Bruce Boyd Interview on Interpersonal Conflict (2010)
More than a decade ago, I started an interview series on my blog, Adventist Activism — Viewpoints. I pitched it to Adventist Today, and they agreed to run it. However, since about half of the interviews are no longer available there, I’ve decided to repost them here on the APF blog, beginning with this conversation with my relative Bruce Boyd, DMin. Some of the information is dated, but I believe most of it is still quite relevant.
Bruce Boyd
At the time, Bruce taught Conflict Resolution and other Religious Studies courses at what is now Burman University in Lacombe, Alberta. He was a member of the peacemaking team of the College Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church, which educates members about Biblical peacemaking and offers conflict coaching and mediation services. Today, Bruce is retired, but he remains active with Burman University’s Centre for Peace and Justice, which is led by APF board member, Glen Graham, PhD.
Jeff Boyd: You recently attended the 2010 Peacemaker Conference1 in Reston, Virginia, along with approximately a dozen other Adventists. Tell me about the conference and some of the key people there.
Bruce Boyd: The conference was really helpful to me. It was wonderful to worship and learn with large numbers of dedicated Christians from various denominations who place a very high priority on reconciliation. I spent most of three days on the Conflict Coaching and Mediation training track. Other peacemaking tracks included Personal and Family Life, Leadership, Workplace, Church, and International. One of the main things Peacemaker Ministries is trying to do is set up Peacemaker Teams in local churches, so there was a track for that as well.
My good friend Charles Brown was also at the conference. We’ve been working together with Peacemaker Ministries since the 1990s when he was the Ministerial Director and I was a pastor in the British Columbia Conference. We ministered on a few church split reconciliations together. Now Charles is the president of Adventist Reconciliation Services,2 a supporting ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that offers conciliation seminars, mediation and arbitration services.
My ministry has developed in a little different direction. I aim to help people learn to resolve their conflicts early before the conflicts become so difficult to manage.
Churches where I have been a pastor have all been crippled in some way by destructive conflict. In my experience many Christians, including us pastors, have a difficult time relating positively in conflict situations. I want all [church members] to learn these basic Christian skills because we have conflict all the time. You know, it’s all around us.
One of the main reasons I decided to move from being a pastor to teaching at [Burman University] was to see if I could help college students learn to relate to conflict in a more positive way. I am hoping that they will take those skills with them into their homes, churches and wherever they go.
Jeff: Speaking of education, tell me about the conflict resolution course at [Burman].3
Bruce: I’ve been teaching conflict resolution here for about four years. It’s an entry level religious studies course. All students are invited to enroll in it, and all religious studies majors have to take it their first year here.
Jeff: How would you describe the purpose of the class?
Bruce: The purpose is to give students Biblical tools to get along with other people. The Bible is full of conflicts and we spend a lot of time studying them. I pretty much bathe my students in the extremely Biblical textbook, The Peacemaker,4 which is based on what author Ken Sande calls the Four Gs.
The first G is Glorify God. We talk about conflict as an opportunity to glorify God, to serve other people, to grow to be like Jesus. And the second G is Get the Log out of Your Eye. That’s talking about taking responsibility for our part of the conflict, which most of us don’t care to do. The third G is Gently Restore, which talks about how to relate to people when we cannot overlook a conflict. Matthew 18 and positive communication practices are major considerations.
The final G, Go and Be Reconciled, focuses on forgiveness and how to negotiate substantive or material conflict issues. The first 9 chapters of the book deal mostly with personal conflict issues related to emotions like jealousy, fear, anger and irritation. Material conflict issues include things like money, property, rights, plans, doctrines and beliefs.
Jeff: Would you recommend The Peacemaker as a resource for a Sabbath School class that wants to spend a quarter studying interpersonal conflict?
Bruce: Well it could work. Two quarters with the book would probably work better than one. Peacemaker Ministries has a set of 12 short, 25-minute DVD presentations for small groups called “The Peacemaking Church” which go with The Peacemaker.
In a couple of weeks, we’ll be starting a Sabbath School class here using the latest set of Peacemaker DVDs, which are designed for younger, more modern and secular people. The set I mentioned before is a little more “churchy.”
Jeff: What’s the name of the new one?
