Hey, InterVarsity alumni. This is After IV, your podcast for navigating life after graduation. This is both an exciting and potentially tricky transition that you're making, and you might feel a little unsure about the coming weeks months. We're here to provide you with expert advice, practical skills, and plenty of encouragement as you learn how to keep saying yes to Jesus in your new context. This is After IV, and this podcast is for you, alumni.

What's up, alumni? Welcome to After 4, your podcast for navigating life after graduation. I'm your host and guide, Jon Steele. This week, we are talking about three little words that will help you navigate conversations around hot button issues without descending into anger, defensiveness, and other common byproducts of unhealthy conflict. Before we do that though, did you know that we have another alumni podcast?

It's called InterVarsity World Changers, and it's all about celebrating God's world changing work in and through alumni like you. Our most recent episode dropped just last week. It features Northwestern University Alumna, Christine Boyd, and Christine shares her story about God's faithfulness over the last 5 years as she and her family have navigated her cancer journey, a journey that began just 5 days before finding out that she was pregnant with their 3rd child. You'd like to check it out, you can find a link to Christine's story in the show notes. Alright.

As you may or may not know, we've been discussing conflict over the last couple of months and learning together how to engage in conflict in healthy, humble, adaptive ways. And we're nearly at the end of the series. Next week is actually gonna be our final episode. For this week though, we're looking into three little words as I mentioned before that when applied to difficult conversations can help us move from heated conflict into building trust, respect, and deeper understanding. This week, we're revisiting a past conversation that I had with Seth Freeman, a professor at Columbia University and NYU Stern, and a globally recognized expert in negotiation and conflict management.

And Professor Freeman is gonna help us add an incredibly practical, easily applied tool for conflict with his formula of paraphrase, praise, probe. And just last week, Professor Freeman, along with this process, was published in an article of Christianity Today called "How to Talk About God and Politics in Polarized Times". You can find a link to the article in the show notes. So as we have this chance to learn from an expert, I highly recommend that you take some notes and start using this methodology today. Alright.

Here's Professor Freeman, and this one's for you, alumni.

Seth, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, thank you so much, Jon. I've been really looking forward to our conversation today.

Me too. I am really excited to hear the thoughts that you have, the research that you've been doing, the educating, and things that you've done around the idea of negotiation, and how we might learn from some of those things with evangelism. But before we step into this interesting world that we're going into together, Seth, would you take just a moment to introduce yourself for us?

Sure, Jon. And just as a preface, the word negotiation is an intriguing one. I'm sure you are listening because it comes as if what we're about to do is talk about, you know, a wheeling and dealing for God, and that's not what we mean. Negotiation is an unfortunate umbrella term that really encompasses things like peacemaking, conflict management. There just isn't a good word for it.

So we'll use that as just a starting point, but, of course, there's much more to it than that.

Certainly. Certainly.

And, the short bio, if you will, is that I'm a professor at Columbia University and also at NYU Stern School of Business. I'm speaking on behalf of myself, not any institution. And, I've taught the very subject we were just talking about, negotiation, conflict management, peace making for, jeez, since, you know, decades now, and I've had thousands of of students around the world. And it's really the stuff of peace and prosperity and justice, you know, and what could be better? You know, you get to see students, go into situations from roommates to organizations, and beyond, and they use their skills and peace ensues and and harm and reconciliation.

It's fantastic.

As you said, when we talk about negotiation, there's sort of two different pictures that come to my mind. You've already named one of them. That's the wheeling and dealing businessman. You know, something of, used car salesman kind of negotiating. Those sorts of things which can feel, no offense to if there are any used car salesman listening to us, I'm sure that you're better than you're better than the stereotype that we've grown to know.

But it but it doesn't it doesn't promote sort of the best picture. The other one that comes to mind for me is almost like police negotiation, which is usually trying to stop someone from doing something terrible. It does conjure up some some images that might not be great. But what's interesting to me is that in the world of evangelism, it's the same thing that even the word evangelism can conjure up some really negative stereotypes, really negative experiences, anxiety inducing ideas as well. And so it's interesting that here we are talking about a couple of things that can really have a lot of negative connotations.

And I'm excited to see the ways that maybe we can redeem both of those things by bringing them together in ways that maybe we've never thought about especially in the realm of peacemaking, like what you've talked about. I love that idea. Well, thank you so much. And it might actually help our listeners to, now that we've said that, drop the idea of negotiation because it's really not what we're here to talk about in a sense. What we're really gonna talk about is dialogue and conflict management and difficult conversation, and those are all part of this universe. So if the words that we've just talked about bring up, negative connotations, I might suggest just letting go and saying, let's think of this as just how do you have a great, if difficult, conversation? And so, maybe it would make sense for us to start with the story of how this all got started and where what difference it can make for us.

