{"id":475,"date":"2012-10-25T16:45:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T21:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/advocacy\/?p=475"},"modified":"2012-10-25T21:14:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T02:14:10","slug":"listening-and-understanding-our-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/advocacy\/listening-and-understanding-our-neighbor\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening and understanding our neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This is the second blog post in the Wisconsin installment of the &#8220;Advoating on the Road&#8221; series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanksgiving of 2011 was a very difficult day for a lot of Wisconsin families,\u201d the Rev. Lisa Bates-Froiland of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Milwaukee says, reflecting on the recent controversies in her state regarding collective bargaining and the ensuing division the debate created. \u201cI heard many stories about \u2018bad times\u2019 at family get-togethers. The deep polarization silenced healthy discourse and balkanized communities in Wisconsin \u2014 it impacted who people would go to coffee with, even who would remain Facebook friends,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<p>Pastor Lisa also serves as executive director of the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion, a nonpartisan civic-minded ministry of Redeemer Lutheran Church. Recognizing how this polarization affected her community, she said \u201cyes\u201d to an invitation from the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the ELCA. The Synod had recently decided to study the collective bargaining debate, which was very much impacting their members, by listening to Lutherans on all sides of the issue.<\/p>\n<p>She partnered with the Rev. John Horner-Ibler of Cross of Life Lutheran in Brookfield and assembled a diverse team that designed, coordinated and implemented a series of public conversations meant to help Lutherans truly listen and begin to understand their neighbors around the controversial \u2014 and deeply personal \u2014 issue.<\/p>\n<p>Guided by a method developed by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicconversations.org\/blog\">Public Conversation Project<\/a>, Pastor Lisa and her colleagues facilitated four well-attended discussions in February and March 2012 held at ELCA churches in Brookfield, Milwaukee, Racine and Thiensville, Wisconsin. \u201cWe speak only for ourselves as individuals,\u201d is one tenet that she explains about the method. \u201cAnd we seek only to get to the point where one person can understand why a person holds their particular perspective. The goal is not to change minds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At each of the events, Pastor Lisa briefly introduced the topic and public conversation method, and then each member of the team assembled participants into smaller groups (about five people in each group). The facilitating team member asked his or her small group the first question, which called upon each person to connect personal experiences to the collective bargaining debate. \u201cPart of what I love about the method is that the very first question is how this connects to your personal life \u2014 we put this right at the front end, we invite people to tell part of their story,\u201d Pastor Lisa says. Posing the question was immediately followed by silence, during which small group members had time to think and write down their thoughts. The first participant then shared his or her thoughts \u2014 allowed two minutes to speak to the small group, uninterrupted \u2014 and then the group would again be silent, allowing for reflection. After this silence, the second participant shared, followed by another silence, and this pattern was repeated until all members of the small group shared their thoughts on the question. The facilitator asked other questions, and the group followed the same pattern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was nervous before the first public conversation,\u201d Pastor Lisa admits. \u201cBut as the conversations unfolded, we saw that it really was important to have a carefully facilitated conversation at this difficult time. A methodology ensuring respect and fairness made sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The four public conversation events drew a crowd of people holding varying opinions on the collective bargaining debate, and the feedback of the events were extremely positive. She remembers one man, specifically, who approached her after one of the events. \u201cHe told me, \u2018This seemed pretty touchy-feely at first, but now I see how important this was. Someone in my group had the opposite set of experiences. I haven\u2019t changed my mind, but now I know someone with differing views and I appreciate her and her opinion more than I could have imagined before tonight,\u2019\u201d Pastor Lisa shares. \u201cMutual understanding and listening is crucial \u2014 it can be preliminary to goals like conflict resolution or problem-solving.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the overall experience, Pastor Lisa says these public conversations were worthwhile on many levels. \u201cWe didn\u2019t come up with a consensus on what the synod should do or say on the issue of collective bargaining. But we brought Lutherans together as the body of Christ to talk about a highly charged issue. People talked and people listened, but people also spent time in shared silence, and I believe we made room for the Holy Spirit in the silences,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe public conversations put neighbor next to neighbor, and I think this close proximity was also so key to Jesus\u2019 ministry. Jesus listened, heard and touched people who had often been pushed away. People were vulnerable in his presence. These public conversations reminded us that even in the midst of a difficult circumstance, we can share, listen and seek to understand our neighbor \u2014 and it reminded us that we can be divided on some issues and also be a unified church in Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the &#8220;Voices for Change&#8221; blog, as we continue the Wisconsin installment of the &#8220;Advocating on the Road&#8221; series over the next couple of weeks. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the second blog post in the Wisconsin installment of the &#8220;Advoating on the Road&#8221; series. &nbsp; \u201cThanksgiving of 2011 was a very difficult day for a lot of Wisconsin families,\u201d the Rev. Lisa Bates-Froiland of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Milwaukee says, reflecting on the recent controversies in her state regarding collective bargaining and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7389],"tags":[7388],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-on-the-road-series","tag-advocating-on-the-road"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Listening and understanding our neighbor - ELCA Advocacy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/advocacy\/listening-and-understanding-our-neighbor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Listening and understanding our neighbor - ELCA Advocacy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the second blog post in the Wisconsin installment of the &#8220;Advoating on the Road&#8221; series. &nbsp; \u201cThanksgiving of 2011 was a very difficult day for a lot of Wisconsin families,\u201d the Rev. 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