Peacemakers aims to assist Christians to resolve disputes and conflicts in a Biblically faithful manner and to restore peace amongst Christians.
Peace is central to our lives as Christians: Bringing peace between God and people was the main focus of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.
As Christians we are called to be peacemakers, but very little training is offered in discipleship courses and in the church. Christians live with disputes and conflicts and either avoid it or do more damage in trying to resolve it.
We are instructed not to approach secular courts to resolve our disputes, but the courts are full of Christians fighting with each other – even churches and church organisations. Why do they refer their disputes to secular courts? We believe it is primarily due to a lack of peacemaking training and the absence of a Biblical alternative.
Peacemakers was conceptualised in 2020. We collaborated with various similar organisations in other countries, mostly in USA and Australia, and built the platform which we believe will fill the gap that currently exists in South Africa.
We offer training for Christians to better understand peacemaking and how to deal with everyday conflicts. This can be offered online or at your church.
Through conflict coaching we prepare an individual to deal with a conflict in his/her life. Jesus instructed us to remove the log from our own eye before we approached a brother. It is not good enough to simply avoid a conflict or a dispute – it will linger and ultimately damage the relationship. In some instances, it may be appropriate not to confront an issue with another; through conflict coaching we’ll help you decide whether the issue deserved further attention or whether you should rather let it go…
Conflict coaching helps you identify and remove the log in your eye and to prepare you to approach your brother or sister to address the problem in an appropriate manner. It would be beneficial for the other person(s) to also commit to conflict coaching. Jesus said we should approach someone to attempt to resolve a dispute – this is the first step in the process.
The second step, if the one-on-one discussion didn’t lead to reconciliation and resolution, is to take one other person with you as witness. This is where we use Biblical mediation: a process where a mediator assists the parties in their discussion to overcome the difficulties they couldn’t resolve in the initial discussions.
“First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”
Matt 5:24 NIV
If mediation also fails to bring reconciliation and resolution, we are to take the dispute “to the church”. In Christian arbitration a training Christian arbitrator will decide how the parties’ dispute is to be resolved. This is similar to litigation, but process is done amongst Christians (“in the church”) and the focus is still reconciliation of the relationship.
We are called to live at peace with all people, to resolve conflict before we proceed with an offering to God, to bring glory to God in all things (even in conflict). By following the Peacemakers process, we can do all these things.
Besides the fact that this is a Biblically faithful process, it’s bound to be significantly less expensive and quicker than secular litigation. And, importantly, it has the significant benefit of restoring peace between people and reconciling relationships.
Our conflict coaches, Christian mediators and Christian arbitrators are trained by the Ambassadors of Reconciliation in USA. They are professional persons with a passion for peacemaking. The peacemakers are not employed by Peacemakers, but are sub-contracted. The management team of Peacemakers will consider the nature of a dispute or conflict and assign one of our qualified peacemakers to assist either with training, coaching, mediation or arbitration. We welcome any person who shares this passion to be trained and join our team. You can contact us to discuss the process of training and accreditation.
The services we offer are professional services and will often consume a significant amount of a peacemaker’s time. Therefore, we have to charge a professional fee for the services. Fees are paid to Peacemakers and will be agreed upon at an early stage in the process. Due to the differences in the nature and extent of disputes and conflicts, and the means of the persons or entities involved, different fees apply to different scenarios.
We would appreciate donations which we can use to subsidies the fees payable by clients who may not have the means to pay for the services and to allow us to continue with the work of peacemaking. Please contact us if you wish to consider donating to our work.
We look forward to serve you on your journey toward resolving conflicts and reconciling with others.