Yes. Please do that.

So one way to to get a feel for this is to share with you, something that happened to me just two weeks ago, really. I have a dear friend who I'll call Dave, who's a gentleman and a scholar. He lives as I do here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He's literally a professor, well renowned, funny, bright. We've known each other for years.

He's a secular humanist and, you know, he doesn't go to meetings. He just you know, that's just sort of his assumption about the world. And, you know, that's the water that you swim in here on the Upper West Side and in the institutions that we're part of. And so we get together regularly for coffee, and, he mentioned something, we got it to talking, and I just nudge the conversation slightly toward the subject of the beginning of the universe. Well, two hours later, it was time for me to go, and he was sad to see me go.

There was a big smile on his face and he said, this was the best conversation I've ever had. Now he's 72 years old, and that's you know, take that with a grain of salt. But it shows you how excited he was, and here's the really wild part. We had been talking without actually using the word about God for two hours. We talked about the beginning of the universe.

We talked about the fine tuning of the universe. We talked about near death experiences, the transcendence of the soul. We talked about, the consciousness and its nature. We talked about all these things. And yet, by the end, he was thrilled.

And why was that? Well, it was because I was using a very simple method. And you might say, oh, well, you know, you're a conflict management guy. That's what you do. No.

This is very definitely a learnable skill that dozens and dozens of my students have learned to do in very short order. I've been training them and sending them out as an optional assignment to go have difficult conversations, or as I call them, hot topic conversations with people they know who they disagree with. And that's in the political realm. But both there and in my conversation with Dave, what we found was the same thing that you really can come back with a feeling like, wow, this was great. And that's what gets me excited, and that's why I'm here to chat with you.

That's awesome. So we're we're hearing something that is not just an interesting study in the classroom, but something that has had wide practical application in you said in political conversations you've had or in this conversation that even without using the any of the terms that we might associate with sort of an evangelistic conversation, but you are essentially having a conversation about God with somebody that has really been very successful and useful.

That's right. And one of the reasons I think this is worth sharing is because it's almost a different philosophy than what our parents or grandparents might have brought to sharing Jesus, sharing faith. I was just listening to a a a sermon by Tim Keller, and he was talking about, sharing faith, in this day and age. He was my minister for 10 years.

Oh, wow.

I thank him dearly. He was sharing that up until recently, you could kind of assume that people knew something about faith, about Christianity. He was basically seen that going to church, though though maybe not something I want to do, is a net positive. But today, he said that you just can't assume any of that. And he says that makes it a particularly challenging time to share faith.

And I think for many of us, even the idea of sharing faith today is doubly or triply challenging because it's so conflated with so many political assumptions and cultural assumptions and baggage and and and angers, and so it shies one away from it. And yet, there is a way to talk about stuff like this that's actually loving and opens things up, pretty much the way things went with me and Dave. It's really just three little words, And those words are paraphrase, praise, probe. And the idea is that instead of talking a lot, you raise a subject and then you just listen. And then you say back what the other one is saying so well that the other one says exactly or something like that.

Once you've done that, then you praise, you find something positive that you can truthfully affirm that the other one said on the subject. And if that seems impossible, that's okay. You just ask him to say more and then you paraphrase again. The third thing, once you've done that, is you probe. That is you simply ask a humble, curious question.

It's not a prosecutorial question. You're not trying to suddenly disprove what they just said, but you just explore it with them. And this simple process of paraphrase, praise, probe is one of the main reasons that I think Dave said, this was great because instead of being argued with, he was chronically validated. Not that his ideas were always validated, but he as a person was validated. And when we do that, we're basically giving a little piece of love to the other person.

And that's really what this is centrally about. It's not about changing minds. It's about being three percent more loving.

Something I love about a good framework is that it simultaneously feels new and familiar at the same time. And this framework feels like that to me. I have a psychology background. So the idea of paraphrase that you shared feels so much like active listening to me. This idea of I'm giving you my full attention, and I'm going to make sure that what I heard is what you said.

Exactly. And I might add that you've been doing a lot of paraphrasing and praising already in this conversation.

Yes. I'm glad to hear that. And the yes. And the the idea of praising, honestly, it kind of reminds me of it sounds like improv comedy to me. Absolutely.

