If we can’t or won’t engage conflict, we can’t lead effectively. It’s as simple as that. Fortunately, managing ourselves in conflict can be learned, unlearned and re-learned as we use conflict as a powerful opportunity for growth and change.

Conversation Overview:

• What is the goal of conflict?
• Mental models of conflict
• Formative experiences with conflict
• “Truth is not something in itself which rests for itself, but something that happens between two. Truth happens only in community.”
• Crucial conversations
• Growing our capacity to manage conflict
• Container conversations

About Our Guests:

Heidi De Jonge lives in Ontario, Canada and has been an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church for 17 years–serving as pastor for congregations, a seminary, a university and health care. She also works in the area of conflict transformation as a restorative practitioner with FaithCARE and a trainer with The Colossian Forum. Heidi received her doctorate in ministry from Western Theological Seminary in 2018, studying and writing about conflict as an opportunity for discipleship and transformation. She and her husband, Tim, have three daughters (Naomi, Samara and Zoe, 12 to 16) and a beloved husky-lab named Nevada.

Brian Keepers has been an ordained pastor in the Reformed Church in America for 22 years. He has served three different congregations in the midwest, and he is currently serving as the lead pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Orange City, IA. He is married to Tammy (24 years this August) and they have two daughters–Emma who is 20 and Abby who is 15 years old. They also have a granddaughter named Luna who is 2 1/2 years old. Brian loves art, reading, being outdoors, spending time with people, and getting to be “Poppy” to his granddaughter. He also loves to learn, especially at the intersection of theology, psychology and leadership.

Resources & Links:

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
• Christ the Center by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, et al.
• Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott.
• Leading Through Conflict: How Successful Leaders Transform Differences into Opportunities by Mark Gerzon.