conflict
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
Every church has conflict. While there are obvious theological, political, and ideological differences within and between churches, there is also a significant amount of conflict regarding church administration. Everyone has a different opinion on what the church should or should not be doing, how and what the church should be spending money on, how the pastor should preach, or what music is played on Sunday morning (or the volume of the music).
In (Ad)ministry: The Nuts and Bolts of Church Administration, Tom Tumblin notes how administration “naturally produces friction” because it involves “watching and provoking in community” (32). There are different personality types, management styles, and individual preferences, which when coupled with human emotions, inevitably lead to conflict about how the church is managed. In fact, Tumblin notes how “the absence of conflict often indicates the void of commitment and trust” (32).
Unfortunately, many church leaders do not know how to handle conflict well. In Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero says, “even thought I taught workshops on conflict resolution and communication, the basic way I handled conflict and anger resembled my family of origin, not Christ’s family” (87). Here are three bad ways church leaders approach conflict:
Avoidance - For the most part, people do not like conflict and try to avoid it as best as possible. Scazzero writes, “perhaps one of the most destructive myths alive in the Christian community is the belief that smoothing over disagreements or “sweeping them under the rug” is part of what it means to follow Jesus. For this reason, churches, small groups, ministry teams, denominations, and communities continue to experience pain from unresolved conflicts” (31). While avoiding conflict is generally a good idea, there is some conflict that cannot be avoided. There are some Scazzero says it best, “healthy Christians do not avoid conflict” (32).
Over-spiritualizing - In Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World, Bob Goff writes, “some [Christians] acted religious about [conflict] and they seemed to get even more religious the bigger the dispute was. The religious people also seemed to carry on their disputes remotely and surrounded the dispute with so many twenty-pound Christian words that it was hard to figure out what they were originally mad about, much less resolve anything” (193). Unfortunately, there are church leaders who use spirituality to ‘win’ conflict; they use Scripture to inappropriately justify their opinions, or as Scazzero describes, they “make pronouncements like, “The Lord told me I should do this,” when the truth is, “I think the Lord told me to do this” (23). God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are not tools to win arguments. Goff says, “I don’t think Bible verses were meant to be thrown like grenades at each other. They were meant for us to use to point each other toward love and grace and invite us into something much bigger” (194).
Conflict as Power - While most people do not like conflict, there are some people who really like conflict. There are people who genuinely enjoy, I might even go as far as to say love, conflict (this is the epitome of an unhealthy Eight from the Enneagram, a common personality assessment tool). However, . In my experience, these individuals are merely using conflict as a means for exerting control and authority over others. Goff describes this as nothing more than “bullying” noting, “bullies are people who use conflict as a means for obtaining power” (189).
Here’s the challenge: the way the church handles conflict is part of the church’s witness.
In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul discusses lawsuits among believers saying,
“When one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers! Don’t you realize that someday we believers will judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves? Don’t you realize that we will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life. 4 If you have legal disputes about such matters, why go to outside judges who are not respected by the church? I am saying this to shame you. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues? But instead, one believer sues another—right in front of unbelievers!”
So how should church leaders handle conflict? Unfortunately, there is no one way to deal with conflict. Throughout the New Testament Epistles when Paul addresses conflict in the church, Paul gives specific instructions to each church based on their unique situation (i.e., 1 Corinthians 6, 7, 8, 11, and 12, Ephesians 2:14-22 and 4:1-16, and Galatians 6:11-18). Every conflict is a unique and requires an individualized solution as noted by Tumblin who says, “no one [conflict resolution] style is ideal for every situation” (33).
However, there are a few Biblical principles church leaders can use to engage conflict in a healthy way:
Conflict is not inherently bad. Conflict is a consistent theme in Scripture; turn to almost any page in the New Testament and you will see a church in conflict. In fact, conflict is part of the process of deepening relationships. In the business/leadership/psychology world, there is a group development theory called ‘Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development. In 1965, Bruce Tuckman noted that successful groups move through five stages of development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. After the group is initially brought together and they begin to understand the task at hand (forming), there is always a phase in which the group has conflict around who is in charge, what the roles are, how best to achieve the outcome, etc. (storming). The storming stage is necessary; groups cannot get to the other stages without going through the storming phase. Conflict can opportunity for growth and building deeper relationships to enable groups to work together more. Or as a good friend of mine said when I met him, “we’re one really good argument away from being great friends.”
Conflict is not about right or wrong, winning or losing, it is about unity. In most circumstances, resoling conflict requires some level of compromise. However, the goal of resolving conflict is not to determine who won and who lost or who was right and who was wrong, the goal of resolving conflict is preserving unity. For example, the church I attend hosts a podcast called Stay Curious in which two church staff, who generally come from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum discuss controversial topics. The hosts have talked about abortion, race, guns, economics, sex and sexuality, etc.. They almost never agree at the end of the discussion, but they embace conflict to understand each other a little better. The tagline of the podcast is, “diversity in thought does not mean division in community.” 1 Corinthians 1:10 says, “I [Paul] appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought” (NIV).
Conflict is spiritual, it is about humility and growing closer to God. In Roadmap to Reconciliation, Brenda Salter McNeil defines reconciliation as “an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance, and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flourish” (26) (note: while Salter-McNeil is specifically referring to racial reconciliation, there are broader implications for how the church manages internal conflict as well). The key part of Salter-McNeil’s definition is that conflict is spiritual. There a times when I want to win an argument because I do not want to lose; I do not want to be wrong. In doing so, I make the conflict about myself. Conflict is not about me; it is about being faithful to who God has called me to be and what God has called me to do which requires humility. If I am not willing to be wrong or to make mistakes, I cannot be humble. And I cannot grow closer to God if I am not humble. Therefore, conflict requires forgiveness, repentance, and focusing on relationships both horizontally (with people) and vertically (with God).
Engaging conflict is one of the hardest parts of being a church leader. As church leaders, the way we engage conflict, or do not engage conflict, sets an example for the rest of the congregation and the community about what it means to be a follower of Christ. Returning to Matthew 18, immediately after Jesus’s teaching about how to handle conflict, Peter asks in verse 21 and 22 “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
