{"id":400,"date":"2016-05-18T12:05:48","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T16:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=400"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:06","slug":"peacemaker-ministries-and-the-institute-for-christian-conciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/peacemaker-ministries-and-the-institute-for-christian-conciliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Peacemaker Ministries and the Institute for Christian Conciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ministry now known as Peacemaker Ministries began in the early 1980\u2019s with a singular purpose: equip the church with dispute resolution skills so that disputes among Christians are resolved among Christians, using Christian principles, to God\u2019s glory. The two foundational Scriptures for the ministry complement one another: I Corinthians 6:1-7 exhorts Christians not to sue one another in court, and Matthew 18:15-17 describes a process for how Christians should resolve their disputes. If Christians follow the principles in Matthew 18, they are unlikely to have unresolved disputes needing a court decision; but if they do, they can bring them to fellow Christians \u201cwise enough\u201d to resolve them, so there\u2019s no need for Christians to bring their disputes to civil courts.<\/p>\n

As the ministry grew, the development of inter-personal peacemaking skills (Matthew 18:15) was distinguished from the development of skills needed to intervene in other people\u2019s conflicts (Matthew 18:16, I Cor. 6:5). All aspects of intervening in others\u2019 conflicts\u2014case administration of mediation and arbitration, Rules of Procedure, contract clauses, advanced training, and the certification of gifted conciliators\u2014were placed under the umbrella of the Institute of Christian Conciliation (ICC) as a division of Peacemaker Ministries over twenty years ago.<\/p>\n

Now the ICC will be formally separated from Peacemaker Ministries (PM). As PM sharpens its focus on equipping laypeople to respond to conflict biblically, it is seeking a new \u201cowner\u201d for the ICC<\/a>. The board came to the difficult decision that it could not be a good steward of the ICC as well as of the other resources entrusted to it, especially the newest offering, The Path of a Peacemaker<\/em>. The ICC audience is much smaller than the church at large, and deserves resources devoted to it. As one who has been involved with Peacemaker Ministries for decades, and now as a member of the board of directors, I have struggled with this decision. It feels in some ways like we\u2019re cutting the heart out of the ministry; but on another level, it is a logical next step, given the dual audiences and the fiscal constraints in which\u00a0PM is\u00a0currently operating. I do believe God has made it clear to the board that things need to change and, as a matter of good stewardship,\u00a0PM should transfer the ICC to another organization that can better enable\u00a0it to\u00a0fulfill its potential.<\/p>\n

The church needs the ministry of the ICC more than ever. Christians continue to sue one another because they don\u2019t know there\u2019s a viable Christian alternative; and Christians gifted as mediators and arbitrators are searching for opportunities to use their skills to serve the church. With God\u2019s help, the next owner of the ICC can energize this ministry so that it becomes a standard, integral component of the church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ministry now known as Peacemaker Ministries began in the early 1980\u2019s with a singular purpose: equip the church with dispute resolution skills so that disputes among Christians are resolved among Christians, using Christian principles, to God\u2019s glory. The two foundational Scriptures for the ministry complement one another: I Corinthians 6:1-7 exhorts Christians not to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}