Lake Grove Presbyterian Church hears about Active Civility

     On February 18, I spent a delightful Saturday morning with 65  people at Lake Grove Presbyterian church in Lake Oswego, Oregon, leading a three-hour workshop on Strategies for Disagreeing Civilly.  

     We explored the possibility that God designed humans to disagree, as part of providence like all the other crucial resources we need to thrive. If our differences are by design -- and there is a LOT of evidence this is so -- then they should be seen as precious, and we should be diligent stewards of the opportunities our differences create. 

     Then we scanned through the three levels of civility we talk about in the Civility Project:

• Civility as personal kindness, in which we show compassion and care for those who disagree.

• Civility as stewardship of the disagreement, in which we listen carefully, speak respectfully, find common ground, and work trom there as partners to build justice and solve problems. 

• Civility as stewardship of the political culture, in which we work to avoid despoiling our ability to work together on future problems, and build our capacity for trustful disagreement.

Participants had chances to try out better approaches to listening. They also raised some great questions, allowing me to practice treating disagreements as a precious resources.  So far the reactions I've heard about have been enthusiastically positive. 

The Kindness Club

     Recently I met Tallie Sawatsky, a George Fox student, who is the leader of a new club on campus: the Kindness Club. 

     Tallie comes from a family of missionaries, both in the traditional sense of traveling abroad to spread the Gospel, and in a broader sense of showing God's love to one's neighbors. Her grandfather was a missionary on a foreign field. But when Tallie was little, her grandfather had moved back to Oregon. He carried out his missionary calling at home, spending his Saturdays addressing local needs, including bringing clothes and food to those in the Portland area who lacked them, and sharing about Christ.  Tallie went with her grandfather frequently. 

     Tallie caught the vision. After she transferred to George Fox, last fall she started a missionary club, in the second, broader sense of the word, and called it the Kindness Club.  The club's mission is to spread kindness, on campus or across the world, as a way of showing God's love, and a vehicle for making a difference in people's lives. 

     The club is still small. In the aftermath of COVID, today's college students are especially stressed, and less accustomed to working together on projects like this one. The club has hosted get-acquainted meetings and shared visions for what it could do. It put on a Valentines card-making event earlier in February.  Tallie envisions sponsoring service excursions locally, and to Portland, in the spirit her grandfather shared with her. 

     The Kindness Club has many parallels to the Civility Project. We talked about ways we might be able to support each other.  As the Kindness Club grows, I can imagine its members helping with Civility Project events, joining with the nearly-as-new United as Neighbors group in community conversations, helping to "tend the soil" to encourage receptiveness to dialog and cooperation among those who disagree.  

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The Newberg/Dundee Area Civility Pledge

From July through September,  the George Fox University Civility Project worked with United as Neighbors, a local civility-promoting group, to draft a civility pledge expressing hopes for how people in the community would engage each other over their political and other differences.  The drafting process was long and careful, taking input from a survey taken during Newberg's Old Fashioned Festival in  July 28 - 31, and direct input from more than a dozen United as Neighbors volunteers from a variety of political perspectives. 

You can see the result above, written in white atop an aerial photo of the Crisman Crossing bridge spanning Hess Creek Canyon on the George Fox campus. Like the bridge, the pledge is intended to give us a better way to cross the chasm dividing our community. 

United as Neighbors published the Pledge in a Newberg Graphic editorial October 5, urging our political leaders and neighbors "Let's Change How We Disagree."  As evidenced at the candidates forum October 8, many candidates representing Newberg and Dundee made clear statements  endorsing the pledge, although neither United as Neighbors nor the Civility Project are keeping count.  If you want to see what role the Pledge played in that forum, you can watch the entire thing here.

 Individuals area also encouraged to take the pledge.  

The pledge will be re-visited next spring, when United as Neighbors will promote it as an aspiration for candidates for the Newberg School Board election.   We have copies of the Pledge printed on 5 x 8" placards for display in windows or bulletin boards, and on business-card sized cards. If you'd like some of those, contact the Civility Project at civility@georgefox.edu. 

June 18:  Civility "Summit" Meeting: About thirty people met at the Chehalem Cultural Center in Newberg on a Saturday morning to explore together to ways to improve the level of civility in our local community heading into this fall's election season. 

This was the outcome of several months of planning, going all the way back to November 2021.  That's when Ron Mock, the George Fox University Civility Project Director, began meeting with Newberg Mayor Rick Rogers and Downtown Business Coalition Director Polly Peterson.  Inspired by a Community Summit in Canby -- an attempt to counteract growing polarization there -- others were invited to a series of meetings beginning in January 2022 to help envision how people in the Newberg/Dundee area might do something similar.  

