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Peacemaker seminar, Day 2

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Today we finished our second and last day at the Peacemaker seminar here in Puebla, Mexico.  It went well, I think, and there’s always so much more to learn.

It’s funny, one thing I kept thinking about, especially since I knew I was going to be blogging about this, is the use and abuse of extra-biblical material in general.  I think that there’s a place for “materials” and teaching – it’s all part of the faithful passing on the truth and discipling.  But there are also specific ways that materials can be abused.  Some general ideas are cementing in my mind, but that will have to be another post on another day!  🙂

Right now we’re here to try to wrestle again with what God has to say about being a peacemaker.  Today I got thinking about the concept of talking to someone about an issue; gently restoring a relationship, perhaps.  A key verse for this concept is Galations 6:1,”Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted“.

There’s a lot to learn about “restoring”.  One of the most important things is bringing the Gospel to the situation.  In fact, one reason why Ken Sande came out with an updated version of The Peacemaker was because he was realizing more and more the importance of the reality of the Gospel in peace making.

One phrase that kept coming up was that we must “breath grace” into the situation.  That means the constant infusion of God’s wonderful powerful care of each of us, because of the forgiveness that’s in Jesus Christ.

I was thinking that this breathing of grace is sometimes totally essential before any progress can be made at all.  It’s as if you find someone on the beach who isn’t breathing.  You can’t talk with them at all until you’ve given them a little “artificial respiration”, as we call it.

Let’s imagine we have a conflict with someone (we have good imaginations).  We can’t always expect that that person will be able to respond in any way.  They may simply not even be capable of having a conversation with us.  Not until they have had some grace breathed into their life.  Don’t be so hard on them – you’re the same way without grace.

God may allow us to breath grace into their life.  We may need to show them special grace before they’re anywhere close to being ready to listen.  Or they may need to have that grace from someone else, or directly from the Holy Spirit.

When we are ready to confess our sin, or confront someone about theirs, we’ve (hopefully) already had that grace breathed into us.  But we can’t expect everyone to be at the same point, and we can’t imagine we are better than they are because we’ve had this grace given to us.

May God give us the grace to share grace with those who hurt us, who have hurt us and who may hurt us again.  It’s only because of the marvelous grace of God in Jesus that we can do it – forgive as He forgave on the cross.  And it’s only by God’s grace that the other person can receive God’s love and be restored.

I hope that I can be reminded every day to breath in God’s grace, and breath it out into the lives of others.

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We enjoyed the seminars.  We even got a free copy of Peacemaking for Families, which I look forward to reading after I reread The Peacemaker.  We also got some of the Young Peacemaker material, which is focused on older elementary/jr. high, but it can be adapted up and down.  Much of it is now in Spanish also.

Peacemaker seminar, Day 1

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Today we had the first half of the conference we’re attending in Puebla, Mexico.  It’s being put on by Toby Casteel and Roger Oliver, both missionaries here in Mexico.

The seminar is all about “Peacemaking”.  Like many people, I’m suspicious of formulas, trends, or “directives from above” that are supposed to be “biblical”.  Whether I’m right or wrong, I rarely recommend books or materials, at least publicly.  But I will say this about the Peacemaker material, which we’re using at this conference:

If you look at it with an open heart, it will help you to wrestle with what God has to say in the Bible about our relationships with one another.  Even if you were to reject everything that Ken Sande (the author of the book and founder of the organization) has to say about peacemaking, it’s worth your time to read the book.  It brings up Scripture again and again and brings us face to face with what the Bible says about our responsibility as Christians.

That being said, let me share two (of many) things that struck me today.  Having been through the material before, different things hit me each time I look at it.

First, I was thinking about some of the reasons we avoid dealing with conflict.  One thing we discussed is why (in 1Cor 6:1-8) Paul tells believers that they should not be filing lawsuits against one another.  I wrote,”[It] shows we are incapable and defeated, smearing God’s name and bringing His power into doubt.”

Later I thought that it actually brings many of His attributes into doubt – for example,”If they follow a God of love, why can’t they love each other?”  We also talked about how a lawsuit is a shallow solution that really doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.

But then I got thinking…we often avoid conflict for some of the same reasons.  We’re afraid that if the church/our friends/the world finds out about this or that conflict, they might:

  • Think I’m not a good Christian
  • Wonder why God couldn’t keep me from that sin
  • Wonder why my “religion” isn’t doing me any good
  • Think we’re all hypocrites

But in the end, we are commanded to make things right with one another.  And we must trust God for the results, and trust God to protect His good Name, as we obey.  And after all, 90% of the time, everyone else knows there’s a problem anyway – it’s not like we’re hiding it all that well!

Another thing that struck me had to do with cross cultural conflict, which we are actually dealing with tomorrow (so maybe I’ll have to change my mind then!).  This one is hard to explain in short form, but we were talking about Jesus’ words in Mat 18:  If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone….