Yes and. Yes and. Exactly. And that even if you disagree with the thing that was just said, you find a way to say 'yes and' I'm confused about why that's the case. Can you tell me more?

Excellent. Exactly. See see you already got this. What else do you want to talk about?

Yeah. What's our next topic here? Maybe you can help me find a better way to ask this question because especially in the realm of evangelism, I do want to change someone's mind. I do want them to go from I deny the existence of God, I deny the reality of Jesus to actually I'm coming around to this idea and I'm changing my mind.

So that it is, you know, not only positive experiences in the moment, but you know, long term effectiveness of actually turning the ship a little bit. So though I'd love to talk more about those things, if those feel like helpful places to go next.

They do. And probably the single biggest challenge with anything like this, whatever approach one takes to a hot topic conversation, secular or religious, is the desire to close the deal right then and there. And, oh, do I know that feeling? Because as I mentioned, I'm a lawyer, by training and practice. I don't practice now, but I'm trained to do it.

I want to win the argument. I know that impulse, and it turns out it works almost perfectly badly. There's a phenomenon called the boomerang effect, and it goes like this. The more strenuously I argue from my point and say, look hese facts prove you're wrong.

You don't go, my god, you're a light in darkness. You've edified me. you've redeemed my blighted thoughts. No. No.

You don't do that. You go, yeah. That's what you think. You double down.

Why is it that sixty-four percent of millennials who were raised in the church have left and most of them will not return? Well, the Barnet Group, they actually looked into that. They did surveys and and interviews, and they found out that it's not what one would first perhaps think. You might, oh, it's because they wanted to party and, you know, sex with drugs and rock and roll. No.

That's not what it was. The overriding problem the millennials said was that the people they met in church were hypocritical, hypercritical, and narrowly political. And what that, to me, sounds like is people who have all the answers and none of the questions, and they aren't listening, My way or the highway. And there's a rigidity to that, and that's heartbreaking because that's not Jesus. Jesus was not, you know, hypocritical, hypercritical, and narrowly political.

And the Barna Group really confirmed that many self professing Christians actually answered that description. It's not just millennials' illusion. There there's real evidence that they were onto something. So paraphrase, praise, probe is not going to turn me from a Pharisee to a a genuine disciple, but it does have the seeds of both of us loving each other and learning from each other. And now I'm not going to convert to some new religion tomorrow because I was open eared, but it does mean that I'm going to learn things too.

And my willingness to do that is one of the things that reads with the kind of humility that is so vital to this work.

I appreciate that perspective. There is another way that we can learn together and pursue together that actually looks a lot more like the way that Jesus communicated with people. I think that's really fantastic.

Well, I so appreciate you're saying that. And one of the running themes that I see in the students, comments is not only did they enjoy it, but their counterpart did too. What typically happens is they say, I was nervous at the start. Who wouldn't be?

Right?

We all know the the anxieties of this. But I calmed down very quickly because I had this little framework. One way to add even more comfort and safety is to say, let's agree that we're not going to interrupt each other and that we're going to speak to each other with respect. And that makes both of them feel like, oh, this isn't going to be a a knock down, drag out shouting match. So you can preface that, and I call that the golden minute.

But what they almost invariably say is, I calm down very quickly. The other one did too. And later said, I felt like I could really talk with you and it meant a lot to me.

Seth, you're already taking me in the the direction that I the next question that I wanted to ask, which is what are your recommendations for getting started with this? Kind of like this golden minute, do you have other recommendations that you would give to people as they want to start applying these things in their life?

Sure. First, I would suggest, you know, pick a time. Be intentional. Don't just fall into this. I had one student, who said that in the middle of an argument, in which one member of a group of five classmates had voiced a dissenting view on this on a hot topic, she first launched into telling him he was crazy and stupid, and one or two others launched him and said the same thing.

And then she decided to try paraphrase, praise, probe. How well do you think that worked?

I'm guessing it wasn't the right start.

No.

So that I mean, that's really a cautionary tale. And so don't do this with a group. Do it one-on-one in a private place. I recommend doing it over coffee or even better over food and just introduce it and say, you know, Jon, I've always been curious about your your take on, global warming. Or you were talking the other day about the start of the universe, and I'd love to hear more about your thoughts about it.

I'd love to do this in a way that that's comfortable for both of us. So I don't you know, if we can agree, we won't interrupt each other and and we'll speak respectfully. I'd love to just, see if we can enjoy that together. Does that sound like a good thing to do? And what have you done?

