This document provides guidance for leaders on navigating anxious times based on principles of openness, presence, and seeing others as human beings rather than objects. It discusses the difference between constructive and destructive conflict, with the former occurring when people see each other as people and disagree respectfully, while the latter happens when people see others as objects and provoke opposition. The document also reflects on a biblical passage about Jesus healing a man at the pool of Bethesda and insights from systems thinking about addressing underlying issues in a community.

1. Leading through anxious times
March 3, 2015
By Dr. W. Craig Gilliam
Coordinator of Congregational Services
JustPeace
www.justpeaceumc.org

2. Guiding Principles
• Whoever shows up are the right people
• Whatever happens is what needs to happen
• Whenever it happens is the right time
• To be open to God whose middle name is Surprise!
• When it’s over, it’s over
(Adapted from Harrison Owens by Craig Gilliam)

3. After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew, Bethesda,
which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him
lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be made well?”
~~John 5:1-6
Reflecting on an Ancient Text

4. What is conflict?
Two people who see each other in an I-Thou way (as people) can still disagree
with each other’s opinions and positions, even strongly. And when such opinions
are diametrically opposed political ones or around the pastor or around change in
worship or religious beliefs or some social issue or some justice issue for
examples, the stakes can be very high. In such cases, “conflict” certainly would
be an appropriate way to describe the situation. However, parties that remain
open to the needs and humanity of those whose opinions differ from their own (I-
Thou) have options going forward that those who have closed off or cut off from
others do not.
When we see others in an I-It way (objects) we end up provoking opposition and
resistance in others not just because our opinions might oppose theirs, but
because our very views of others are in opposition. Blaming, horribilizing, playing
ourselves as the victims, focusing on differences, focusing on weaknesses and
focusing solely on our own needs, we provoke others to do the same. This is why
destructive conflict almost always results when people see others as objects (I-It).
We help create the very situations we say we dislike.
. . .the I-Thou relation to God and the I-Thou relationship to one’s fellow human
being are at bottom related to each other. --Martin Buber

5. Insights from
emotional systems
into
conflict
transformation

6. Insights for systems
and conflict transformation
• On a given Sunday, multiple systems interlock. Anything unresolved in one
system impacts the others. (See Interlocking Circles Diagram below.)
• When a person connects with another, they become someone different.
• A systems lens is not a diagnostic model. Not a linear cause-and- effect
fashion, but sees the community as organic and non-linear. Conflict
generally is not about one thing but about multiple factors interacting.
(See ABCD Diagram below.)

7. Insights for systems and conflict
transformation
continued . . .
• Identify and build on strengths, passions, what holds meaning.
• The answers or next steps are already within their midst. Our role is not
to give the answer, but to help create a space and sustain that space so
that what is trying to emerge can.
• How do we create a strong enough container to hold when the heat that
can transform a community is released?

8. At Meal Exercise:
A time to ponder!

9. Iceberg
Analogy
- Eric Law
•External Cultures
•Explicitly Learned, Conscious, Easily Changed
Objective Knowledge
•Internal Cultures
Implicitly Learned Unconscious
Difficult to Change
Subjective Knowledge

10.
Martin Buber
Two stories:
How and What?

12. The Phenomenology of Conversation:
The heart of conflict transformation
Conflict transformation is about conversations and relationships.
Ministry in general and our work in conflict transformation in
particular is not as much about fixing problems, the next program
for a congregation or the larger church. At a deeper level, it is
about the phenomenology of conversation—the courageous
conversation. We enter the community and conversation through
the portal of a present unknowing, a different ear, a perceptive
eye, an imagination refusing to come too early to a conclusion. In
other words, we pay attention and walk with and alongside people
into and through those conversations they are having with
themselves, with God, and with others around them. Our role is to
pay attention with a kind of fierce attentiveness to those
conversations and why they are so difficult and what is happening
along the way.

13. Leadership Quadrilateral
from a Systems Lens
by John Winn; Adapted by Craig Gilliam

14. Praying
By Mary Oliver
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another may speak.
Closing Words of Grace

15. Ways to invite change/influence
Prepared by Dr. W. Craig Gilliam
When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity
that surges between them.
― Martin Buber
Everyone has been corrected before. Sometimes the person correcting us has inspired us
to change. Sometimes their influence has invited in us just the opposite—to resist or
rebel. What was the difference?
Think of times when others have wanted you to change. Come up with a list of
approaches others have taken to help you change that were effective and approaches that
were ineffective.
Look for patterns in the lists. What is underlying the effectiveness of each of the
techniques? Consider the role way of the heart/being plays in determining influence.
Ways others have tried to get you to change. . .
Effective Ineffective