, Encourage)
Session 6: Relational Peacemaking – No matter how hard we try to live relationally-wise lives, all of us will inevitably stumble at times by taking our focus off of God, failing to master our emotions, and treating others in insensitive and hurtful ways. In this session we will introduce a practical systematic theology for resolving the conflicts of real life. This system, which is taught in seminaries around the world, includes a tool for identifying twelve typical responses to conflict (Slippery Slope of Conflict [15]), and practical, user-friendly peacemaking principles of confession [16], forgiveness [17], and negotiation [18] that have been used to reverse divorces, settle lawsuits, resolve leadership meltdowns, and heal church divisions.
Session 7: Improving Relational Wisdom – In all too many seminars, people acquire a great deal of information but leave without a personal and effective plan for putting those new concepts into practice. In this session we will explain why and how each of us can see substantial growth in our relational skills. We see why our growth will ultimately depend on what “GPS” (God-Positioning System) we choose to live by. We will show how each of the six primary RW skills is rooted in the gospel of Christ [10]. Finally, we will provide access to resources that will give each participant the opportunity to develop a free personal, seven-week RW action plan [19] for growing in relational wisdom and pursuing advanced training [20].
Permission to distribute: Please feel free to download, print, or electronically share this message in its entirety for non-commercial purposes with as many people as you like.
Would you like to receive future posts like this? Subscribe now [21]!