Video Transcript: Thriving Through Ministry Conflict

And then we have the whole issue of, how do we then create harmonious relationships? How do we deal with conflict? How do we navigate through conflict? And as we look at conflict today, we're going to look at the material given to us by Dr. Osterhaus, Jurkowski, and Hahn in their book called thriving through ministry conflict. Most of you watching this video, today are into ministry. God raised you up to do ministry in many different ways, places and things. And always, no matter who you are, what you're doing, you have conflict that will will come. Conflict is inevitable. Conflict is truly what we have to deal with all the time, just being human. We have conflict. We have conflict because we are broken human beings. We all fall short of the glory of God. Roman 3:23, we all have this place where we fall short, and we just can't make it. Or  we make mistakes, we fail, and that creates conflict with other people because of their expectations, or because of our expectations. We project on other people and how other people don't expect what we expect, and that creates conflict.

Conflict! It's all around us, and God shows us healthy ways of how to get through conflict, through His Word and also through principles that we bring out of his word, that we exegete out of the Bible. So let's take a look at what Osterhaus, Jurkowski, and Hahn have given us through this valuable book. And I highly recommend it. I'll be having that on the book list online, and we can take a look at that.

So to begin with, what is conflict? Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. Conflict can be a good thing. Conflict is defined by Webster's Dictionary, at least, to start with its competitive or opposing action. Of incompatibles, antagonistic state of action as a divergent ideas, interests or persons, a conflict of principles, for example, or a second definition, mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes or external or internal demands. You may recall the story that I told you about Bill, my client, who I worked with in the city of Chicago, and I was his payee. I would give him his allowance, for example, every single week. And you may recall that he was sitting in the couch, and I was right directly in front of him, and he was sitting there all sprawled out, and I was trying to say, Okay, Bill, here's the $5, here's what we agreed to. And because of his disorder, mentally and emotionally, he turned on the dime, if you will, and he says, No, I don't want that $5 I want $10.  I want $10. Give it to me now! Not only was he impatient, but boy, he expected a whole lot more, and he was ready to fight. Not plead, but fight. And of course I did an about turn, walked down the stairs, the six flight of stairs, and ran out the door, out the door of that building, and he came right after me. But of course I outran him, and thankfully, I was able to come back to him, and he had calmed down, and I de-escalated the conflict. Conflict. Some people want to fight. Some people will flee because of different expectations and principles; incompatible, opposing needs, drives wishes, but conflict is about you. I've said in a lot of these videos, I am the problem. I'm the one who gets in the way. I'm the one whot creates the expectation

The question is, what do you expect? What about the other in marriages? There's always this conflict. And if you're married, you know what I mean. Women are different than men. Men are different than women. It's a fact, as far as God's design and God's creation, we are all different. And that's okay, that's good. God is about diversity, but unity. Yet unity in diversity brings conflict, because it's an art to build relationships, and also in marriage, as Dr West, Leslie Parrott have written in their saving them, saving your marriage for it starts book and workbook and material. It's been updated since. It's been around for quite a few years, but they tell a story of that the first Christmas morning,  and they were at Leslie's house, at her mom and dad's house, and it's 7am and she is up and she's got the knife and she's doing the onions and she's doing the carrots and getting ready for the Christmas lunch. And she notices by 9am that her new husband, on this first Christmas morning of their marriage, is still in bed. You can tell of what I'm expressing that she is starting to get agitated. She's starting to get angry. She doesn't understand why her husband is still sleeping in. Of course, for some people sleeping in a Christmas morning isn't so bad, but to her, at that time, she's with her mother at the sink, and she's doing the vegetables and she and her mother are having conversation, and she says, Mother,  why isn't Les up yet? I don't understand. And her mother says, Yeah, honey, yeah, yeah, I know you know coffee. I know, sweetie, I don't either. I don't either. He's your husband. So finally, Wesley had enough, puts down the knife, says I'm gonna go up there and tell him that we've got to get ready for church. It's Christmas morning. So she marches right up to that bedroom and gets into bursts into the room as if she's from the FBI, and they're on a raid, right? So she's got gun in hand and through and if looks could kill they would. She probably would have killed him, and he is still in bed, and she grabs a pillow, and like I'm grabbing this pillow over here, and she grabs the pillow as she goes blamTt his sleepy head and says, Les, what aare you doing? We're not ready yet. Mother and I are worried and we are stressed out, you know? Get it, boom, bam, boom. And, of course, after a few slugs of the pillow, Les looks right at his new wife and says to her, honey, but we always sleep in on Christmas morning, and Leslie looks at him and says, who's we? What are you talking about? Les, in the bed, begins to think about it. He said, Well, I guess me and my family, then Leslie starts to have a revelation. Says,. Okay, but we got to get going, because we've got brunch coming. We got church coming. And then after they talk more about it, Les finally says to Leslie, hey, Leslie, honey,

