Peacemaking
Peacemaking, including conflict resolution, reconciliation, restorative justice, and community transformation, has always been an integral part of the education students receive at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. Recently, ABTS is taking peacemaking beyond the classroom setting. By adapting our expertise to equip churches and organizations, we are able to foster a culture of peace, reconciliation, and unity within the body, while continuously looking for ways to improve our knowledge and understanding of peacemaking and reconciliation.
Peacemaking focuses on developing contextual theories and tools for the Arab Church so that it can respond to the needs of its community in an effective and impactful manner. The journey began with a collaborative team of 13 Evangelical leaders in Lebanon from 9 different denominations who spent over 3 years in analyzing life experiences to generate theories of peacemaking and reconciliation. These theories resulted in workshops covering several topics related to inner peace, personal peacemaking, and more:
Peacemaking focuses on developing contextual theories and tools for the Arab Church so that it can respond to the needs of its community in an effective and impactful manner. The journey began with a collaborative team of 13 Evangelical leaders in Lebanon from 9 different denominations who spent over 3 years in analyzing life experiences to generate theories of peacemaking and reconciliation. These theories resulted in workshops covering several topics related to inner peace, personal peacemaking, and more:
1. Inner Peace: living an abundant life in Christ
- Dealing healthily with current situations
- Dealing with inner thoughts and managing emotions like fear, anxiety, unforgiveness, anger, etc.
- Dealing with weaknesses, flaws, and limitations
- Personality profiling (DISC)
2. Personal Peacemaking: building a healthy culture of love and unity
- Principles of conflict resolution
- Training on confession, forgiveness, confrontation, and restoration
- Discovering our conflict resolution approaches
3. Mediation and Arbitration: equipping leaders to manage conflict in a transformational manner
- Based on Matthew 18
- Principles for preserving peace in the church
4. Community Peacemaking: empowering the church to become a peacemaking agent in the community
- Church being a prophetic and dynamic voice in the community, breaking barriers
- Church ministry with marginalized groups in society
5. Families: towards healthier families
- Conflict resolution and peacemaking in marriage relationships
- Conflict resolution and peacemaking in relationships between parents and children
- Positive parenting
6. Khebz w Meleh (Bread and Salt): building healthier communities through interreligious workshops
- Faith & Identity, Faith & Worship, Faith & Conflict, Faith & Deeds
- Social Action
7. Ambassadors of Peace 1 for Youth: principles for dialogue
- Learning how to dialogue effectively in a healthy manner and as an important life skill. These skills are developed within a safe environment to enable young people to speak out, foster friendships, and work together toward transforming communities. These skills include listening, self-expression, objectivity, respect, and diversity.
8. Ambassadors of Peace 2 for Youth: journey of reconciliation
- Learning to manage daily life conflicts through sound and practical steps. This journey runs through several phases: Meeting with God, Confession, Forgiveness, and Restoration.