Center for Conflict Resolution

Student Spotlight: Brian Ziemer

The following are three emails from Brian Ziemer to the Center describing his creative classroom experiment. The students' mediation agreement and Ziemer's detailed biography are also included.

March 23, 2007

Greetings,

My Northland Christian School Advanced Bible Juniors and Seniors (39 students in this section) are currently in an intensive study of Acts that examines the theological and cultural barriers that Peter and Paul had to traverse before they could truly be on the same evangelism team. This week, we arrived at the 'circumcision' summit meeting in Acts 15.

I had been searching for an experiential approach that would help my students understand the intense dynamics of that meeting. It dawned on me earlier in the week: place them in small groups that are assigned to act out the parts of the various factions in attendance, then follow the STAR approach to hold a multi-party mediation. They spent the class period on Wednesday morning preparing their positions and interests. Then, this morning I 'convened the meeting'. It was an intense hour for the facilitator (yours truly), as the Pharisees, Antioch elders, apostles, and disciples of Peter, Paul, and James duked it out. These young people were totally engaged in the debate in their character roles, so managing their communication was critical because they became very emotional.

Their breakthrough moment came 45 minutes into the session when 'Thomas', speaking for the apostles, proclaimed that "the only thing we are ALL interested in is how to help people become children of God". The leader of the Pharisees agreed with him, which shocked the other factions since the apostles had been in heated disagreement with the Pharisees to that point. That seemed like a perfect place to end our first session.

So, at 9AM, we broke for the weekend. One small group is composed of 'lawyers and scribes', whose job over the weekend is to analyze the various arguments, then explain why James felt that Amos was the appropriate prophet to quote in the heat of the dialogue. I will be interested to see how closely their ultimate mediation agreement matches the letter actually issued in Acts 15.

I will keep you posted next week. These are fascinating concepts and practices, which I think have useful implications for this type of Bible teaching. Brothers, thank you for teaching me these things.

Have a great weekend,

Brian

___________________________________________________________________ 

March 27, 2007

Greetings,

Here is the latest on what has become a fascinating journey through Acts 15. I have attached the blank Acts 15 Meeting Form that I passed out to my students to organize their thoughts and discussion into Positions & Interests. You will be amazed at the sophistication of their thoughts, which are recorded in the attached NCS Positions & Interests chart. (At least, I was amazed!) I forgot to mention previously that we have one very important ground rule: no one is allowed to use any Bible passage after Acts 15:18, because none of it had been written yet. That is to say, if they wished to assert 'grace', they could not use Ephesians, but they could use the Gospels or any O.T. passage.

As I reported on Friday, the students were very engaged and emotional, but on Friday they were very much focused on expressing their positions. This morning, I urged them to express their interests as clearly as possible, so that they could develop empathy with one another. It has been remarkable how basic mediation skills have empowered my students to assimilate and empathize with very complex, emotional interests.

I had to hold two brief caucuses this morning, one with the Pharisees and the other with the lawyers, because when the Antioch elders were explaining their understanding of circumcision laws, the leader of the Pharisees very sarcastically pointed out that Gentiles often twist the Law to their own advantage. That prompted one the lawyers to spring to their feet, point at the Pharisee, and shout, "Just like you twisted the Law to hold an illegal
trial and crucify our Lord and Savior!"  Of course, this threw the entire meeting into a furor, so I pulled the Pharisees and lawyers into brief caucuses to remind them that we did not want to leave the visiting Gentiles from Greece and the northern regions of Judea with a bad impression of our behavior. They were cordial for the remainder of the session.

Having carefully listened to one another's interests, we are now prepared to develop the final mediation agreement using each group's suggestions. As you can see from the email below, the lawyers will facilitate completing the agreement on Thursday morning. We will then compare it to the remainder of Acts 15 to see how close we came to the historical letter that resulted from the 'original' meeting.

Joey, food for thought as you prepare for ElderLink: what would result if a group of church leaders were put through this exercise, with the same tools and constraints? Would it be enlightening for them to re-enact the Acts 15 crisis meeting? Would their outcome be as wise and gracious as the letter issued at the end of Acts 15?

One more thought: what if a group of church leaders from a church in deep identity conflict went through this process? Do you suppose that by role-playing this difficult meeting, they could get 'outside the box' to see their own crisis more clearly and empathetically? Would they arrive at a gracious conclusion, only to realize that they are capable of doing that in their own contemporary circumstances?

Have a fine week brothers,

Brian

___________________________________________________________________ 

April 4, 2007

Greetings,

I have attached our painstakingly-produced final mediation agreement to bring the Jews and Gentiles together in peace. Brothers, this has been an awesome educational experience for the students and their fearless Bible teacher!

A few educator-to-educator points of interest:

1. The power of cooperative learning groups was amazing in this exercise. The students became completely absorbed in their character roles. Sincere empathy with the historical parties was a very satisfying serendipity of the process.

2. I observe that as the mediation process unfolded, the students found deeper aspects of the issue, positions and interests that needed discussion. The reason we took so long was that they delved into the motivations and feelings of the parties, which directly affected their suggested action points. I decided to allow them to naturally determine when to move to the agreement-drafting step when they felt fully ready.

3. I was impressed last week that as they developed empathy for one another, they naturally evolved from positional arguing to interest-based listening, and eventually began to ask, 'Why do you see it that way? Why is that so important to you?'