I thought I told I thought, of course, how husbands and wives interact, husbands and wives, you know what I'm talking about. He says, Honey, I thought I told you. I thought I told you that we always go to church, me and my family, we always go to church on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas morning. She says to him, but me and my family, we always do church at Christmas morning. Don't you understand? Les is at the point saying, hey, help me understand. I don't know your ritual, I don't know your routine, I don't know your tradition

I wanted to tease out this example a little bit more, because it goes back to what we're talking about, expectations. Expectations. What do you expect? What about the other person? How do we develop our set of expectations for everything? And so what Les and Leslie did is they got their PhDs and and they became marriage experts and and they got check them out. They're online, les and Leslie parrot, P, A, R, R, O, T, I think there are two T's in the end, but they're saving your marriage before it starts. Material is impeccable. And they talk about how, in the first exercise of the Save your marriage, before it starts workbooks. What are your personal 10 Commandments? What are your personal expectations that you probably didn't talk about when you were dating your wife to be or your husband to be? And they have these workbooks for men and for women, because men and women are different, of course. And so what are your expectations? Now? There are faulty expectations that we always have. And as I just illustrated, your family-of-origin expectations. What do you do on Christmas morning and also world view?

I was  was preparing to do a wedding for a couple, and they were part of the Alcoholics Anonymous community. They got my name as a pastor who did weddings with people who are not from my church, and they said, Hey, we want to meet with you. We want to look at what you do, and if you could do our wedding, that'd be great. Okay, set up the meeting. I'll never forget it. I sat across from them, and I gave them the form of what I use and what I usually say and so on, and so forth. And as they were reading my form, as they were looking at all the specifics friends, they said, Oh, we're not okay. I thought, hey, they were at least going to respect the fact that we would have God & the Bible. Well, we're not into what you do. We're spiritual, not religious, okay? And they said we don't want you to do the wedding at all.

Worldview! You are what you believe. And if you're watching this video in Asia and Africa and somewhere in other parts of the world, other than the United States, you understand what I'm trying to say, because what you believe is who you are. It's the Eastern view in the East Africa, Asia, if you're in those countries, in those continents, you understand that, yes, we are about the group and how I think is dependent upon how my tribe or my my group looks at the world, and the worldview, as to how I see the world, what lenses I see the world through. In America, we are more individuals, very individualistic, and we compartmentalize things as if I have my one basket. Here's my one basket, this basket right here. This is my work. And on this table I have what I believe and this separate thing. Let's say this represents my home and it's all compartmentalized. It's all individual and how I think and things don't seem to get integrated in how we think as Westerners, as Americans. Worldview matters. And if you've been watching the media lately too, there's been a lot of clash of world views in our country, in the United States, and of course, you see that everywhere in all countries. But in terms of the individualistic mindset that we tend to have here in the United States, worldview tends to be a problem because of expectations, because it talks about culture, as you can see right here, culture. There different cultures with different expectations, with different traditions. Christmas morning is going to be different for one culture as opposed to another culture. For example, you have Asian cultures that don't celebrate Christmas morning. That's not part of their tradition. It's the new year celebration that they they  have formed traditions around for centuries.

Culture, worldview, family of origin: it matters, and also how we bring those expectations into our work and our course, our communities of faith, and also in the community at large, and we need to take time to listen first and speak next. Listen first and speak next, especially with the application of worldview. Because if we're not willing to listen, and we just assume that people will understand who we are, what we are, why we are, then we need to step back and say, Hold on a minute. We're gonna have conflict, and it's not gonna end well.

