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Breadcrumb
- Essential Partners
- Who We Work With
- Faith & Religious
Faith & Religious
From synagogues and churches to community centers and international networks, faith-based institutions play a unique role in modern life. They convening people with diverse backgrounds around shared values. They are a space of private reflection and intentional community.
But when deep rifts emerge—within a faith organization or in the broader community—that shared sense of belonging can quickly unravel.
What is the role of a faith-based organization in the midst of conflict? What responsibility does it have in the wider community? And how should a faith leader address conflict within their own church, congregation, or community?
For three decades, Essential Partners has invested faith leaders and community members with the tools to address polarizing conflicts. Our approach has been proven to generate trust, understanding, and connection across unbridgeable differences.
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I’ve seen relationships grow and deepen, unity and commitment remain high, and mutual respect established and fostered.
Lauren Cobb
Glendale Presbyterian Church, California
Resilience, Cohesion, Values
Faith identities are supported by a scaffold of deep values. That’s why a rift within a faith-based organization can drive emotions so high, so quickly.
Essential Partners’ approach helps bring those values to life, and helps faith communities live into those values in their communication and conversations.
Disagreements over buildings, public programs, or leadership styles can blossom into polarized conflicts and send the entire institution into disarray—or worse.
Don’t wait until you’re drowning to learn how to swim. Invest in your institutional resilience and cohesion now, before there’s a crisis.
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Community Engagement
Faith institutions play a leading role in public conversations across a wide range of social and political issues—such as abortion, immigration, the environment, and civil rights. They also serve members of the wider communities in which they're embedded, from feeding the hungry to sheltering those in need.
How can we bring faith values into public life? How can we engage diverse populations with openness, honesty, and dignity? How does a faith institution best realize its mission in the larger world?
The answer is often found in community conversations. Essential Partners supports community engagements that create trust, understanding, and connection, even across deep divides. We can help design conversations foster depth and nuance, inclusion and conviction.
Don't wait for a crisis. Build skills and resilience today. Contact us for a free consultation.
Impact Stories
Paul Schupe, Hancock United Church of ChristIt’s amazing how closely we can work together on certain projects and never know what about our faith motivates our work. This work deepened my appreciation for everyone who was there; hearing everyone's stories helped me to appreciate them more and the depth of their convictions, even when they’re convictions I don’t share.
Lexington, Massachusetts
Program ParticipantI felt an amazing sense of accomplishment when the Essential Partners training ended; that I'd done something important for my community and something important for me.
Massachusetts
Rebekah Shrestha, SVPEssential Partners has played a catalytic role in our ability to facilitate dialogue time and time again, and we could not have done this work without them.
Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact and Office of Strategic Planning, 92NY
Program ParticipantThere should be opportunities throughout the [Anglican] Communion for ongoing structured conversations regarding difficult issues. These should engage persons at all levels within and between Provinces and should be guided by agreed covenants similar to those that have assisted our conversations.
Anglican Community & Human Sexuality Retreat
Program ParticipantThis is a different tool for engagement. It’s not about you, it’s about others. It involves the art of listening and sincerely talking from the heart
Interfaith Mediation Centre, Nigeria
Program ParticipantThis is a new idea, so many people speaking from their hearts. People can come together...if people can understand, they can change their hearts; then this can bring about more change.
Interfaith Mediation Centre, Nigeria
Program ParticipantThis is the best adult learning experience I have had in the past five years. I wanted to learn new skills—I did!
Lauren Cobb, Task Force MemberI now lead teams with a different language, using different processes, and with a different awareness of team dynamics. [I’ve seen] relationships grow and deepen, unity and commitment remain high, and mutual respect established and fostered.
Glendale Presbyterian Church, California
Janele Nelson, Mission DirectorIn these divisive times, Essential Partners has given my local YMCA and now the national YMCA a means to build bridges through dialogue, re-establishing foundations for constructive change to occur.
YMCA of Pierce & Kitsap Counties (WA)
Program ParticipantI am now open to new views and can moderate my impulse to debate or persuade others of different views
Montana
Program ParticipantWhile our differences remain, the relationships between us have been strengthened and deepened. We have gained in mutual respect, affection, and appreciation of one another as followers of Jesus and fellow-bishops.
Anglican Community & Human Sexuality Retreat
Program ParticipantThe highlight for me was the interconnectedness of the participants’ views, mutual respect, and range of experiences within the group
Montana
Nicki Glasser, Policy CoordinatorWhat surprised me was how much you could transform a relationship during a three-hour conversation.
Transformation Center, Massachusetts
Gail AndersonWe became confident really early on that the model was working. We were nervous there would be yelling and blow-ups but after a few conversations we realized that wasn’t happening… People were treating each other humanely.
Minnesota Council of Churches
Undergraduate StudentI notice that my classmates take much more care when speaking about people who practice other religions. They make fewer assumptions, and they’re more careful with their words to make sure to avoid unintentional connotations.
Bridgewater College, Virginia
Program ParticipantI did not anticipate having as many concrete takeaways as I do. I feel there is an immense practical application.
Cricket Fuller, The Christian Science MonitorThis wasn’t a policy debate [about guns]. Instead, two people whose backgrounds and views diverged in almost every way possible shared a moment of honesty that struck at the heart of the matter.
Boston, Massachusetts
Program ParticipantI read this comment from the 14th Dalai Lama: "Every change of mind is first of all a change of heart.” It seems appropriate for what we are doing.
Bayview, Michigan
Megan DeFranzaThere is a need not only for safe space within our churches but for our church leaders who often feel alone, or who may feel their job could be at risk if they engage in controversial conversations. How are they to make safe spaces in their own congregations for healthy dialogue if they rarely experience safe space to do the same?
Gordon College, Massachusetts
Kim Davidson, OmbudsI’ve gained not only confidence but tools. The Essential Partners training was worth every penny.
Oberlin College, Ohio
Bob Bordone, Expert and AuthorEssential Partners does the best work in the field of dialogue and communication.
Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program, Co-Founder
Megan DeFranzaHere safe space was created for pastors and church leaders to wrestle with topics like evolution which are all too often “off limits” or believed to be antagonistic to the faith.
Gordon College, Massachusetts
Linda Gryczan, MediatorInstead of demonizing and dehumanizing the other, we built a deeper connection. The fact that we disagree matters much less. It matters much more that we are neighbors in this community.
Montana Mediation Association
Seth Karamage, MediatorI am amazed at what came out—the way people shared their stories. This is not like a role-play; it really touched me.
Interfaith Mediation Centre, Nigeria
Member of the CongregationI cannot possibly walk out of this experience and help being a different person. I feel that my own experience has been life-changing.
Glendale Presbyterian, California
Imam Sani IsahThrough this training, we will have more people in the stream of work that we do and become better equipped with the know-how, skills and techniques. But most important, together we will sow a seed that will germinate and become a source of the antidote to terrorism, fanaticism, bigotry and extremism.
Nigeria