2024 Regional Conference Workshops
Some Workshop Offerings May Change Before April
Introductory Track
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Introduction to Peace Sower Teams
(Stephen Garner, Steven Schneider, & Dave Mikulsky) God has given you a vision to start a Peace Sower Team at your church or organization. So, what’s next? In this workshop, we will share the journey of one church as they moved from vision to reality with a Peace Sower Team utilizing the resources provided by RW360. Topics to be addressed include: Getting leadership buy-in; Recruiting members; Training – best practices; Roles and Responsibilities; Office space and operations; Marketing the ministry; and Growing while sowing
Introduction to Relational Wisdom
(Ken Sande) This workshop will provide an introduction to RW360’s 10-hour course, Discovering Relational Wisdom, and briefly describes the theology, benefits and practical applications of relational wisdom, which is an enhanced form of emotional intelligence. These enhancements include the integration of a biblical worldview, acrostics that accelerate skill development and personal growth, dozens of practical life applications and multiple demonstration videos. This training will start you on a journey to improving your ability to read emotions, influence other people, exercise empathy and self-control, communicate more clearly, resolve conflict, build fulfilling relationships and enjoy a compelling witness for Christ. These principles have the potential to impact every area of your life, including your family and friendships, church, workplace performance and career advancement.
Introduction to Relational Peacemaking
(Ken Sande) This workshop provides an introduction to RW360’s 12-hour course, Relational Peacemaking, and briefly describes the theology, benefits and practical applications of biblical peacemaking, which combines the principles of relational wisdom, which is an enhanced form of emotional intelligence, with the principles of biblical peacemaking, as described in Ken Sande’s best selling book, The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict. This training combines practical theology with dozens of practical life applications, demonstration videos and simple acrostics that accelerate skill development and personal growth. This training will introduce you to a wide variety of conflict resolution principles and skills, including how to take responsibility for your contribution to a conflict, how to confront others constructively, when and how to genuinely forgive wrongs, how to negotiate substantive issues and how to deal wisely with people who refuse to be reasonable. These principles have the potential to impact every area of your life, including your marriage, parenting and friendships, church, workplace performance and career advancement.
Introduction to Christian Conciliation
(Stephen Garner) In this workshop we will provide an introduction to the key principles of conflict coaching and biblical mediation and arbitration (also known as “Christian Conciliation”), and show how these processes have been used to resolve conflicts and reconcile people in churches, ministries, mission teams and Christian owned businesses.
RW Shepherd
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Leadership/Shepherding
(Sandy Willson) Description coming soon!
Leadership/Shepherding
(Thomas Hammond) Description coming soon!
Living It Out: How to be a God-like shepherd leader in your context
(Tim Laniak) Following Tim’s inspirational keynote on biblical shepherding, he will invite participants in this workshop to examine real-life challenges leaders face.
Leading Through Change
(Todd Wright) Leading through Change effectively is an essential skill every church leader must develop. Most people resist change, yet it’s the leader’s responsibility to initiate it and lead people though it toward a better future. Join Pastor Todd Wright as he discusses the principles he has followed to lead Midway Church through almost 30-years of challenge and change. A few of the changes they have traversed as they have grown from 200 to 2500 in worship are: Racial, Cultural, Music, Tradition, Physical Space, Staff, Government Structure, and more.
Leadership Transitions
(Todd Wright and Kevin Rivers) One day, your leadership role will no longer belong to you. John Maxwell once said, “There is no long-term success without succession.” Leadership transitions are inevitable and often devastating, but walking through them with an intentional process that blesses everyone involved is a choice. After serving Midway Church as its Lead Pastor for almost 30 years, Pastor Todd Wright launched such a process. Join Todd and his successor, Dr. Kevin Rivers, as they talk about the principles and concepts that they are following to ensure a smooth and seamless transition.
