Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action: An Introduction – Theresa F. Latini
I have served as a spiritual care coordinator at a human services agency, as an associate pastor, as a seminary professor at two different institutions, and as a parish associate. In all of these settings, I have discovered again and again that the most challenging moments in ministry are not tasks like sermon writing, hospital visitation, conducting funerals, creating new courses or developing curricula. Rather what creates anxiety, frustration, disappointment, and downright perplexity in ministry are the entrenched interpersonal impasses and conflicts among church members, (and church members who are also family members!), staff, committees, and denominational factions.
Consequently, I have spent the past nine years learning Nonviolent Communication (NVC), also called compassionate communication. Developed by clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, NVC has grown into an international peacemaking organization, with people throughout the world practicing the skills of compassionate communication in their homes and workplaces, in prisons and community centers, in preschools and universities, and now in a handful of seminaries.
I first learned about compassionate communication when, unbeknownst to me, I desperately needed it. Ruptures in close relationships, divisions in my denomination, interpersonal impasses that arose when leading change in my congregation, and my own attempt to live well as I completed a doctoral degree and worked as a pastor: all this called for substantial growth in relating to God, others, and myself. While at first a bit skeptical about NVC—as a theologian-in-training, it was my job to critically analyze theories and practices—I eventually threw myself headlong into learning it. Eight-hundred hours of training later, a book was born: Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action, co-authored by Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger (Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Seminary) and me. In the book, we interpret NVC in light of Christian theology and apply it to a host of common impasses in church life.
Deborah has her own story of learning compassionate communication, which precedes mine. She first became acquainted with Rosenberg’s work in 1987 and put it to use in her pastoral counseling work with couples, teaching it to engaged couples and using it extensively with long-married couples disheartened or defeated by their inability to connect. While she taught NVC in a number of her seminary classes over the years, she discovered its transformative potential for herself after 9/11 when she struggled with despair over the United States’ decision to wage war against Iraq. As her immersion in the NVC community re-ignited a sense of hope, she committed herself not only to deepening her NVC practice but also to developing a conceptual framework for NVC to be used with integrity in the context of Christian faith. Later, as she sought to broaden the scope of NVC ‘s impact on community life, she began serious study and training in restorative practices to be used as powerful tools for conflict transformation in community-wide impasses. We present this set of practices in the last chapter of Transforming Church Conflict.
Today, Deborah and I teach compassionate communication in our seminary courses, in continuing education events, and in workshops for congregations and regional church bodies. As we write in the introduction, “we have become convinced that nonviolent or compassionate communication is the best single resource available for learning the complex interpersonal and pastoral skills needed by today’s church” (xv).
Broadly speaking, congregations face myriad challenges today. Some flounder in intractable conflict. Some struggle to recover from clergy misconduct. Mainline denominations are rent apart by polarizing discourse and some congregations are so disheartened that they withdraw from communion with others. Individuals choose to believe without belonging to the church at all. Or they belong marginally—receiving what they can from worship but avoiding authentic and honest communication about the issues dividing the church.
Pastors burn out at an alarming rate, and other leaders grow weary of keeping all the church’s programs afloat. Many public Christian leaders falter under the weight of their own and others’ expectations to do it all. Add to this the fact that we are inundated, on a daily basis, with diverse ways of being Christian, of being religious, of being a person. We choose from among these, discerning to the best of our ability what it means to live a good, faithful, true life in relationship to those both near and far from us. And then we begin the hard yet richly rewarding work of living in community with people who choose differently than us.
Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action seeks to help church members and leaders face conflict honestly and faithfully, to practice reconciliation, to live out their vocations with greater joy, and to deepen their connection to God in the midst of challenging circumstances.
This week on Ecclesio, four public Christian leaders, representing diverse theological traditions and backgrounds, review and respond to this book.
On Tuesday, Russell Haitch, professor of practical theology at Bethany Theological Seminary (affiliated with the Church of the Brethren) provides a close analysis of what he calls the “virtues” of the book. He begins with background information on Nonviolent Communication and addresses some of the concerns folks might have when first learning about it.
On Wednesday, Jessicah Krey Duckworth, program director in the religion division of Lilly Endowment and ordained ELCA pastor, reviews the book and argues that “what family systems theory has been for the twentieth century . . . compassionate communication must be for the twenty-first.” She describes her teaching of NVC as well as her incorporation of these skills in her family life.
On Thursday, Lisa Larges, former director of That All May Freely Serve (TAMFS), reflects on forty years of sexuality debates in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She wonders how the skills of compassionate communication might have contributed to healing and wholeness for many who were wounded by denominational politics. She expresses a prophetic hope for “empathy the next time” that a marginalized community becomes the focus of ecclesial debate.
On Friday, Kara Root, pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, describes the transforming impact of compassionate communication in her congregation and her own leadership. I join her for parts of this conversation, describing the specific skills set forth in Transforming Church Conflict, which have been creatively woven into the fabric of this congregation’s life. Kara’s story portrays an authentic embodiment of NVC in church leadership.
We hope you, the reader, will join us. We invite you to bring your stories, experiences, questions, curiosity, and insights to this conversation.
The Rev. Theresa F. Latini, Ph.D. currently holds the George C. Weinman Chair in Pastoral Theology and Ministry and serves as associate professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership at Luther Seminary (Saint Paul, MN). Beginning January 2014, she will be working as professor of practical theology and pastoral care at Western Theological Seminary (Holland, MI). A teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Theresa has been the parish associate at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis, MN) for the past three years. Prior to attending seminary, she served as spiritual care coordinator for an agency serving adults with developmental disabilities.
Theresa is the author of The Church and the Crisis of Community: A Practical Theology of Small- Group Ministry (Eerdmans, 2011) and co-author of Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action (Westminster John Knox, 2013). She has received over 800 hours of intensive training in Nonviolent (or, Compassionate) Communication, which she describes as a life-giving set of practices for transforming conflict and connecting across differences. She offers workshops and consultation on these topics for churches throughout the United States.
For more information and educational videos, go to theresalatini.com. Theresa currently can be reached via email at tlatini001@luthersem.edu.