Saturday Breakout
Sessions

November 7

  • Led by: Greg Khalil, Co-Founder of the Telos Group; and Lydia El-Sayegh, peacebuilder and BIPJ Fellow

    Location: Multipurpose Auditorium

    So what do we do? This interactive workshop will equip participants with frameworks, language, and relationships to take consequential action when they return home. Led by Telos alongside Lydia Sayegh, we will walk away from this workshop with clarity on what tailored steps we can take, both individually and together, to meaningfully confront injustice in Palestine while working toward a world in which everyone can flourish.

  • Led by: Jonathan Kuttab, Palestinian-American attorney & human rights lawyer

    Location: Main Hall

    How should followers of Jesus think about the political realities unfolding in Palestine/Israel, especially in the wake of the recent elections? In this session, Palestinian human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab offers a Christ-centered framework for understanding where things stand today and where they may be heading. Drawing on decades of legal and peacemaking work, he’ll explore how Christians can engage these questions with faithfulness, courage and hope. Participants will also have the chance to bring their own questions to the conversation.

  • Led by: Steve Schallert, Director of Storytelling at St. Stephen’s University

    Location: Classroom 5

    A practical workshop seeking to cultivate agency amid despair by exposing participants to the philosophy and praxis of Kingian Nonviolent Conflict Transformation. Together we will briefly explore the six principles and six steps of Kingian Nonviolence. So, if you find yourself asking, "what in the world can I do amid all this violence & injustice?" May this workshop serve as a roadmap.

  • Led by: Matt Nance, Executive Director of the Christian HolyLand Foundation

    Location: CAFE

    American evangelical churches may approach ministry in the Holy Land with sincere intentions, generous resources, and a desire to help. Yet even well-meaning partnerships can unintentionally become paternalistic, short-term, or disconnected from the priorities of local churches. Drawing on doctoral research into relationships between Western missionaries and local churches in Jordan, as well as years of ministry experience in the region, this workshop will explore how churches can build healthier, more mutual relationships with Christian communities in the Holy Land. Participants will consider the role of listening, trust, power, local leadership, and long-term presence in cross-cultural ministry. Special attention will be given to church partnerships, financial support, ministry projects, and short-term visits. The goal is not simply to help Western churches “do ministry better,” but to encourage relationships in which local Christians are respected as leaders, partners, and fellow members of the global body of Christ.

Back to Main Program

Our Saturday Breakout speakers

  • Gregory Khalil

    Palestinian American Co-founder of The Telos Group

    Greg Khalil co-founded Telos in 2009, which forms and activates peacemakers for a more just world. Through Telos, Greg has helped engage thousands of American leaders and their communities on Palestine through a lens of human dignity and human rights. Greg was also an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism from 2019-2025. Prior to founding Telos, Greg was a legal and communications adviser to Palestinian negotiators. Although Greg is currently based in New York City, most of his extended family still lives in Beit Sahour, Palestine.

  • Jonathan Kuttab

    Palestinian American attorney and human rights lawyer

    Jonathan Kuttab is a co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and co-founder of Nonviolence International. A well-known international human rights attorney, Jonathan practices in the US, Palestine and Israel. He serves on the Board of Bethlehem Bible College and is President of the Board of Holy Land Trust. Jonathan was the head of the Legal Committee negotiating the Cairo Agreement of 1994 between Israel and the PLO. After graduating with his Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) from Virginia Law School, and practicing a couple years on Wall Street, Jonathan returned home to Palestine. Jonathan was visiting scholar at Osgoode Law School at York University in Toronto in the Fall of 2017, and is a founding director of Just Peace Advocates Mouvement pour une Paix Juste, a Canadian based international law human rights not-for-profit organization. Jonathan is currently the executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA).

    Jonathan is a resident of East Jerusalem, and is a partner of Kuttab, Khoury and Hanna Law Firm in East Jerusalem.

    Jonathan Kuttab’s articles have appeared in the Middle East Institute, Arab News, Arab Center Washington DC, Al Jazeera, the Electronic Intifada, and others.

    Jonathan provides analysis regarding International Law & Human Rights, understanding the facts on the ground, what options are possible beyond a two state solution, Christian Zionism.

  • Matt Nance

    Executive Director, Christian HolyLand Foundation

    Matt Nance is Executive Director of the Christian HolyLand Foundation, a nonprofit serving and strengthening Christian communities across the Holy Land. He spent eight years living and working in Jordan, where he was involved in ministry and humanitarian response during the Syrian refugee crisis. Matt holds a PhD in Intercultural Studies from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (Oxford, UK), with research focused on relationships between Western missionaries and local churches in the Middle East. He also teaches intercultural studies at Johnson University (Knoxville, TN). Drawing on ministry, research, and long-term relationships across the region, Matt helps churches engage the Middle East with greater understanding, humility, and faithfulness to Christ.

  • Steve Schallert

    Director of Storytelling at St Stephen’s University

    Steve Schallert is a peacebuilder, organiser, educator and practitioner of Kingian-Nonviolent Conflict Transformation living and practicing in Cape Town, South Africa. Mentored by the Catholic Worker Movement and Plowshares tradition, for the past two decades Steve has helped develop and facilitate dozens of conflict transformation schools and projects in diverse conflict and post-conflict contexts such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, and South Africa. His current passions centre on supporting and developing young peace and justice practitioners who are engaged in healing the walls of hostility within their communities.

    Locally, Steve serves as the Director of International Solidarity with Iziko Lamaqabane, a faith-based support centre for urban peace and justice practitioners throughout Africa. By working in relational solidarity with local practitioners, Iziko Lamaqabane serves those active at the site of struggle by facilitating spaces of retreat, exchange and collective learning grounded at the intersection of anabaptism, black liberation theology & critical consciousness.