Peter Ulrik Jensen is a university-educated theologian and has served as protestant priest in the Lutheran church for a number of years. He went through a crisis and met Nonviolent Communication (NVC) in 2010. NVC inspired him and gave him a new look on the church and its purpose. Here is Peter’s story, in his own words:
In 2004, I felt stuck and nearly depressed. I had worked as priest for a couple of years and felt empty of life. I tried to solve it intellectually, but I could not and did not know what to do. So I quit the church and started a journey “from scratch.” I went through many explorations, and in 2010 I encountered NVC. The idea of relating directly to feelings and needs spoke to me! I felt whole, life-connected, joyful. I found out more about NVC, joined a local practice group, and experienced the power of empathic listening. I also realised that learning the principles of NVC is one thing, another is to live it — it takes time and effort to change unconscious habits. Since then, NVC has kept being an “engine of change” for me; it is the most powerful practice I have met.
Sometime after I met NVC in 2010, I began to think that the connection with life that NVC helped me to see, must have been what also Jesus Christ saw and worked for — life as “flow of life”, a source, to live directly from it. I resumed studying the Bible and looked from this new angle at what I had learned at university. It all opened up and came alive! I felt truly inspired and wanted to now bring this back to the church. In 2014, I started serving as priest again.
One of my visions is to inspire the church to become again the “power place” that it was in its beginning. A place for compassion, connection and transformation. I am continuously in the process of finding out how this can be facilitated. Part of it is to address and explore beliefs and interpretations empathically. Another part is to just shift and speak from feelings and needs-consciousness, in sermon, teaching, conversation and collaboration.
My specialty is church and religion, however I see my workfield as bigger than that, and I enjoy to work with anyone around any issue.
Any inner and outer conflict can be dissolved, I believe, through empathic listening and connection with needs.
For Danish Speakers
If you speak Danish, please visit the Danish NVC organisation, Livkom , and read about Danish trainers.
