The Christian church has been rocked once again by a major sexual abuse scandal, which involves the largest protestant denomination in the United States.
As one of last Sunday’s headlines read, “Southern Baptists Refused to Act on Abuse [1].” The subtitle to this article was even more heartbreaking: “SBC Executive Committee staff saw advocates’ cries for help as a distraction from evangelism and a legal liability, stonewalling their reports and resisting calls for reform.”
Once again, people have been deeply injured, the Lord has been dishonored and the gospel has been discredited because Christian churches did not prevent and respond to conflict in a biblically faithful manner.
New SBC leaders have committed the denomination to making restitution to the survivors of past abuse and to promoting changes to prevent such dreadful wrongs in the future. Even so, the polity of this denomination limits its ability to compel local SBC churches to adopt these changes.
Moreover, for every SBC church that needs better policies for preventing and responding to abuse, there are countless churches in other denominations that need similar changes.
You could be the catalyst in motivating your church be part of a proactive response to these events.
I invite you to bring a team of people from your church to RW360’s 2022 Sowing Peace Conference. As you can see from the list of keynotes and workshops below, this year’s conference includes ten hours of training on preventing and responding to power imbalances, abuse and trauma in the church.
There will be an additional 40 hours of training designed to enable your church to establish an in-house “Peace Sower Team” that can provide ongoing peacemaking services to congregation while also spreading the gospel in your community. Here are a few of the ways this training could impact your church:
- A Peacemaking Team in Action [2]
- A Better Way to Handle Abuse [3]
- Peace Sower Team [4]
- Using RW for Evangelism [5]
- RW Shepherd Training [6]
- 2022 Sowing Peace Conference Details and Registration [7]
If you would like to help prevent abuse and conflict in the church and to see your church become a model of gospel-based peacemaking, please encourage your church to send a team of members to this year’s conference where they can gain a vision, a plan and resources for developing a Peace Sower Team in your church.
Please let us know how we can serve your church as you seek to take hold of God’s marvelous promise, “Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:18).
~ Ken Sande
2022 Sowing Peace Conference Keynotes and Workshops
Our keynote sessions and workshops are designed to enable you to strengthen four key relational disciplines: relational wisdom, biblical peacemaking, RW skills coaching and Christian conciliation. This training qualifies for 12 hours of continuing education credit for Advanced and Certified RW Conciliators [8] and for Certified Christian Conciliators [9]. Some topics listed below may change prior to the conference.
Keynote Addresses
- The Power of Souls Knit Together [10]
- Toward a Biblically Wise View of Emotions [11]
- Making Your Relationships the Safest Place in the World [12]
- Discerning the Distortions of an Oppressor’s Heart [13]
- Navigating Everyday Conflict [14]
- Peacemaking in Africa [15]
General Workshops
- The Power of Faithfully Wise Anxiety [16]
- Friendships as Channels of Grace [17]
- Everyday Negotiation Skills [18]
- How Does God Relate to Women? [19]
- RW and Jesus’ Least Obeyed Command [20]
- Honor-Shame and Shalom [21]
RW Shepherd
- RW in Pastoral Ministry [22]
- RW and Marriage Counseling [23]
- Introduction to Christian Conciliation [24]
- Redemptive Church Discipline [25]
Peace Sower Teams
- Recruiting, Training and Managing a Peace Sower Team [26]
- Introduction to Christian Conciliation [27]
- RW and the Spiritual Discipline of Conversation [28]
- How to Lead and Teach for Transformation [29]
RW Coaching
Conciliation Skills
- Managing Power Imbalances and Abuse [33]
- Wisdom for Cases of Domestic Abuse [34]
- Mediation “Onramps” and “Offramps” in Abuse Cases [35]
- Church/Group Reconciliation (Part 1) [36]
- Church/Group Reconciliation (Part 2) [37]
- Promoting and Marketing Coaching and Conciliation Services [38]
Special Applications
- Blended Families: Reframing Perspectives, Balancing Relationships and Creating Belonging [39]
- Sowing Peace in Christian Schools [40]
- Relational Skills for Families and Children [41]
- Sowing Peace in the Workplace [42]
- Setting the Prisoner Free [43]
- Relational Wisdom in Black and White [44]
- Using RW to Respond to Issues of Justice and Diversity in the Church or Community [45]
- Unity in Diversity: Examining How One Group Applied RW in Response to Racial Tensions [46]
- From the Speaker’s Podium to the Counselor’s Office: Cognitive Therapy Just Got Smarter [47]
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© 2019 Ken Sande
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