Conflict can be productive, not negative. What do I mean? As we look at conflict to be around around us, and faulty expectations we looked at ministry and ministry, we are looking at at the role, the minister, whether it be the person who's a director of education or the senior pastor or the director of children's ministry, or what have you, whatever role you have in ministry, paid or volunteer missionary or called a called minister to a church in the United States or, of course, other other places around the world. Pastors are highly committed. They can get confused by the unrealistic. God gives us big visions, but we have to be realistic about what's going on. Really seek God and what he is truly doing, as opposed to what we expect he is doing. And we have be careful, not trying to project our expectations on what we think God is doing, because that again, brings conflict spiritually, and also conflict between us, and also people that we lead, also being overwhelmed and frightened by incomprehensible conflict. So when we, for example, walk into that committee meeting, and you as the Christian leader, you as that person who is hired by the church as a director of education, and you're working that committee, and you sit down and you've got the agenda, but someone else has a whole different idea of how things ought to go, and they start to get everybody else in the committee to think the same way, you've got a probleml. So working on this is very, very important to understand that, that really we need to listen first. Because, again, how am I the problem? How do I get in the way? How are my expectations creating things that are overwhelming or that are unrealistic and so on?

So the conflict is about you. It's inescapable. The problem is how people relate to one another. As I just mentioned, conflict is good, is necessary. People are different. Not only are women and men different, as I illustrated, but people in general are different, as I illustrated with worldview. People in Asia are different, people in Africa, are different, people than North America. People of North America, different people than who are in Latin America, in South America, South American friends and why? How? What's going on?

Why is conflict good? How can be productive? First of all, it elicits different points of view. That's why I say, let's listen first. and ask the open ended questions. Now, yes or no questions, that shuts down conversation. So for example, I were to say, so was the coffee good? Yes. Yes. Okay, so why was the coffee good? Oh, well, let me tell you about it. The the Starbucks coffee, and it's been brewed just right and it's at the correct temperature. And again, this little person is able to share more for your benefit, to understand why the coffee is so good, so different points of view, whereas you may not like coffee, here's one. Understand why coffee tastes so good, and you just  respond back to the person. I'm glad you love your coffee. I don't like it, but wonderful to hear, now I know how to serve you. Servant leadership. So different points of view help us to understand how we then proceed in serving God, serving the other person, serving people in the community in general, and also how we can contribute based upon the calling God has given to you.

And finally, it does lead to resolution, as I just concluded, what that conflict brings us to understanding, that brings us to new beginnings, and also new understandings or clarity. Clarity. That's why conflict can be a good thing and not always a bad thing. Well, at the same time, we look at examples here in the United States, this is where I've got many statistics to look at, where these statistics based upon about 20 years ago, but also then looking here now in 2018 and comparing, contrasting, really, as we look at ministry. And a lot of studies have been done here in the US, but we can learn from them as a case study, as an illustration, so percentages based on your church magazine, done in 1996. Dated, but it does make the point about  ministry departures, again, based upon the negative side of conflict, and yes, because of how people will project their expectations, how they will then say, No, it's my agenda, then it turns into an issue of power and control.

Power and control. That's where we need to look at what is happening around us because of the negative part of conflict, as opposed to the positive side of conflict. So what are these percentages of departures? Well, based upon the survey and study done by your church magazine, 46% of ministers, Christian leaders left their ministry, left the ministry in general, completely due to conflict, division between themselves and the church. 38% at that time left due to personality conflicts. So George on the committee doesn't like me, and I came to understand that we were at an impasse, and I began to resentthe  George problem. So 30%, given that example, left the ministry because of personality. 32% left because of unrealistic expectations. So the church hires you to say, yes, you're gonna be the senior pastor the church, and you are going to preach all the sermons every single Sunday, no break. And you're also going to build the vision of the church. You're going to also run, oversee, the all the educational ministries, everything, all of it. You're the man or you're the woman, you're the person, you're the Christian leader who's going to do it al,l you. The reality is, you can't. You can't. It's unrealistic. And for those of you who have considered calls to churches where they they give you the job description and it's a mile long and not focused enough, you know what I'm talking about. Because it's unrealistic. We can't do it all. So 32% at that this time. And mind you, 46%, 38%, 32%, I would argue it's higher. And by this time, 2018 I would argue it's higher than that, more like 50% or more. 24% left because of a lack of clear expectations. 22% left due to theological differences. And quite often that happens. You get hired by the church, and about six months in, you're saying, it doesn't seem like we see eye to eye theologically on the doctrine of God, man, Christ, sin and so forth,. Conflict, conflict. I have a picture of the book here. They have a another study done 2004 from having to do with the negative outcomes of conflict, and from leadership journal, 2004 and here, in this picture, the ministers that I just talked about, they also reported, not only negative outcomes, but also positive outcomes of conflict. The negative outcomes of conflict. 68% they had damaged relationships. 58% sadness. 32% decline in attendance in their church because of conflict. 32% leaders have left the church. 31% loss of trust. 29% bitterness. 3% loss of communicationwith the congregation. Back in 2004 with the study out of leadership journal some positive outcomes of conflict. However, ministers who were surveyed about negative and positive outcomes said, I'm wiser because of conflict. 44% said that was a purifying process. We were to prune out the dead wood and the buds that were not producing flowers so we can help the flowers that were producing flowers, the bud that were producing flowers and producing fruit, also the 42% better defined vision, 35% better communication with their congregations, 30% stronger relationships, 16% reconciliation, 16% growth and attendance. And unfortunately, when we look at the negative side and we look at reports of negative things and outcomes, they often tend to be higher than reported. However, I think we can take stock in the positive outcomes that these these are probably more accurate in the reporting. But this is just to illustrate again how conflict can be negative and also conflict can be positive. Negative outcomes, positive outcomes, and we need to focus on the positive outcomes of conflict, because we need to get into what's called reframing things. 

