"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation."

2 Corinthians 5:18 (NLT)

What is Assisted Reconciliation?
Assisted Reconciliation is a term I coined to describe the process of a third party person coaching and monitoring the process of reconciliation between two people. Some might look at this as a form of mediation, but it's not. Mediation's purpose is for a third party to help two people resolve a conflict (usually a transactional or professional one) by agreeing on a resolution of some kind.
The Assisted Reconciliation I offer focuses on helping two people reconcile a relationship through a process of learning Biblical and practical skills that create a space of humility, love, respect and honesty. This space sets the foundation for healing in the relationship which opens the door for further next steps or goals that the two parties may choose to pursue.

The 7 Steps of Assisted Reconciliation

Usually the family or friends with the deepest wounds are those who have known each other for a long time, and due to a conflict or change, the relationship has been damaged and is no longer active. One or more of the people in the relationship may desire to pursue reconciliation but may not know the best way to approach it without causing more damage. One of the people may have no desire to reconcile the relationship. In these cases, the person has completely cut of the other and won't respond to any communication. These situations are difficult, and we have to realize that not all relationships are guaranteed to be reconciled.

However, God doesn't command us to achieve reconciliation. He does command us to attempt it though. We may not be able to get the other person to agree to the process with us, but we can initiate the opportunity.

My Assisted Reconciliation includes the following 7 steps:

Step 1: Initiation must happen from a person involved

Broken relationships occur over conflict between two or more people or parties. In order for me to help, I require at least one person who was directly involved in the conflict to contact me. I don't proactively contact people who I think need help, and I can't accept requests from concerned, well-meaning friends who desire to see their friends reconcile with other people.

If you're concerned for someone who is in a broken relationship and could benefit from assisted reconciliation, you're welcome to send them to my website and encourage them to contact me.

Step 2: An Invite to the other people involved must be accepted

Once the process has been requested by one person of the conflict, I will then send an invite to the other person or parties to learn more about the process of reconciliation and accept the process with the other person.

At this point, my goal is to encourage the other person to be apart of the process without pushing or manipulating them to. In the end, the other person must agree to the process before I can proceed.

Step 3: Reconciliation training

Before both people meet, I conduct one-on-one Zoom calls with each person in order to go over some guidelines and techniques for each person to learn and accept before reconciling. The majority of these techniques are adapted from the Peace making materials found in Ken Sande's book, 'The Peace Maker'. A few of the techniques we'll go over include:

• Pursuing a heart of humility

• Learning the skill of empathy

• Honoring other's perspectives

• Being honest through effective communication

• Addressing unhelpful beliefs

• Standing for the truth with an attitude of love

• How to determine next steps for the relationship

This is a one time Zoom call with each person, and it generally lasts about an hour and a half, with time for Q+A.

Step 4: Ground rules overview

Before both parties meet, I send a short list of ground rules for each person to read, and I let them know I'll be monitoring these ground rules. Some of these ground rules might include:

• Don't attack the other person's character

• When communicating issues, use only facts and data, not assumptions or speculations.

• Don't use hurtful language like curse words or terms like "idiot, stupid, moron",