Bruce: It’s called “Resolving Everyday Conflict,” and it will run for 8 weeks. I’m trying to aim this class at parents of elementary school children. We are also inviting grandparents and elementary school teachers. Peacemaker Ministries has a special set of materials called The Young Peacemaker designed for children between grades 2 and 7. So I’m trying to get young parents and grandparents to come to my Sabbath School class where I teach them Bible Peacemaking and introduce them to The Young Peacemaker so they can teach the concepts to their children. That’s my strategy.
Jeff: You became a Certified Christian Conciliator through Peacemakers. Tell me a bit about this ministry.
Bruce: Yes. Here’s how they describe themselves. “Peacemaker Ministries was established in 1982 to equip and assist Christians and their churches to respond to conflict biblically. Most of our energy is devoted to training Christian laypeople, church and ministry leaders, and professionals to apply God’s peacemaking principles to the conflicts of daily life. At the same time, our international network of trained reconcilers and Certified Christian Conciliators handles hundreds of family, church, business, and legal disputes every year.”5
Jeff: If people are interested in developing conflict resolution skills or offering a peacemaking ministry at their church, would becoming a conciliator be a positive first step?
Bruce: Well, becoming a conciliator is the last step, really. The first step would be to either read The Peacemaker or get their set of DVDs and watch them. There are training events across the United States for conflict coaching or mediation. There’s a newly trained team of Adventists who are being equipped to do this Peacemaker Ministries training. Charles Brown is the leader of that team.
Jeff: What is something you’d like every Adventist in North America to know about resolving or transforming conflict?
Bruce: Well, I think conflict is like the thermometer event. It’s a good place for me to see how my Christianity is doing. So how do I relate to conflict? Knowing how to relate to conflict I think might be another way of talking about sanctification—growing to be like Jesus. When somebody asked Jesus what the Bible is all about, he said it’s all about loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. And this focuses on the “neighbor as yourself” part of it. I think it’s extremely central.
Ellen White, calls the unity of the church its credentials. What gives our church credibility? It’s how those of us within the church relate to each other. In her words, “Christ will abide in every heart, guiding, comforting, sanctifying, and presenting to the world the unity of the followers of Jesus, thus bearing testimony that the heavenly credentials are supplied to the remnant church.”6 That makes me think a lot of the branches of our “remnant church” don’t really have very good credentials.
Jeff: Now you’re preaching, meddling.
Bruce: I suppose so. This is the axe I grind. Again, Ellen White highly values differences in the church including diverse plans,7 methods8 and even some Bible interpretations.9 Of course “unity in diversity”10 is one of her favorite phrases, I think.
Jeff: What advice do you have for the North American church regarding how to discuss sensitive issues like creation and evolution, homosexuality or politics?
Bruce: These are substantive, not personal, issues. I think conflicts get a lot more complex and destructive where people attack each other personally, when they’re angry or fearful or jealous. I think it would be easier to handle if people could maintain more respect for each other. There can be no deep and lasting conflict resolution without respect. That’s just impossible. Even where people do not agree, they could at least respect each other.
Jeff: What do Paul’s phrases “ministry of reconciliation” and “gospel of peace” mean to you?
Bruce: As we’re truly reconciled to Christ, we receive the basis for reconciliation with each other. You know, we’re so diverse. A lot of times we don’t have a lot of things in common with each other, so it makes it hard for us to trust each other, even respect each other. But as we see that all of us are daughters and sons of God, we have that common denominator. And I think with that we can reach out and touch other people, other factions, that may think they’re against us.
If we can’t grasp how God has reached down to reconcile the conflict we have with him, and if we can’t apply that to our relationships with each other, we’re just bankrupt, basically. I don’t think there is a gospel of peace if we won’t let God show us how to get along with each other.
NOTE: Quoted material was verified and citations were found during the transcription process.
2 http://www.adventistreconciliation.org/
3 http://www.cauc.ca/ || https://www.burmanu.ca
4 Ken Sande, The Peacemaker (2004).
5 The Peacemaker, 287.
6 Ellen White, Selected Messages, 1:385.
7 White, Counsels to Parents, 531.
8 White, Testimonies for the Church, 9:259.
9 White, Manuscript Releases, 15:149, 150.
10 White, Our High Calling, 169; In Heavenly Places, 287.