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Current Articles New Program Manager (June 2009) China Update (June 2009) Evans Honorary Doctorate (March 2009) Obama Recommendations (January 2009) Emerging China Program (January 2009) Little Rock Peace Network (January 2009) Tallberg Forum (October 2008) Seeking Peace in Colombia (October 2008) Papua Peace Update (July 2008) Evans Reflections on CTF (July 2008) Courant Plowshares Article (July 2008) Interfaith Dialogue Initiative (February 2008) Restorative Justice Work (February 2008)

Becoming Agents of Reconciliation in Congregations and Communities  Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM Aug. 4-10, 2003

In the face of growing conflicts within our congregations, our communities, and our nation, this seminar will focus on skills and insights for effective agents of reconciliation. For the Church to address conflicts in church and society, clergy and laity need to develop the capacity to constructively and creatively facilitate dialogue within their congregations and communities on controversial issues. 

This calls for skills of listening, empathic identification with others, mutual problem solving, and strategies for facilitation. The course will use a resource developed by the leaders when working in South Africa. The Peace Skills Manual uses spiritual, moral, and cultural resources to promote understanding of conflict and to develop constructive approaches to addressing the differences that divide us. The seminar leaders will draw on extensive international work as mediators and trainers in peace-building skills to address such controversial topics as "pre-emption" and the war on Iraq, homosexuality and the church, and poverty and wealth. We encourage lay and clergy teams to attend from congregations, presbyteries, and synods in order to become catalysts for more effective and constructive transformation.

Bob Evans, Alice Evans, and Sara Lisherness, Co-ordinator of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, will facilitate the five day course.  For more information or to register: Contact Plowshares; Ghost Ranch Website