4. By Monday, when we finally turned toward the terms of agreement, the pervasive atmosphere was completely 'out of the box' (from the self-deception textbook). The spirit of the discussion of specific terms was clearly intended to relieve burdens and provide as much personal freedom as possible for the Gentile believers. In other words, the students collectively wanted to help the Gentiles more than they wanted to defend their positions and interests.

5. The very most impressive moment came late in class today, as we quietly considered the final agreement displayed via laptop on the classroom screen.  (I displayed it that way so we would have to complete it together. One of the 'lawyers' typed every word in the action points, so that we all watched the agreement come to life on the big screen, word by word.) I knew we had achieved personal ownership of the agreement when another of the 'lawyers' felt that we should change the preamble itself to reflect our determination to offer freedom in Christ to all takers. It was remarkable to me that the students were not just filling in the agreement, but critically analyzing every aspect of it to make sure it captured their collective intent.

6. When we made our final comparison to Acts 15, everyone was amazed at the economy of words with which James captured their entire agreement at Acts 15:27-29. They concluded that although the spirit of the agreements was exactly the same, James might have provided more flexibility and less opportunity for later debate since his words were so very compact. What strikes me is that the students' final terms are all immediately recognizable as the seeds of Peter's and Paul's later letters to churches, which they were not allowed to use as they engaged the mediation. I believe that is the Holy Spirit at work in this teaching process.

This has been an amazing teaching experience. I sincerely wish to know what would happen if we conducted this exercise with adults, perhaps first in a leadership training environment, then later with 'live ammo' in a church dispute scenario. There may be a future dissertation research idea there!

Have a fine week brothers,

Brian

___________________________________________________________________ 

ACTS 15 MEDIATION AGREEMENT

NCS Advanced Bible

PARTIES:     1. Elders of the Jerusalem church family (Jews)

                   2. Elders of the Antioch church family (Gentiles)

                   3. Believers who are still practicing Pharisees (Jews)

                   4. Disciples of Peter, led by Peter (mixed group, mostly Jews)

                   5. Disciples of Paul, led by Paul (mixed group, mostly Gentiles)

                   6. Apostles, led by James (reformist Jews)

                   7. Lawyers and scribes (Amos research council – objective analysts

                      & advocates)

ISSUE:         Does a Gentile have to submit to the requirements of the Pentateuch in order to become a bonafide ‘child of God’?

AFTER CONSIDERING ALL PARTIES’ POSITIONS AND INTERESTS, we the undersigned hereby agree to abide by the following agreements and seek their acceptance among our brothers and sisters in Christ, with the full understanding and awareness that we worship God as free people:

1. Gentiles should be aware of those aspects of the Law of Moses that are intended for their health and welfare and should comply wherever possible, but such compliance with the Law should not be a barrier to their service to God, since Jesus Christ has removed all barriers.

2. The Law of Moses should not be taught as a means of salvation.

3. Gentiles and Jews will mutually respect their respective efforts to please and serve God, and will demonstrate tolerance toward cultural traditions that facilitate their fellowship with one another and relationship with God. However, neither Jews nor Gentiles will seek to impose personal traditions as rules and regulations.

4. Becoming a child of God may require a pervasive change in lifestyle and personal choices for Gentile believers. However, Gentiles are nonetheless not required to be circumcised nor are they subject to any other acts of physical or spiritual violence perpetrated in the name of Moses.

5. If the Gentiles choose to physically manifest their faith it should be by water immersion through faith and grace and by no other means.

6. Currently serving priests must acknowledge that they are to welcome Gentile seekers and believers.

7. Everyone will demonstrate their faith and hope in Jesus Christ by means of loving actions toward one another and outsiders.

____________________________________________________________________

Brian Ziemer is a practicing CPA, avid jazz musician, and highly regarded Bible teacher. Brian serves as Controller for a large Houston-based law firm. Among his greatest joys is teaching Advanced High School Bible and Jazz Ensemble classes at Northland Christian School in Houston, where he chairs the Secondary Bible Department. Brian and his wife Cherilyn (ACU ’73) are both certified high school educators.

Brian is deeply involved in Christian outreach to Eastern Europe, serving as deacon for Balkan affairs for the Bammel congregation. He has recently begun to teach and preach in Serbian and Bulgarian, following several years of language study. In addition to God’s gifts of music and teaching, and a fervent love for world history, Brian is a prolific writer who develops his own Bible teaching materials. Brian earned his BBA in Accountancy and Taxation from the University of Houston in 1988; became a Certified Public Accountant in 1990; and a certified teacher in 2003.

After several years of evaluating graduate programs in education, theology, and law, Brian was not satisfied that any of those programs completely encompassed his desire to teach in a way that had immediate impact on young Christian lives. In May 2006, Brian met with a long-time ally in mission work, ACU’s Dr. Steve Allison, to discuss graduate work in Psychology. After an hour of discussion, Steve said matter-of-factly, “I have just the program for you” , as he handed Brian a copy of the latest advertisement for the brand new M.A. in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. Brian immediately registered for what has now become a life-changing educational and spiritual experience.

Brian’s long-term academic goal is to complete his Doctorate in Conflict Resolution through Nova Southeastern University in Florida, which offers the only fully online Ph.D. in this field.

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