How’s empathy going for you?

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away, see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-20

I am taking empathy training as part of my professional development. We read the book Crucial Conversations (http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/0071401946). The argument of this book is that examining and acknowledging our own perceptions and actions and those of others can resolve many communication conflicts. Reading the book was helpful and enlightening, but also somewhat intimidating as I wondered how I could put this into practice—and truthfully, would it be worth the time, effort, and personal cost that it would take to modify my own actions.

We then did an activity that helped make the importance more real. In small groups, we wrote down responses to the question “What would people know about me if they really knew me?” We were instructed to dig deep and be honest, knowing that our statements would be anonymous. The facilitators collected our cards, re-distributed them, and asked us to each read the statement on the card. Themes of rape, physical and emotional abuse, prejudice, and insecurity came up again and again, even among a small group of colleagues within La Crosse. We were then told to imagine that people had not one card, but several attached to them at any one moment. In other words, we all carry burdens; rarely do others know what those are. We owe them empathy, grace, and space to make mistakes or do things that don’t make sense to us.

For Christians, this is even more crucial. Pastor Melinda recently explained the passage from 2 Corinthians (written above) to a group of adult leaders and youth who are preparing to go to the National Youth Gathering this summer. From these words, we can take away several key messages:

1. Through the ministry of reconciliation, we are made perfect in God’s eyes. This also means that those around us have also been reconciled and are perfect in His eyes. We need to strive to see others as God does—to love our neighbor as ourselves, as it’s worded in other ways in our Holy texts.
   
2. We are ambassadors for Christ, or in other words, called to represent Him by our words and deeds.  When we claim the role of Christian, we commit to renouncing forces of evil, and to living the Gospel with the help of God.

I invite you to examine your own practices for empathy, praying that you may seek and discover ways to treat others with the kindness and love that we have been shown—and trusting that our God reconciles, forgives, and truly makes all things new.


Rachel