What if building peace across our differences starts with just one relationship?

Liz Joyner is the founder and president of The Village Square, a nonprofit out of Tallahassee, Florida that for nearly two decades has brought people who don't think alike into the same room — and helped them build trust across their differences. In this conversation, Liz shares the practical, human-sized tools she's learned for bridging divides in our own lives and hometowns.

She explains why there's no substitute for direct contact with people different from us, how a single cross-cutting friendship can change the way we see everyone we disagree with, and her "rings of a tree" approach to building diverse groups that actually hold together. She also makes the case that peacemaking works best when it's local, proximate, and — refreshingly — not too serious.

Her advice for the everyday peacemaker is simple: start small. Reach out to one person you like but whose views you don't understand. Because the human superpower isn't avoiding disagreement — it's the reciprocal kindness that grows when we stay in the same room.

We cover building empathy across differences, why local peacemaking matters most, the core catalyst model, reciprocal kindness, and starting close to home.

Learn more about The Village Square at villagesquare.us. Liz's essay "The Threads of a Nation" is at villagesquare.us. She also references The Big Sort by Bill Bishop, on how Americans have clustered into like-minded communities.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

What does 40 years of encouraging people teach you about making peace?

Liz Curtis Higgs — bestselling author of 37 books with 4.6 million copies in print, and host of Grace Every Monday — sits down with her niece and host Nell Rose Hill for a warm, funny, and deeply honest conversation about what peacemaking really asks of us.

Liz shares why she'd rather be called an encourager than an influencer, what the story of Abigail teaches about humility and wisdom, and how she responded when a happy personal post drew unexpected anger online — choosing to love the people who defended her and the people who criticized her, equally.

She also offers her hard-won peacemaking tips: think before you speak, surround yourself with peacemakers, and start close to home — because peace begins in our own hearts and homes before it reaches the world.

We cover encouragement, listening, loving across disagreement, the difference between a peacekeeper and a peacemaker, peacemaking on social media, and starting close to home.

Learn more about Liz Curtis Higgs and Grace Every Monday at https://www.lizcurtishiggs.com/

Or listen to Grace Every Monday on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LizCurtisHiggs/

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

Most people want the same thing: health, prosperity, good relationships, and a society that nourishes instead of divides. So why do we end up in conflict?

David B. Ostler — retired business executive and author of Healing Our Divides — has lived across continents and seen this truth firsthand. In this conversation, David shares the practical tools he developed for navigating deep disagreements: cognitive empathy, recognizing our own biases, and the radical act of humanizing people instead of labeling them.

Whether it's your family, your neighbors, or people with wildly different worldviews, David's approach is simple: start close to home. Do the work in the relationships that matter most. Choose your media wisely. And remember that most people are genuinely seeking goodness — they're just coming from different places. This is a conversation about seeing the person, not the position; about why jigsaw puzzles make good gathering places; and about why peacemaking doesn't require you to be an expert, just willing to try.

We cover cognitive empathy, humanizing people instead of labeling them, recognizing our own biases, finding common ground, building relationships across differences, and listening to understand.

Find Healing Our Divides by David B. Ostler at gregkofford.com.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com

What if the secret to peacemaking was as simple as being curious instead of judgmental?

Dr. Patrick Mason — professor of religious studies at Utah State University and a graduate of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies — brings deep expertise and refreshing honesty to what it really means to be a peacemaker, including what happened when hundreds of trained peacemakers completely fell apart on an email listserv.

In this conversation, Dr. Mason shares why peacemaking is fundamentally about relationships, the difference between conflict resolution and conflict transformation, why peacemakers are made and not born, and why the Ted Lasso principle of "be curious, not judgmental" is a peacemaking skill anyone can learn.

We cover conflict transformation, the character of a peacemaker, why we reduce people to positions, nonviolence, the civil rights movement and John Lewis, the meaning of shalom, and everyday peacemaking.