Very winsome, very inquisitive, and, really, it's off to the races. Paraphrase, praise, probe. And you just keep doing it. You might say, alright. At what point do I get to share my own views?

Well, after you've done this, two, three, four times, after you've really validated the other person, not their ideas necessarily, but them. That's the key. You're validating them by giving your them your full attention, by truly trying to understand them, by truly showing that you're seeing something good in them, that is like mana from heaven. And it so builds credibility. It so invites reciprocity.

It so allows them to start to see you with humanity, which is vital.

I'd like to dig in just a little bit further to the item that you're actually already explaining, and that is the idea of affirming the person without affirming the idea that you disagree with. I find that in that moment, as they're sharing completely opposite views, that it's almost easy for me to just kind of trail right along with them. And I'll get to the end of the conversation and realize that, oh, this thing that was supposed to be about me lovingly sharing an alternate perspective ended up just being almost like saying, yeah, that works too. You find out you're affirming their idea just because you want to be nice.

I completely agree.

How can you avoid that?

Well, first, let me just affirm the idea that we are not here to be nice.

Okay.

And we're not here to be strong. We're here to be strong and nice or strong and kind as I say. If, you know, if you're just kind, you can kill with kindness.

If you're just strong, you can kill with strength. It's melding the wo that's so remarkable. I mean, those are the those are qualities that Jesus, manifested with perfection. And one of the things that we want to do is not just let somebody, believe that anything is fine and, oh, where do I how do I become a member of your movement? No.

No. That's that's not it. What we're trying to do is validate the other person and be three percent more loving. That's basically it. And the rest will just follow from there.

Now, do I just want to do I want to leave the other person with the impression that, you know, this this movement that they're a part of, this philosophy that they believe in is the cat's meow and, you know no. Not necessarily at all. That's why I'm asking questions. And at some point, I can venture, let me share with you a story or let me share with you something that I'm concerned about. And one of the things that made my conversation with Dave so effective was because I was able to share all kinds of books that I had read and and science that I'd seen, but it was always in the context of, here's what I really like about what you're saying, and let's add this, or let me share something with you.

Just to give you a sense of how powerful this was, the following week, we got together again. And for the first hour, all Dave wanted to do was talk about all the things that we had talked about in the previous conversation and all the research he'd done as a follow-up, that tells you how powerfully what I was sharing with him, you know, it made him really go, 'huh?'. So you can talk about anything, and I strongly urge you and our listeners not to feel like you've got to buy into whatever the other person is saying, but rather what you're doing is loving them.

Let's say that people listen to this and they start adopting this. But as we tend to do when we try something new, it doesn't always go the way that the example version goes. What would you say to people as they sort of trip and fall and mess up or maybe get angry or the other person doesn't respond the way that they wanted and they're like, okay. Well, I tried, but now what? What would you say to somebody that has a rough start?

The first thing I would do is start start simple, start easy. Don't go into something you most care about in your first try at this. But instead, find a subject that you don't care a great deal about. You know, like, who is the greatest baseball player of all time? And one of you may think it's Barry Bonds.

And the other one thinks, what are you? Crazy? It's Willie Mays. And, you know, you can get him to hold oh, no. Steroids.

Yeah. Generation. Yeah. No. I say, hey, kid.

You know? And what about the '54 and back of it. And, you know, there are endless arguments you can get into like that. But if you're using paraphrase, praise, probe, you can try this out in a way that's that's safe, and the stakes aren't that big. And you go, how did that go?

You know, it was really good. I enjoyed that. Then you might try it on something that's a low grade political issue. And then once you're getting the feel for it, then you might want to venture into something in on the fringe of philosophical and religious things with somebody who you're in a good place with and see where that goes. And, the one thing I'll caution you on is if you go in thinking this is going to be great, I'm going to I'm going to double attendance at church next week.

Yeah. That's not what this is. This is a long term thing. This is this is coming alongside. I was thinking about this the other day.

Imagine you are are all powerful and God incarnate, and you have just gone through the crucifixion and the resurrection, and it is Easter Sunday morning. What would you do? Well, if you watch Marvel and you live in this culture, what do you do? You find the most dramatic and explosive and big way to announce what's happened to everyone, you know, from the from the top of the temple. What does he do?

He takes a walk with two nameless disciples and talks with them for hours. Who does that? Well, God does that. Is he sending out a a divine press release? No.

He's patiently walking quietly to Emmaus with twp men who can't even recognize him. Now that tells me something about patience and that for as urgent as what Jesus was here to do, he's not in a hurry and he walks alongside. He's Micah. Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. But that inspires me to go, I don't need to close this deal today.

