Peacebuilding and Dialogue as a Woman in Leadership

by Bishop Susan Hassinger

Fall, 2011

My interest in peace-building and dialogue began when I was appointed as a district superintendent. Within two days of my arrival in that position, I received a call from a lay person in a church that was facing internal conflict and the pastor was threatening to start a new church in the same area.   My natural inclination was to run and hide! My training as a local church pastor gave me no clues about how to deal with that scenario, and I had yet to go to “D.S. Boot Camp.” But that training, a few months later, only taught me the structures of denominational polity that needed to be called on, and the part of the Book of Discipline to refer to. Missing were practical guides on how to relate, how to seek resolution in a way that listened to the differences that led to the conflict and the division.

That was the first of many conflicted situations I faced in that role as a judicatory leader, responsible for congregations and pastors. Sometimes I was seen as one of the “problems” in the situation, and needed to be a negotiator with a clergyperson or a congregation who did not like what was happening from the judicatory end. Thus began a life-long process of learning about and learning from places of conflict and difference.

Besides being drawn to prayer in new ways, I began to take training in various arenas that would help me to diagnose what was going on, and that taught me how to engage in listening, in dialogue and bridge-building between parties. Across the years, I took training to be a negotiator, to learn to be a mediator, to diagnose the type and level of conflict and to engage in conflict transformation consultation. As I added knowledge and skills to my leadership backpack, I also came to recognize that, in my family of origin, I had learned that a woman’s usual way of dealing with conflict was to withdraw or to accommodate. I had to un-learn years of experience and unspoken training, and learn new practices and approaches.

My on-the-job experience taught me that there were many settings where I could not withdraw. It was my responsibility to engage and to work with others in naming and identifying the conflict and helping parties to come to resolution. It was my responsibility not to accommodate to situations, when one party or another attempted to force their perspective on me or on others. It was clear when accommodation would not achieve a just resolution. It was my responsibility to help parties to seek compromise, where each individual or group won some and lost some for the sake of the common good, or even better to help them collaborate, together coming to a resolution that was better than each was proposing separately.

A significant part of my relearning came in training with the Mennonite Center for Conciliation. There I learned that conflict in and of itself is not bad or good. It just is! Conflict is a normal part of life. There is no change without some level of conflict. From an Alban Institute trainer I discovered that conflict can be as basic as naming and recognizing that we have a problem to solve. If the problems are not resolved at that lowest level, they are likely to escalate to differences – where we disagree about how to resolve the problem. If not worked out there, it escalates to a place where there is a contest between “us” and “them.” If still not resolved, the conflict may rise to a place where parties choose to fight or to flee. At that stage, often an outside consultant needs to be brought in to help the parties move to mediation or negotiation. At the highest level, the parties may act in ways that intend to harm the other, either in reputation or in their person. The role of a leader in conflict is to help to lower the conflict to a level where there can be dialogue – both telling my story and listening to the story of “the other.”   From the Mennonites, I also learned biblical and theological foundations for peace-building and conflict transformation.

When I concluded that responsibility as district superintendent, I was assigned to be a consultant who worked with pastors and congregations or with church-related organizations who were facing conflict issues. In those years, I began to recognize that much of what I had been taught was rooted in secular training and practices. All that was very valuable and applicable. But, in practicing those conflict transformation skills with pastors and congregations, I found that something was missing: rooting the work in prayer, in theological and scriptural reflection. I gradually found that incorporating spiritual practices within the discussions changed the tenor of what we were doing. When we had to struggle with a scripture text together, when we prayed together, when we reflected on the nature of Christian community and of hospitality, for example, or when we talked about what our values and guiding principles were – and then listened to each other, a relationship was built, and from that relationship came a foundation for moving together to a new collaborative decision.

When I began working with conflict transformation, often church conflicts were ignored more than dealt with, in the hopes that they would go away. Over time, practitioners in the field came to recognize that conflicts from several decades previously that had not been talked about or dealt with were impacting the ability of pastor and congregation to trust each other and move forward in the present and into the future. Peace-building and conflict transformation at times began with an honest “history-sharing” that named the “highs” and “lows” of the past, places of conflict and places of strength. From this telling the

church or organization had a new place from which to build on the strengths of the past while confessing and moving out of the harm, and seeking healing for the hurt that had been experienced in the past.   Without honest dialogue about and exploration of the past, it is often difficult to move to a different future.

My experiences with conflict training and transformation as a superintendent and a consultant were strong foundations for my ministry as a bishop in two different geographical areas.   There is no leadership position which does not involve some level of dealing with differences and working through conflicts. The work of a bishop may involve conflict transformation related to all of the levels noted above.

As time went on, I see more and more that God can be at work in the resolution and transformation of conflict. I also have come to recognize that, as a leader, at times it was my responsibility to name the current reality that needed to be changed, to speak the truth that might initiate some conflict. Without that naming, there was little or no way to move from “life as it is” towards a future that might be. Provoking a level of conflict was far from my understanding of myself in my early years. But that naming then initiates the times of each telling our stories, each listening to the stories and realities of others, and then together dialogue to a place where together we might imagine and plan for a different future. The key, I also have learned, is to moderate the level of conflict in the midst of the differences. I also learned that there are times when, especially in matters of justice, one cannot compromise or collaborate. Perhaps that is the hardest lesson of all.

This represents just a part of my journey as a woman in leadership. Part of my ongoing passion and commitment are to engage in conflict transformation at all levels, to seek to provide the tools by which persons can tell their stories and build relationships, and to do this while holding to the equally important commitment to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8)