Cultivate a desire to understand and learn from people who are different from you.
Discipline yourself to be more eager to listen than to speak.
Remember that you do not know the stories, feelings or convictions of others in the group or outside it. Be careful not to make any assumptions about others when you speak.
Resist the temptation to judge when someone shares their experiences, or to contradict when someone talks about their convictions with which you disagree. Instead, acknowledge your disagreement, listen with compassion to people’s experiences
and seek to understand better how they have come to their beliefs.
Check with others if the words you use or the views you express are experienced as offensive or hurtful. Help each other to find language that opens up conversations rather than closing them down.
Notice your own feelings and those of others. Be particularly aware of the power of memories or of fears to trigger intense feelings that erupt in violent responses in yourself or others. Respond to others with compassion. If you are
struggling and in pain, ask to meet with a trusted chaplain or someone with pastoral responsibility in your church.
Read and sign up to the Church of England social media guidelines: https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/our-digital-charter
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up...
1 Thessalonians 5.11
