Upcoming Foundation Courses
Foundation Courses
Transforming Conflict 1: Leadership, Discipleship and Community (formerly Transforming Church Conflict)
Transforming Conflict 1 is the new title for our flagship course
- A five-day residential training course
- Running three times a year (two standard courses and one senior leaders’ course)
- Aimed at people with leadership responsibility in the church and other Christian settings
- Practical focus and active style of learning
- Opportunities to work on case-studies from your own experience
This course lays the foundation for a constructive way of approaching conflict in Christian contexts. Explore the revolutionary idea that the New Testament sees conflict as normal and inevitable!
- teaching
- group work
- guided practice
- role-plays based on the kinds of conflicts encountered in the church and Christian contexts
- prayer and worship
- expect an intensive and busy time!
- To increase your self-awareness as a leader facing conflict, so that you become clearer about how others experience you and more confident about some of what you have to offer, and where you may need to grow
- To transform your attitude towards conflict and engaging with conflict, so that you are able to face conflict more constructively
- To equip you with practical skills for working with conflict, so that you can engage with conflict more confidently in future
And, for the Senior Leaders’ version only:
- To equip you with conflict analysis skills, so that you can better assess what type of interventions may be most appropriate in situations referred to you
By the end of the course we expect that you will have:
- Developed greater awareness about your communication style and its impact on others
- Reflected on Biblical resources related to conflict
- Enhanced your skills for communicating effectively in times of conflict
- Experienced and practised skills for facilitating meetings
- Learnt ways of building consensus and working with resistance in groups
- Developed your ability to analyse conflict and to identify what intervention may be most appropriate, such as mediation
- Considered ways to nurture a culture of creative engagement with conflict
- Reflected on the type of leadership needed in times of anxiety and tension
- Discovered ways that conflict can offer opportunities for growth
Should I apply for the standard or senior leaders’ Transforming Conflict 1 course?
Apply for the standard course if you have a leadership role in a local church or non regional context – for example as an ordained minister, youth leader or lay preacher. This version assumes that you mainly face conflict as it emerges in local churches and congregations or other smaller Christian groups or organisations.
Apply for the senior leaders’ course if you have a leadership role at regional or national level – for example Bishops, Archdeacons and others in the senior staff team (Anglican & Roman Catholic), Regional Ministers (Baptist), District Chairs (Methodist), Divisional Commanders (Salvation Army), Moderators (URC), or equivalents in other denominations and Christian settings. This version assumes that your oversight responsibilities include intervening in conflicts at local church or organisational level.
Advanced Courses
Bridge Builders offers advanced courses which build on the understanding and skills gained on Transforming Church Conflict and Transforming Conflict 1, including a 5-day assessed and accredited mediation course Mediating Interpersonal Conflicts and a course focussed particularly on leading through change, Transforming Conflict 2: Building Resilient Leadership.
Leading in Anxious Times – A Systems Approach to Leadership (formerly Leading with Emotional Maturity)
This foundation course is the successor to the well-received course Leading with Emotional Maturity
- A two part course of 2 x 2 days, run in residential or hybrid mode – four training days in all
- Aimed at people with leadership responsibility in the church and Christian contexts
- Focused on personal growth and character
- Helps you understand, and transform, your pattern of relating to others
This course deepens the capacity of Christian leaders to stay at peace in challenging situations, through exploring relationships and patterns within the leader’s own family of origin, and in the light of a systems approach to leadership. It draws on the insights of Family Systems Theory developed by Murray Bowen.