In his book Cross Cultural Conflict, Duane Elmer talks a lot about the indirect confrontation of various cultures.  It’s inappropriate in most cultures (unlike in Canada and the States) to directly confront someone.  You work through the community, but you allow the person to save face by not being direct – not directly mentioning their sin, especially to them.  To do so would be disastrous to your relationship.  But does this fit with Jesus’ words?

I think that maybe it can.  Jesus does say you need to go directly and privately to the person involved.  It’s hard to get around that.  But it is possible to help someone see their fault, to let them know you know, without being direct.  Perhaps there is room in what Jesus says for culturally-appropriate indirect language.

I won’t take the time to talk about the ins and outs of direct and indirect confrontation, but if you see where I’m going with this one, feel free to stop by and leave your own comments!

Time for bed.  If I can, I’ll drop by again after tomorrow’s sessions.

Peacemaker Conference in Puebla

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This afternoon, Lord willing, we’ll be heading to the city of Puebla for a conference Peacemaker Ministrieson biblical peacemaking.   The material comes from Peacemaker Ministries.  The conference is part of an initiative to train all our mission’s workers to learn more skills for dealing with conflict.

Peacemaker Ministries was started by attorney Ken Sande, who grew frustrated with the lack of conflict resolution among believers.  After all, once anyone reached his office they were not interested in reconciliation but just “winning”.  I discovered Sande’s book “The Peacemaker” a number of years ago, and gained permission from the organization to use some of their material to train our teams at vti.  It was an excellent way to help people understand the biblical basics.

Today they have material for children, churches, short term teams and more.  But I would highly recommend that you add their main book to your library.  So many people pray for peace on earth – God has given us many tools to bring peace to our own circles of life, if we would only listen.  It’s hard to do sometimes, but if we don’t even know what God says about it, we’re not even out of the gate!

If I have the chance, I’ll try to write a little during/after the conference about what we’ve talked about.

After 1 week of language school

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This audio blog was recorded on the way to my second week of language school. I just wanted to share a little about the school, and a few first impressions. The audio quality starts poor, but does somewhat improve when the traffic slows down. 🙂 It’s a long one, though – over 8 minutes. So get comfortable.


¡Child claims he doesn’t need candy!

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The other night we went down the street to the local convenience store (OXXO) to get some milk.  Nathanael and I went, so that we could have some man-talk time.

Nathanael, as is his custom, walked around the store touching everything that he could get away with touching and speculating on whether or not we needed those chips or that granola bar or this … oops!  Don’t touch THAT!

I went to the counter to pay.  Convenience store counters in your area are probably much like this one.  Placed within easy grab on the front of the counter are chocolate bars, gum, and other types of candy.  Nathanael was convinced he needed a package of candy, and so he took it out and told me all about it and placed in on the counter.

As is my custom, I let him know that indeed he did not need the candy.  So I taught him how to say “no necesito” – I don’t need (this).  So he started saying,”No necesito” while he took out the candy.  And placed it on the counter.

No, he didn’t get the candy.  (After all, he quite rightly insisted that he “didn’t need it”!)

That night we were eating a delicious turkey casserole.  And deviled eggs.  He didn’t want his egg, and he smushed it on the table.  We told him that he needs to keep food he doesn’t want on his plate, not on the table.  He didn’t get the point, telling us that he was done.  Then he pushed the egg onto his plate, crying,”¡No necesito!”

I guess he understood more than I thought…

(This is a good thing, right?!)

The Canada Revenue Agency

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I recently got a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency.  Those are the folks that oversee our paying of taxes and so forth.  They told me that two of my previous tax returns are under review.

Oh, don’t worry – we didn’t do anything wrong.  As a matter of fact, we’ve followed the rules to the letter, and I’ve even called them and discussed how exactly to calculate things, so I’m not concerned about that.

In fact, one of Shari’s returns was reviewed last year.  We simply sent them the paperwork that they asked for, and they checked it over and told us it was all just fine.

But this time it’s different.  Not because we did anything incorrectly on these returns.  The problem is that some of our documents were destroyed by mistake during our move.  So this means getting documents from at least three, maybe more, sources.  And these sources are all three a few thousand kilometers apart.  And our ability to send and receive original documents is somewhat difficult.  AND Canada Revenue has put on us a rather strict time limit.

Some of the documents may also cost us a fair bit to replace.

So we would appreciate your prayers about this.  It’s already such a busy time, and it’s a challenge to add on all this phoning and emailing and pouring over documents and making calculations.  Meanwhile we’re trying to do other paperwork, and homework, and this that and the other thing.

I don’t usually post specific prayer requests here (maybe I should do more of that in the future), preferring to put requests on our prayer request page.  But this is requires a little more explanation, so here I am.  You could pray:

  • That we would be able to access and complete all the documents that the CRA needs.
  • That we would be able to do this in time.
  • That we would be able to do this at minimum cost.
  • That God would give understanding between the CRA and us so that the issue would be resolved quickly and properly.

Thanks for your prayers!

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