In late January Mayor Rogers announced there would be a community summit event on June 18. Over the next few months various visions began to form. But none of them were leading toward a massive Community Summit dinner similar to Canby's.  Instead participants in the meetings were drawn to a cluster of projects.  In early May, needing to decide whether to have some event on June 18, or let people know the community summit was cancelled, the planning group decided June 18 would be a meeting of people either already working for civility in some form in our area, or known to us to be looking for such opportunities.

The Civility Project took the lead in planning and organizing a June 18 mini-summit.  Thirty people gathered in a classroom at the Chehalem Cultural Center.  Eight sheets of butcher paper were on the walls, each labeled with an existing or envisioned civility project.  Everyone had a chance to express their civility-related concerns. Then the group heard brief presentations for each project. Then everyone had a chance to put their names on the butcher paper for projects they were interested in helping.  Four new projects got a total of 34 volunteers (some volunteered for more than one):  a booth at the Old Fashioned Festival;  developing a Civility Pledge;  creating one or more on-going community conversations; and exploring setting up a local chapter of Braver Angels, a national group with an ambitious goal of helping people learn to disagree politically while strengthening (rather than breaking) relationships.  Other existing projects who were represented at the meeting include Yamhill Community Mediation, The Giving Town podcast, Nurture Newberg, and United as Neighbors, which now serves as an umbrella/connecting organization helping all these projects (and potentially more) 

July 10 - 24:  Consultation with a Seattle-area church.

In late June, Civility Project director Ron Mock was asked to help a church in the Seattle area work through some serious conflict amongst its members. Ron traveled to Seattle on three consecutive weekends, meeting with 26 people -- about 2/3 of the active congregation -- and delivering a 13-page report to the church's business meeting. 

July 19:  Meeting at North Valley Friends Church with parents of children at Veritas Christian School.  

Ron co-presided at a meeting between a local church and parents with students at Veritas, a private school, next door to the church, who were concerned about the church's Peace Trail Village project to build nine small cottages as transitional housing for homeless patients receiving treatment at Newberg Providence Hospital.  (The other co-presider, who volunteered for this role during the meeting, was the headmaster at Veritas.)  The meeting addressed parents' concerns, some arising out of misinformation and others stemming from concerns that Peace Trail Village residents might be a danger to children at the school. Ron is working with the church to help it and the school set up a joint good neighbors committee to help plan for safety and other issues raised by the Peace Trail Village project.

July 28 - 31:  Booth at the Old Fashioned Festival

The Civility Project worked with United as Neighbors to host a booth at the Newberg Old Fashioned Festival in Memorial Park, featuring information about the Civility Project, Yamhill County Mediators, Braver Angels, Nurture Newberg, the Giving Town, the October 8 Candidates Fair, and the Civility Pledge.  Festival goers were invited to share comments about good things they appreciate about Newberg, take a survey on what the civility pledge should say, and take buttons and stickers with pro-civility messages. Materials were shared with people who were staffing booths for the Democratic and Republican parties. Passersby received small packages of M&M's festooned with a sticker urging folks to "vote your mind and be kind."   At least thirteen volunteers took shifts staffing the booth. 

August:  The Civility Pledge Survey Results

The Civility Pledge Survey was not a scientific survey. There were about 25 responses at the Old Fashioned Festival booth.  Every respondent said they were either slightly or substantially more likely to vote for a candidate who has endorsed a civility pledge along the lines of the one that was being developed. 

August/September:  Writing the Civility Pledge

Taking into account the results from the civility pledge survey, a rotating group of United as Neighbors volunteers worked with the Civility Project over several weeks to compose the Newberg Area Civility Pledge:

I will be kind and respectful to everyone.

I will listen to understand the views and values of those with whom I disagree.

I will work to solve problems by seeking common ground.

I will refrain from mocking or ridiculing those who disagree with me.

I will seek to trust, and be trustworthy and truthful, in my interactions with others.

This pledge has been sent to all the candidates running for offices representing the Newberg/Dundee area, from city council all the way up to Oregon Governor.  It will be featured at a table at the October 8 candidates fair for anyone (candidate or not) who may be interested in endorsing it. United as Neighbors is creating placards and business cards suitable for display by churches, businesses, service groups, and individuals who want to promote these values in the local political culture.  A guest editorial promoting the Pledge has been submitted to the Newberg Graphic newspaper.