Learn more about Dr. Mason's book Proclaim Peace at https://mi.byu.edu/proclaim-peace-the-restorations-answer-to-an-age-of-conflict and find his Proclaim Peace podcast on YouTube. His faculty profile: usu.edu/experts/profile/patrick-mason.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

We sit down with Tami Pyfer — Chief Impact Officer for UNITE, co-creator of the Dignity Index, former Utah Governor's education policy advisor, and one of USA Today's 2025 Women of the Year representing Utah.

Tami walks us through the Dignity Index, an 8-point scale that measures the language we use in conflict — from contempt at the bottom to dignity at the top. We explore how this tool helps individuals, families, and communities move from division toward understanding.

In this conversation, we get into what the Dignity Index is and how it works, the difference between contempt and dignity, how to attack the problem and not the person, practical phrases you can use to de-escalate conflict, how your own choices online either fuel or fight division, and how to hold people accountable while still treating them with dignity.

Explore the tools and resources, and sign up for the weekly newsletter, at dignity.us. Learn more about Tami at dignity.us/tami-pyfer.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

What if peacemaking is simpler than we think? Sometimes it's just holding out a hand to someone who needs it.

Lilunnaher, from Bangladesh, brings a fresh and deeply personal perspective on peacemaking — from sharing festival meals with Hindu neighbors growing up, to giving food to a neighbor, to opening her home to strangers when they needed it most. In this conversation, Lilunnaher shares why peacemaking starts at a personal level, why it's "us versus the problem" not "I versus you," and how growing up in a diverse, intergenerational family in Bangladesh shaped her natural instinct to listen, care, and show up for others.

We cover intercultural communication, kindness, diversity and inclusion, listening, compassion, community, and personal peacemaking.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

What if the most powerful thing you can do for peace is simply lift where you stand — wherever you are, whatever your stage?

Brett G. Scharffs — professor at Brigham Young University Law School — recently addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council on what a true culture of peace requires, and why human dignity is the foundation everything else is built on. In this conversation, Brett shares why human dignity must come before human rights, why religious voices are essential to peacemaking, and why Eleanor Roosevelt believed the most important human rights institution in the world was the kitchen table.

We cover human dignity, human rights, building a culture of peace, the role of religious voices, intercultural understanding, and lifting where you stand.

Learn more about Brett's work at law.byu.edu/centers/iclrs.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

What do you do when the world takes something irreplaceable from you? You find a way to put more goodness back in.

Amie Drudge lost her 17-year-old identical twin daughters to a drunk driving accident four years ago. Instead of letting their light disappear from the world, she founded the BE Foundation — named after Belle and Elle — built on three simple principles: be good, be kind, be love. In this conversation, Amie shares how everyday acts of kindness — a smile, holding a door, sitting with someone who feels alone — can save lives, and why peacemaking starts in the heart before it reaches the world.

We cover grief and healing, kindness, community, hope, loss, compassion, and the work of the BE Foundation.

Learn more about the BE Foundation and how to get involved at befoundation.info, or follow on Instagram @be.goodkindlove.foundation.

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

What if one small act — something you barely thought about — changed someone's life forever?

Rachel E. Hunt, founder of Tiny Kindnesses, has collected over 5,000 stories of small acts of kindness that made a profound difference. In this conversation, she shares how grief and loss shaped her understanding of kindness — and why tiny acts of goodness are one of the most powerful tools for building peace.

We cover kindness, compassion, acts of kindness, inner peace, peace building, community, and grief and healing.

Follow Tiny Kindnesses on Instagram and Threads: @TinyKindnesses

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.

Ever wonder how a small disagreement turns into a full-blown fight? A licensed therapist explains exactly why it happens — and the simple techniques that stop it.

Glenn Heap, licensed marriage and family therapist and former social worker, shares hard-won lessons from years of navigating volatile situations — including how he once talked a mother through one of the most difficult moments of her life without a single raised voice.

We cover de-escalation, having hard conversations, staying calm under pressure, marriage and family communication, anger management, emotional intelligence, and the quiet art of understatement.

Glenn's work: YouTube @beinghappyanywaywithglenn7703 · Instagram @beinghappyanywaywithglenn

All Peacemakers Needed spreads everyday peacemaking one conversation at a time. Learn more and become a peacemaker at allpeacemakersneeded.com.