Becoming an Active Peacemaker in your Church and Community

An online course with Ruby Quantson Davis

Do you wish to create a more peaceful society but do not know where to start? Are you frustrated by the divisions in your church? Are you struggling to find ways to resolve conflicts?

 

General overview of course

Events in the news, tensions and divisions in the places where we gather, including home, church, schools, and work, threaten our peace every day. The inability of global leaders and the custodians of our institutions to resolve conflicts is frustrating. But is there more we, as citizens and members of the society can do to build peace?  Can we be active peace makers in a world of divisions, inequality and political challenges? Can the church actively and justly promote peace-making in fulfilment of the commandment to be peacemakers?

The ‘Becoming an Active Peacemaker’ course equips participants with practical skills and knowledge to confront challenging issues and act to find solutions. This course targets persons seeking to reduce tensions in their institutions, groups, families, and communities.

 

By the end of the course, participants will:

  1. Gain stronger knowledge of the scope and work of peace-making and understand that peace-making is not a passive stance.
  2. Acquire skills to respond and not react in conflict situations.
  3. Understand the importance of cultivating inner and self-peace to confront challenging issues in church and community.
  4. Be enabled to lead peace actions and pass on effective peace-making skills to others in their groups, churches and communities.

 

Course structure

  • Four weekly sessions
    • Four Wednesdays from 3 May to 24 May 2023
    • Virtual Class via Zoom, 5-7pm (UK time)
  • Approach
    • Small group conversations and exercises
    • Individual reflections
    • Large group learning exchanges

 

  • Approximately 2 hours of reading and study each week outside of class time
  • A certificate of completion is available for those who complete a brief summative reflection (1200 words)

 

  • Gratis
    • Optional single one-to-one session at the end of the course
    • Opportunity for a self-organised community of peacemakers

 

Course cost

  • Early Bird Registration: £100 (ends 1 April 2023)
  • Regular Registration: £120 (ends 1 May 2023)

 

  • Eventbrite/website link for registrations

‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ (Matthew 5:9a)

 

Ruby Quantson Davis is a scholar-practitioner with 20 years’ global experience in public policy research and advocacy, deliberative conversations, community engagement and institutional development. Ruby specialises in strengthening capacity for conflict prevention and peace processes, in places of political polarization, religious differences, ethnic, racial and gender divides. She has worked extensively within Africa and the South Pacific; Israel and the United  States, using innovative ways of reflecting, learning, documenting and sharing knowledge. She currently serves as the Senior Learning and Impact Advisor at Peace Direct, an international charity in London. She is an Associate Member of Wesley House, in Cambridge, United Kingdom, a faculty member of the Deliberative Democracy Institute, a former Fellow and Resident Scholar of the Kettering Foundation, USA. She is co-author of the volume Of the Significance of Religion for Deliberative Democracy.

Book now at activepeacemaker.eventbrite.co.uk