The Allure of Gentleness in an Uncivil Age
(Rankin Wilbourne) Gentleness. It’s a fruit of the Spirit. The Apostle Paul exhorts us to let our “gentleness be evident to all” (Phil 4.5) and appeals to his readers in what he calls “the gentleness of Christ,” (2 Cor. 10.1). Of all the possible words he could have chosen to describe his person, our Lord Jesus chose the word “gentle” to define his very heart (Matt. 11.30). In theory, few of us would say we’re against it, but how often does a spirit of meekness and gentleness inform how we engage one another? Have we confused gentleness with the counterfeit substitute of playing nice? Does part of us, implicitly and often unconsciously, equate gentleness with weakness, and therefore, something a part of us might resist and about which we feel some shame? What does embodied gentleness look like, particularly in what are called “crucial conversations?” In our increasingly fractious, ungracious times, if you want to grow in gentleness, come join our conversation.
The Relationally Wise Leader
RW and Pastoral Ministry
(Steve Schneider) Beset with personal weakness, humbled by inadequacy at every turn, and entrenched in the daily spiritual war for the flourishing of God’s people, pastoral ministry can often become overwhelming & discouraging. As a result, that which we value most suffers—our personal walk with Christ, our high calling to sacrificially love our wife and children, our faithfulness in shepherding, and our witness to those who need the gospel. In this session, I will share ways that RW has greatly impacted my life in the multi-faceted spheres of pastoral ministry and how it can impact yours.
Redemptive Church Discipline
(Glenn Waddell) Church Discipline – misunderstood, full of risk, neglected, and abused, but critically important for the health and witness of the Church and the sanctification of believers. How did we go from a time where Church Discipline was considered one of the three marks of a true church to virtual abandonment of the practice? How can you introduce it to your church and practice discipline in an age of lawsuits and individualistic thinking? How has the church gotten it right and wrong through the ages? And what exactly did Jesus mean when He said, “Treat them as a pagan and a tax collector”?
RW and Marriage Counseling
(Steve Schneider) Providing biblical care and counseling for hurting couples is a tremendous privilege. Yet, as anyone who has come alongside a struggling marriage knows, this ministry is not for the faint of heart. In this seminar we will focus on some primary ways RW360 can aid and improve our efforts in counseling couples. Specifically, we will learn how applying the S.O.G. plan to each session can enhance and enrich everyone’s experience in the counseling process. In this way pivotal conversations can be redeemed and hopeless situations can become opportunities for God to be worshiped as His power, love, and grace is experienced and enjoyed.
Overcoming Complex Church Conflict with the Transforming Power of the Gospel
(Don Hicks) Description coming soon! Almost one-third of USA pastors have been forced out of a congregation at least once, often because of attacks of a few church members who sometimes use sinful methods to impose their will on the pastor and church. Church leadership, seminary students, and denominational officials are often inadequately trained to address these types of complex conflicts that go beyond normal interpersonal tensions. In this workshop, Don Hicks will share his family’s personal experience of forced termination. He will describe ways to understand, prevent, and respond to such conflict by drawing on the power of the gospel and applying principles of relational wisdom and biblical peacemaking in a way that you not only survive these types of trials but also flourish afterward so that you can one day echo Joseph’s amazing words, “YOu intended to harm me, but God intended for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20).
Guarding Pastoral Ministry from Legal Liability Through Informed Consent
(Ken Sande) Through the early years of our nation, civil courts gave great deference to churches on how they would carry out pastoral ministry. Not anymore. Recent cases have pushed aside the traditional protects afforded the church and opened the way for churches to be sued for breach of fiduciary responsibility, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and similar causes of action. This workshop will describe ways that churches can use RW360’s risk management resources to promote loving pastoral care, build safeguards against the misuse of power, and reduce their exposure to legal liability by obtaining “informed consent” to pastoral policies and practices, including conflict resolution, divorce and remarriage, protecting children from abuse, counseling and confidentiality and church discipline.
Instructor Track
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Using Relational Wisdom and Peacemaking for Witnessing and Evangelism
(Ken Sande) This seminar describes ways that Christians can use the principles of relational wisdom and biblical peacemaking to build relationships that make it easy and natural to share the gospel with relatives, friends, neighbors and coworkers. This workshop is one of the required lessons for the RW Instructor Certificate.