I'm going to walk with somebody.

I love that idea because our culture is so up into the right and right now that we, you know, we want to see immediate change. It is it's coming out of my pores, Seth. Like, it is so in me. We want to see progress at every moment, very measurable progress. And so I this feels like not only a framework, like, a a mental framework to consider, not only a tool to use very practically, but this feels like a spiritual discipline in patience like you said, of saying, I'm going to submit myself to the timeline, whatever that might be.

And rather than dragging somebody down the road or pushing them up the road, I'm just going to walk with them, and ultimately, in step with the Spirit because that's the pace that he is drawing someone that the Spirit is drawing that person to themself.

And you just said to say your word, the Spirit, as mysterious as the Spirit is, yeah, there's lots of room here. And one of the nice things, to add about paraphrase, praise, probe is we don't have to have all the answers. In fact, we can be the dumbest one in the room.

Thank goodness.

And that can be one of the best places to be. I can genuinely ask the questions of a child, and I may actually have more impact than anything else. So I very much affirm what you're saying, Jon. And the only thing I'll add is now that we've talked about this and the importance of listening and asking questions and such, I warmly encourage everyone to learn about remarkable new evidence that's come in the last several years decades that so strongly supports the case for Jesus. It's quite remarkable not to hit people over the head, but to be encouraged.

So the the because the irony is the better prepared I am, the more humbly I can say, you know what? That's a good question. I don't know. Whereas if I don't know anything, I may tend to be more defensive and argumentative. So for all these reasons, to be ready with an answer if asked, to be able to share when I it's appropriate, but also to be actually more humble, it helps to be prepared.

I love that. The combination of preparation and and knowing your moment, not forcing your moment, but waiting patiently and humbly for it. Seth, are there any resources that you can point us in the direction of if people want to continue developing in this process? Are there places that you would point us for some of these things?

Sure. The first thing is, surprisingly, I've actually done an interview in Time Magazine.

Oh, wow.

To try to essentially talk about this. And so if you Google, Time Magazine and Seth Freeman, you'll actually see, an interview with Belinda Luscum, who talks who bakes in much of what we've just been talking about into a very succinct and well written article. I have whole slide decks on these things, so I'm happy to share them, and I can do it in, like, 10 or 15 minutes or the better part of an hour depending on one's, availability and interest. So, I invite people to contact you and through you, me, and I have LinkedIn. I warmly encourage, listeners to, reach out to me.

I'm Seth Freeman, and there are many Seth Freemans I'm surprised to find. So I'm, a professor at Columbia and at NYU.

Perfect. Seth, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been beyond fun for me. And as I said before, I love being able to walk away with a tool that feels both new and familiar at the same time. And this feels like that.

Thank you, Seth, for being with us today. I'm so grateful.

Thank you so much. You're doing something that I would love to make sure many people learn and benefit from. And, I give you all the credit, and I invite, listeners to blame me for any shortcomings or or issues they have.

Of which, I imagine there will be very few, if any. So thank you. Thank you very much, Seth. I appreciate you.

My pleasure, Jon. Thank you so much.

Paraphrase, praise, probe. As we anticipate the inevitable moments of conflict in our lives, alumni, consider applying this extremely helpful tool. As you're in conversation with someone, listen closely and then check to make sure that you've heard correctly. Find something positive that you can affirm in what the other person said, and then ask a humble, curious question that helps you further explore the idea together. And this isn't just applicable with hot button issues.

Practice it in a simpler context first and develop the skills when the stakes are considerably lower, so that you can be ready and practiced when conflict arises. And be sure to check out the show notes for the link to Seth's recent article in Christianity Today, and to his website where you can continue learning about this method of paraphrase, praise, probe. Alumni come back next week for the final chapter in the series on navigating conflict. We're chatting with Curtis Chang, host of the Good Faith Podcast and founder of Redeeming Babel, an organization dedicated to helping Christians better engage with the broader world and the host of challenging conversations that come along with it. And Curtis is going to help us hold on to hope and humility in the midst of conflict by centering our focus on becoming more and more deeply committed disciples of Jesus.

Thanks for tuning in, and I will see you in the after, alumni.

Hey. Thanks so much for joining us today, alumni. If there was anything that you learned, really enjoyed, or that encouraged you from today's episode, would you send us a DM or tag us in a story? We'd love to hear about it. You can find us at After IV pod on Instagram and Facebook.

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