CHRISTIAN CONCILIATION SERVICE
OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN
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MISSION STATEMENT
Reconciliation is our goal, replacing pain, bitterness, and division with peace and unity. The Christian Conciliation Service is a peacemaking ministry, promoting resolution of conflict and reconciliation as a Biblical alternative to allowing disputes to destroy relationships.
BACKGROUND
When conflict breaks out, too often Christians see only four available options: fighting, litigating, letting the dispute fester, or cutting off all contact with the other side. These options destroy the relationship that should link the disputing parties. Broken relationships are inconsistent with Christian love, damage the Church's witness to the reality of Christ's gospel (John 17:21-24), and cripple its ability to serve (Ephesians 4:1-16).
HOW CCS PROMOTES RECONCILIATION
CCS pursues reconciliation in three ways: education, dispute resolution services, and training to equip the church for peacemaking.
Education can be done with groups or individually. For instance, CCS is ready to provide speakers to church-related groups about the concepts of reconciliation, unity, and peace, challenging Christians to turn their love into wholehearted efforts for reconciliation. When an individual comes to CCS for help with a dispute, we first work with local church leadership to help the disputing parties reconcile on their own.
If CCS needs to intervene and facilitate reconciliation, we assign three volunteers to work with the parties. These three volunteers make up the conciliation panel and most often are an attorney, a pastor, and a person with some expertise on the issue in dispute (i.e., accountant, business owner, building contractor, church elder, salesperson, etc). Through the participation of the panel members, the parties are helped to see the causes of the dispute, its painful results, how they can develop new attitudes and behaviors, and renew love and trust. Should mediation fail, CCS offers arbitration in which the panel renders a decision to which the parties have bound themselves in advance.
Our long-range goal is to equip churches to regularly practice reconciliation for the benefit of their members and surrounding community. We now offer periodic training programs principally designed to prepare gifted believers for our conflict resolution service. We will be developing training programs specifically designed to equip churches to be peacemakers; in the meantime, they may send representatives to our training programs.
STATEMENT OF FAITH
All CCS peacemakers and board members have signed the following statement:
"Trusting in Jesus Christ alone as my Savior, Lord, and King, I believe in:
1. The Bible as the inspired Word of God;
2. The deity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, God's Son, who was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit;
3. The vicarious death of Jesus Christ for our sins, His bodily resurrection, and His personal return;
4. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration and in the lives of believers."
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