We get a significant number of requests for help with cases of escalated conflict in the church, where Christians are struggling to work together. Sometimes we can offer the services of trained mediators or facilitators.

Interpersonal mediation

• Can be helpful where two people find their working relationship getting very tense, and cannot easily resolve disagreements
• Involves face-to-face dialogue
• Can also work for small teams 

Group reconciliation

• Can be helpful for congregations or other large groups, when conflict has been building up for some time
• Involves a mixture of approaches
• Needs a carefully-structured process, spread over several months

Our general approach

We focus on helping people to address their grievances, build their own agreements for the future, and find an opening for God’s work of reconciliation. This holds together problem-solving and healing - attending to practicalities but also to hurt feelings. We call this approach conflict transformation. See our Articles section for more about what that means. 

When it is not possible for one of our staff member to take the lead on a case, then we can try to refer it to members of our Network.