What is The Intersection?
- The Intersection is a moderated virtual meeting space serving Jews, Christians, their families and friends wishing to discuss, better define, and resolve issues, whether societal, spiritual, familial, or personal.
- Often we assist intermarrieds and their family members seeking to better understand and respect each other.
- Sometimes people will have a series of meetings at The Intersection. Some come out of the process with new agreements, even formal statements facilitating a better life for all concerned.
- It is also the location for events we call Idea Exchanges, where participants learn together through considering a body of data and discussing it on the basis of their own life experience. We believe in participatory interactive learning.
What do you do at The Intersection?
We assist our clients in their voyage of discovery, disagreement, decision-making, often helping them reframe issues and perhaps discard old understandings as no longer helpful.
- We moderate – supervising the process so as to help identify, settle, and reconcile differences. In this way we understanding always, agreement if possible, compromise sometimes, and agreeing to disagree where necessary.
- We interpret, facilitating understanding across cultural divides
- We consult, providing relevant information and expertise to facilitate more effective discussion. We act as referees, helping to prevent impasses, abusive speech, and unhelpful ways of communicating with one another.
- We refer, in cases where other professionals need to be consulted.
- We facilitate. This means our job is to NOT do all the talking but to facilitate your thinking things through and talking to each other.
- We advocate for the More Jewish Jesus. Here at our intersection, for those open to considering this aspect, we seek to introduce into the equation an in-depth understanding of the More Jewish Jesus who stands unknown and acknowledged at The Intersection, but who, when rightly understood, is the basis of creative new solutions for people facing disagreement and dissonance.
- We learn together through participating in topical and prepared Idea Exchanges. These are usually two hours long, meeting on a Sunday, early evening. We incorporate learning modalities based on the theories and discoveries of Malcolm Knowles, the father of Androgagy, self-directed adult learning.
Who runs The Intersection?
- Rabbi Dr. Stuart Dauermann founded The Intersection, and also its parent organization, Interfaithfulness. He is a Baby Boomer, married over forty years to Naomi. They have three grown children.
- Dr. Dauermann holds a PhD in Intercultural Studies, and comes from a family where his mother was an Orthodox Jewish convert, but where his father’s family never really accepted her. Therefore, one might say that he has lived his entire life at the intersection of the Jewish and Christian world. His studies and labors for over fifty years equip him to interpret and defend each of these worlds to the other.
Do you do therapy here?
No, we are not therapists. We are here to consult, to mentor, and to coach as needed.
Are there fees for meetings at The Intersection?
We don’t charge fees at The Intersection, but we do operate on a suggested donation basis. Please see here for more details.