About Us I Ideos Institute

OUR VISION

At Ideos, our vision is a future where all are able to see the Imago Dei in every person they meet, creating fertile ground for God’s redemptive work in the world.

And who is my neighbor?

A religious leader famously asked Jesus this question after being reminded to love his neighbor. Jesus responded by telling a story about a Samaritan, the type of person who would have been on this leader’s enemy list…

At Ideos, our work helping Christian leaders to embody this “something more” is motivated by our faith and rooted in the life and teachings of Jesus. We do this by teaching Christians effective, targeted solutions for responding to conflict and building long-term social renewal in their communities and congregations.

Our work is also fortified with insights from neuroscience, and inspired by our team’s decades of experience in Christian leadership, work among vulnerable populations, and international conflict transformation. A central pillar of our work is helping others understand, and even relate to another person's perspective across differences. The result, we hope, is a greater ability to love live sacrificially on their behalf. These skills can be learned and they bring with them transformative benefits for both individuals and communities. Social science calls this Empathic Intelligence. It is also an essential and often missing ingredient in the Christian call to love our neighbor.

Two thousand years later, we still struggle to include all people in the category of our neighbor, especially those with whom we disagree or do not understand. The vulnerability this requires is scary, especially as polarizing social topics are breaking apart relationships and dividing our communities. Our sense of safety and belonging feels tenuous in our churches, our workplaces, and even our family’s dinner table. And we’re tired–we’re worn out by the demand to be outraged, the demand to pick sides. Just being “polite” isn’t working. In fact, Jesus calls us to something more.

Our Mission

Our resources and programs increase empathic intelligence in people who want to heal divisions that plague our communities, society, and culture. We have seen overwhelmingly positive results from those leaders who engage with our open-access resources, unique leadership programs, custom workshops, and consulting. Ideos’ ongoing research ensures our work is relevant and effective in meeting the needs of today’s leaders working on behalf of some of our world’s most important issues.

Ideos Institute supports and equips Christians addressing the root causes of conflict to cultivate unity and reconciliation in their communities, congregations, and organizational contexts. We do this by applying decades of experience in international conflict transformation, robust theological scaffolding, and crucial insights from modern social and physical science.

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OUR VALUES & BELIEFS

At Ideos Institute, we are committed to a core set of beliefs that inform and inspire our work.

We believe that God has created all people to flourish, a belief rooted in the goodness of Creation, the divine image imprinted upon every individual, the redemptive work of Christ, and the call to love and serve others.

We also believe that empathy is a necessary ingredient for human flourishing. In fact, by empathizing with others, Christians embody the values of the Gospel and participate in God's redemptive work in the world.

Moreover, we believe that empathy begins with recognizing the inherent dignity & worth of all people, which finds expression in the love of neighbor, and motivates us to live with compassion towards others.

Likewise, there is no limit to the category of who we call our neighbor. Jesus' teachings challenged societal norms of exclusion by affirming the worth and value of every human being. Through this, He demonstrated a radical inclusivity that extends compassion to all.