Managing Church Conflict Creatively
Part 2: Deliberation
Part 1 of this series examined how the apostles used three stages of conflict management—desensitization, deliberation, decision—to handle the first major conflict in the Early Church (cf. Acts 6:1–7). We discussed the desensitization process and began looking at the deliberation phase. Part 2 continues with the deliberation stage: working with difficult people in your church.
Paranoid People
Paranoid people want prominence and power. Allowing them to have both will be disastrous for them and the church. God loves them and wants to help them, and pastors can help them best by allowing them to have prominence—without power.
What positions would most likely fit this description in your church? Soloists? Choir members? Hostesses? Ushers? Such positions have legitimate tasks that need to be done in every congregation. Put paranoid people in places where they're out in the public—where they're seen and feel important. However, God help you if they get on your board or become your worship leader or Christian education director!
Why put them in positions of prominence? Because if you can find them a position of prominence without power, your congregation will see what you see, and the disruptive efforts of the paranoid people in your church will be contained. They won't be making decisions or sitting on committees.
Remember, though, even people who recognize such people for who they are will resent you if you attack paranoid members. Why? Because the position of pastor is supposed to be above that kind of behavior. Ask God to help you separate your feelings from your sense of responsibility in these situations. This will enable you to act from your position as pastor and spiritual leader of the congregation, instead of from your personal feelings.
Provide prominence without power, trusting that the people of God will keep leadership where it belongs: in the hands of responsible, mature believers. At the same time, help your congregation love disruptive people enough to allow the body of Christ to provide what therapy can be accomplished in their hearts and minds.
If certain people have only caused you difficulty, you may be the one who needs to change. Check with other pastors who've had to work with them, and see if they caused problems in other churches. Find out how they functioned in previous situations of leadership and power. This is one way fellow pastors can cooperate and help each other.
One of the things I learned when I was building a church staff is that you aren't really pulling off such a coup when you hire a staff person from another church without first talking to that senior pastor. You may simply be answering his or her prayers for deliverance!
Disruptive, Manipulative People
When you have to deal with a disruptive, manipulative person on your staff or in your church, remember that such a person will see your kindness as stupidity. He or she will try to make your attempts at reason and reconciliation look like evidence of weakness. And your prolonged patience will be seen as an extended opportunity to manipulate and exploit the circumstances.
If you find yourself caught in the throes of a person's critical attempt to disrupt the church, it's important to keep your program going as though nothing had happened—including those justifiable features which may be under irresponsible attack. Don't publicize conflict. The truth will “out,” eventually.
Mature members of the church will, in time, see the wisdom of what Paul admonished the church at Rome to do: “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple [innocent]” (Romans 16:17,18).
By your words and deeds teach your people what good leadership looks like. And keep your hand on all levels of the leadership-selection process in your church. This is how you sustain—and at the same time contain—those unhealthy people in your congregation. Pray that exposure to the properly functioning body of Christ will bring healing to them before they can damage the cause of Christ.
If you are for something, a person like this will be ag'in it. They will be against enough things that the people in the congregation will observe it and still love the person, but they will have better sense than to elect the disruptive, manipulative person to a position of leadership in the church.
Disruptive, Argumentative People
Disruptive, argumentative people will make your board or committee meetings even more difficult than they would otherwise be. They will want to override every other point of view during your times of deliberation and control the decisions you reach as a group. Save yourself a headache by keeping these kinds of people in positions of prominence—without power.
During your deliberation of conflict-laden church business, encourage free discussion of the issues with all parties involved. In your board meetings and in your departmental and committee meetings, encourage differing viewpoints. You can do this easily by being careful how you respond to someone who has given an opposing point of view. Say to this person in the group meeting, “Thank you for sharing from your standpoint. Now, let's hear from someone else.”
Try not to move into any planning meeting with such tightly defined and preconceived plans that there is no room for other opinions. Have the understanding with your board and your department heads that these meetings are the place and the time when different viewpoints should be aired and explored for whatever creative advantage they may have over the plan as initially presented.
Others present may have valid opinions that need to be heard. Remember, you are looking for the best plan. When there are honest differences, let them be expressed in these kinds of meetings, to help the group reach a decision that represents the maximum Kingdom potential.
Timid Laypeople
Laypeople with honest convictions are prone to sit too quietly in departmental planning meetings and on church boards, whether because of their own timidity or because of overpowering leadership. They often leave without expressing their real feelings during the meeting. What do they do? When they get out of the meeting, they are likely to say, “I didn't really agree with what the board decided.” In trying to avoid the momentary discomfort of an honest difference of opinion, they have created a longer, deeper discomfort by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong place and in the wrong way.
Conclusion
Somehow we get deceived into believing that God can't be in an honest confrontation or difference of opinion; God can only be in peace and tranquillity. Churches can suffer from such mismanagement of conflict.
Mismanagement of conflict in difficult situations also occurs at higher levels of leadership because people hesitate to speak up. We need to avoid this trap at every level of the church.
Remember, the devil doesn't fear a big church. He fears a united church. Only when differences can be expressed in an atmosphere of acceptance and tolerance can a truly church-unifying point of view be discovered and defined. Mastering this process is leadership at its best.
In Part 3 we will discuss how to achieve clarity of communication in meetings—arriving at the decision stage of conflict management. Our communication is often clouded by our feelings, making us blind both to how we sound and to the possibility of any legitimate difference of opinion. We'll discuss ways to insure that the real winner in conflict resolution is the kingdom of God.
RICHARD D. DOBBINS, Ph.D., founder of EMERGE, is currently directing the Richard D. Dobbins Institute of Ministry in Naples, Florida, which he founded in 2007. He is the author of Teaching Your Children the Truth About Sex.Visit his website: www.drdobbins.com.