Tool for Transformation: Conversation
During a period of my life, I met a good friend for breakfast every Saturday. In those Saturday conversations, we both explored life issues, clarified values, and considered possible courses of action. The conversations were the means of grace that John Wesley called conferencing.
Recently, a district superintendent called members of United Methodist churches to dialogue, to engage in conversation that helps us grow in Christ-likeness. Dialogue is not about setting aside our differences so we can get along, nor is it a debate with winners and losers. ("Reasoning Together: Why should we have dialogue?" by Gregory Stover, United Methodist Reporter, July 19, 2002.)
Paul writes to the Gentiles and Jews at Ephesus that Christ "has made things up between us so that we are now together." Later in the same letter, Paul writes, "so stay together, both inwardly and outwardly . . . but that doesn't mean you should all look and act and speak the same." (Scripture quotes from The Message, Eugene Peterson [Navipress, 1993].)
Dialogue, conversation, and conferencing — these call us together to hold the bond of unity of the one body of the church, while we seek the truth of Christ. Each congregation needs people trained to facilitate Christian conferencing. Each congregation must focus on establishing the ground rules, or covenant, by which they will stay in conversation.
Some of the tools to help congregations are found in Behavioral Covenants for Congregations by Gil Rendle (reviewed in the August 2001 newsletter). Another help is a new book by Margaret Wheatley, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope in the Future.