If we reframe things, we can look at things differently as opposed to how we used to look at things. I so what do I mean? Reframing? How do we look at this? Well, reframing is a process of how we first look at ourselves. Are we self aware? So terms of conflict, conflict is communication. That's the first principle. Conflict is communication. It begins with self awareness, awareness of self and also the awareness of others. You put those two together, you then get into the five questions as well. The five questions relate to who, what, why, when, where, and if you look the who, the what, the why, the when and the where, what we are doing, everybody is we are using critical thinking, critical thinking quite often, when we punt or we go, we die. Dive right into the whole negative side of conflict. It's because we didn't step back within that second or that moment, or within that few minutes, if we have opportunity to, sometimes we don't. I understand it gets tough, however the discipline and the practice, and the hope is that we can use more critical thinking and more that we get into it, the more that we can say, okay, who am I dealing with? What is it that he is really saying, or what is she really trying to say? Or what's really going on underneath the four boards, underneath the surface. Why are we addressing this issue right now, when we can address it later on? When are we going to truly achieve the goal, as opposed to right now, again, urgent and important, as Eisenhower taught us, urgent is probably not important. Yes, everything is important. Is everything urgent? Probably not. But some things need to be urgent right now, and other things don't have to be urgent right now. And where, where are we going with this? Where are we going with this discussion? Where do we want to go from here to there? As we look at the the purpose of conflict, as we look at how the communication between me and the other person having conflict with how that's going to bring a good result. 

Communication, communication, What's my motivation?  How can I redirect the emotion and bring us to a solution? And not everybody is going to be in that place. Some people are gonna be hot, red hot, red with emotion because of something you did, maybe unknowingly, and they want to let you have it, kind of like Lesley did with her husband, Les now Lesley was taking that pillow, remember, and she was just whacking him, not taking the time to stop and think, hold on. Who am I dealing with? My husband, who comes from a different tradition. What are we really dealing with here? Yeah, it's Christmas morning. Well, maybe he just didn't understand our tradition, meaning me and my family. However, you're probably asking the question, how long did they date? Did he come over for Christmas other other times? But this is the story they have in their book, and apparently that really became an issue for them, not everybody, but for them, it exploded that morning. And of course, when and where they had to work that through, albeit through negative emotion. And I argue we don't need to get into that negative emotion. It is not necessary. There can be negative feelings, but how I then deliver my feelings in a more productive and eventually positive way.

