Managing Church Conflict Creatively: Part One
Acts 6:1-7 reminds us that churches are never free from conflict when they are true to their mission, and you don't pastor long until you discover the need for conflict management tools.
A majority of the conflict experienced in churches is the product of changing times rather than creative leadership. Remarkable changes have occurred in the pressures that pastors bear compared to pressures they experienced when their word was seldom questioned and their authority prevailed. Pastors need not be surprised when they find their authority and plans challenged, and they are caught up in a whole storm of protest. It's happening in every institution in our society, including the church.
Laypeople, frustrated by feelings of powerlessness from personal or professional change, often displace their frustrations and act them out in the church. Why there? The church is one of the few places they fear little or no recrimination. These conflicts must be managed constructively by mature church leadership.
Let's look at how the apostles handled the first major conflict in the Early Church (cf. Acts 6:1-7). The Jerusalem church was experimenting in "holding all things common." The Grecian widows, who were part of the Dispersion, lived outside Jerusalem and were saying they lived too far away to get as fair a share of the goods being divided as the Hebrew widows who lived in Jerusalem.
STAGES OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
The apostles followed a 3-stage pattern of conflict management: (1) Desensitization. The widows were allowed to air their complaints, desensitizing the conflict. (2) Deliberation. There was time for serious, mature discussion of the conflict. (3) Decision.
Let's take a closer look at how this New Testament formula for the creative management of conflict actually works.
Desensitization
Desensitization requires active involvement by leadership. You cannot constructively manage conflict by continually avoiding or denying it. You can't say, "The problem isn't there."
And you cannot constructively manage conflict by dominating it or simply forbidding it to happen by saying, "We will be in agreement. Do you understand me?" That approach won't work.
Instead, you first reassure everyone involved that conflict is normal in any human relationship, and the church is no exception. The ideal of perpetual peace in the church-without conflict-is unscriptural and unrealistic. Remind your people that differing viewpoints are perfectly normal. Emphasize that conflicts occur because people choose to look at matters in different ways, not necessarily because those matters are the way people choose to see them.
If you're going to be a master at handling desensitization, you cannot be ego-involved by seeing a situation only your unique way. If you say, "Well, this is the way God has shown it to me, and this is the way it's going to be," you're not going to desensitize anything. Rather, you will only intensify it, because you have made debating the position you have taken equal to debating with God.
Before you get too ego-involved in declaring your divine revelation, listen to what the Lord may be saying to others. The apostles let the Hebrew and Grecian widows express their feelings before they went to the next stage of conflict management.
Why? Once anxiety is reduced, a broader perspective can be taken. In almost any situation, the Holy Spirit can lead us to many alternatives.
Abraham Lincoln frequently suggested other possible interpretations of circumstances. He put all the potential points of view before people so that his debate opponent couldn't say anything new. Desensitization involves helping people see several different ways of viewing a set of circumstances. After people's feelings have been sufficiently surfaced and aired, move to the second stage of conflict management.
Deliberation
Consider the various points of view. In trying to help His disciples overcome their tendency to fear, Jesus said, "Fear not." Perhaps He was giving them the opportunity to have the broadest possible range of alternatives.
Christ wants a congregation to be open to any creative direction the Spirit of God may want to bring. But when church members and church leaders commit themselves to an ego-involved position, their anxiety that they may be proven wrong frequently builds rigid defenses that get in the way of God leading them the way He wants them to go.
Occasional personality conflicts between segments of the congregation and the pastor can affect the pastor's influence. But in most instances, it is a conflict with the position of pastor as the source of legitimate power in church leadership. People who refuse to engage in sincere, mature mediation while respecting the position of the pastor need to be seen for what they are and dealt with as decisively as possible (cf. 3 John 9-12 for the scriptural precedent).
John evidently felt he had been patient enough with Diotrephes-a man who had a long history of being difficult to deal with in the church. John showed the church what he, as their pastor, believed to be the model of a good man (Demetrius) and what he believed to be the model of an evil man (Diotrephes). Then he told them to avoid being like Diotrephes but to follow those who had a good report among them.
Paul was not quite as patient as John. As a pastor I frequently found Paul a great comfort to my heart, especially when I read his prayer for Alexander: "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works" (2 Timothy 4:14).
The extreme action needed to deal with this kind of person should be rare in the life of a church. Most people-dealt with in love and patience-will move through conflict satisfactorily. In the nearly 26 years I pastored, the church board rescinded the memberships of 10 people. And when our sister churches inquired about any of these people, we were faithful to report the facts in terms of how these people had affected the unity of the congregation and the work of God.
In some instances these individuals learned from their discipline and did well. In other cases they caused the same kinds of disturbances in other churches that they caused among us.
Many people who cause disturbances in churches tend to be paranoid in their personalities-tending to feel either persecuted or messianic. Most congregations will have a person or two like this. If you try to nail them to a cross, you'll wind up with the marks in your own hands. And if you try to follow them in their messianic moments, it won't be long until they will be pastoring the church.
Part 2 will continue the discussion on the three stages of conflict management.