Facilitating Transformative Group Studies
(Rankin Wilbourne) Every speaker and leader wants his or her content to lead to changed lives, but far too often we settle for conveying information rather than aiming at transformation. What is a transformational learning context? Could it be that the way we are presenting our material undermines the very goals we have in preparing it? Come join us for this seminar as we look at themes related to “desirable difficulty” and “subversive spirituality” in our teaching, combining the best of modern pedagogical theory with ancient Biblical wisdom. This workshop is one of the required lessons for the RW Instructor Certificate.
RW Coaching
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RW Skills Coaching #1 - The Model for RW Coaching
(Patti Damiani and Chip Zimmer) The RW model of coaching will be presented through a case study and small group work, exploring how you can use this approach to help other people learn a variety of relational skills.
RW Skills Coaching #2 - The Art of Listening
(Patti Damiani) Listening well is a crucial competency that all successful coaches possess. We will present the elements of effective listening and provide opportunities for practice through hands-on exercises.
RW Skills Coaching #3 - Asking Powerful Questions
(Patti Damiani) Asking good questions is a critical requirement of effective coaching and can be harder than it looks. We’ll share tips regarding how to know which questions work well and provide opportunities to practice asking questions that heighten awareness during in-class exercises.
Conciliation
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The Anatomy of an Unresolved Church Conflict
(Paul Cornwell and Allison Pickering) Have you ever noticed that churches in unresolved conflict fail to resolve their conflicts or even find a resolutional-path due to something they are not doing? We have! While there are multiple examples of things missing in church conflict, identifying what is missing and telling the church is ineffective. Even knowing the facts does not bring the needed resolution.
This workshop will present a description of how church leaders and congregations attempt to address their challenges. As the participant will quickly see, many churches give good and well-intended effort to understand their conflicts, yet they end their pursuit prematurely. This occurs for many reasons ranging from ignorance of what the next helpful step might be to moving away from the hope of the gospel.
When a church-conciliator understands the church’s efforts, discovers why they stopped too soon and can describe and offer a path to more effectively address the issues, many churches will desire to follow that path. Participants will learn a 3-tiered pattern of addressing church issues. They will understand the common ways each pattern is defined, is helpful, and how stopping too soon results in many church conflicts staying unresolved.
Handling Conciliation Surprises and Pitfalls
(Paul Cornwell and Allison Pickering) You know how you have a new case, rather typical initial contacts, a great outline for the meetings, and wonderful plans for how you will guide each party right to a smooth reconciliation, even a list of scriptures and wisdom quotes ready to pull out as needed? But as the conciliation work gets rolling, suddenly up pops a totally unexpected and difficult situation that has the potential to stymie everything! This panel of seasoned conciliators will share insights and experience gained in the field on some of these “surprises and pitfalls” plus allow some time at the end to field questions.
Special Applications
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Reaching Young Adults with Relational Wisdom
Everyday Negotiation Skills
(Chip Zimmer) If you’ve read The Peacemaker, or taken part in a peacemaking seminar, you’ve encountered the PAUSE Principle of negotiation. Many of us think of the PAUSE Principle only applies to conflicted relationships. But PAUSE can also be used in everyday conversations as well as pastoral ministry to strengthen relationships and develop mutually supported solutions. In this Workshop, we’ll explore how godly heart attitudes support the creation of compelling joint-problem statements, the key to negotiating cooperatively. In preparation, please read Chapter 11 of The Peacemaker.
RW and Grief Care
(Steven Schneider and Leslie Pair) Grief has always been a difficult journey. Our society is much better at celebrating new beginnings than we are at dealing with endings in a healthy way…especially death. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in more than 1 million American deaths, and we’ve heard the heartbreaking stories of loved ones dying alone because hospitals were locked down. Sadly, an additional 6+ million Americans died of various causes during 2020 and 2021, most of them without a single visitor or family member present. Today millions of family members and friends have unresolved grief; tremendous guilt; and relational trauma that could haunt them the rest of their lives. Many are distant from God, abandoning faith in their grief and anger. Relationships have fractured.
This workshop will explore ways that the principles of relational wisdom can be applied in the midst of deep grief to open the door for God’s eternal truth and light bring hope and healing!