So, for example, my assistant, Colette, she's saying, well, we need to do this. We need to do that. Dr Mark, we we've got this to work on today, and our accountant has said that we, our financial advisor who advises, we need to put things in from this account that account, and going, Oh, hold on a minute. Create a lot of conflict within me, because I'm thinking it. I think, how do we reconcile this and with that? And how things go into different pockets, if you will. You know different account line items in the budget, the bookkeeping, but I don't do bookkeeping, but they do the bookkeeping collect, along with our bookkeeper there at the Community Recovery office, and we have an outside financial advisor that helps us keep stay on track. So it's trying to make sure everything is on the same page and and that can get a little messy, very messy. And so I'll stop, I'll say, Okay, who am I dealing with here? Okay, it's Colette. We're on the same team. She's on my team. We're not against each other. And where are we going with us? Okay. We are at the present moment. We're okay. We're not in trouble. But we need clarity, we need understanding. We need to communicate. So I need to just take a minute or two as she's talking to me and saying, Okay, here's where we are and here's where we're going. My motivation is to understand, not to punish, not to criticize. My motivation is to say, how we're going to do this, what's really happening. How do you know that, and how can you help me understand this better? That's a discussion I had just recently with Colette, and we've had productive conversations for this. And we understand each other a lot, and it helps too. It's all in the relationship and all, of course, how you approach the conflict, define the relationship. How? How do you know this person? Is it a colleague? Is it a deep relationship? How are you dealing with the work relationships? So things to consider, my motivation, redirection, solution oriented and the best practice, always look for the solution all the time. What's the solution here? Help me understand, because you need to work on you first in every situation, regardless, and avoid getting caught up in emotion, and be as objective as you can be.

So as we look at conflict and communication, it involves  teamwork. And Patrick Lencioni talks about The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and I'm not going to get into that today as far as the five dysfunctions, but I invite you to go into Google and to look up those five dysfunctions of a team. And one of those five dysfunctions is the lack of trust, and that lack of trust when it comes to conflict, where it can be positive, we need to err more on the fact that we need to put trust here into action rather than assumption. If I assume that the other person is out to get me, or that I get back from my dark side of paranoia or passive aggressive or controlling behavior, and I don't give honor to God or that person. Trust, trust. So you're working a team. Trust is  probably the main thing that Patrick emphasizes. But of course, then the other dysfunctions looking at how things work and how we need to go to God and look at my motivation. How's the Holy Spirit direct to me and not me? Okay, so communication in conflict, leadership and conflict. Of course, we've been talking about leaders all the whole time, and the different kinds of leaders. And so conflict involves how you are as a leader, as you leave yourself, as you leave another person, as you leave your home, as you leave your whole family. Perhaps you're the patriarch or the matriarch of the family, you know as in the mother or the father of the family, or you are leading a team on a specific project for a given week in another country or another part of the city, whatever it may be, leadership and different leaders, different followers. They're different types of leaders, different types of leaders, and the different types of leaders, we look at how leadership leadership, we have people who like to start things. They like to be the catalyst, the ones who put it into action. Let's start this. Let's start that.

And they, they're they'd like to catalyze they'd like to cause things to start new things all the time, either every day, of course, at least every year. They're the ones who are the catalyzers, and then from the catalyzer, we  get into the organizer, where the person who's the organizer says, Okay, I see what you're doing. Catalyzer. Got the idea. I understand the vision. Okay, all right. I'll take the baton from here. I caught the ball, caught the vision now, and organize it, put structure to it, and then you have the super organizers, so that the organizer gets things put into action. Put some structure to it, but this right here maybe get some...  Okay, per your vision and idea and and we'll put some structure to it. But then another person comes around says, okay, yep, I see what you're doing there. Huh, looks good. Yep, I see it. But now let's put more organization to it, and from there, there are more people like this person who become Ultra organizers, or super organizers, because they're more they're very interested in putting systems in place and so on, so that things will run smoothly. Because the catalyzer over here is saying, I've got an idea. I've got this vision. And let's start this. Let's start that. Let's jump on in with both feet. I don't care how I get there, as long as I get there. If you remember watching the temperament video for this class, we talked about the choleric. I want it my way. And also, here's what I'm going to do. And I've got 18 things going on same time, and I've got my goals I'm going to reach quite often, the driven choleric person, the domineering style person will offer me that catalyzer who causes things to go into action, okay, but then the organizers are the different temperament, and they do care about the details, and they love to receive the the the whole thing of of the vision and the idea that they want it. And they can see how to put structure to that vision, structure to that that idea, to make it work, Lord willing, in a positive way. Not all the time will it work, but for those ideas that do work, you need that that organizer and super organizer, so that the super organizers can can get into it and or the ultra organizers.

And also, there are other labels, if you will. But shall we say terms and identity that Marcus Buckingham talks about this in his stand out, two point old book. Highly recommend that book. Marcus Buckingham, stand out. 2.0 is the title, and he updates the whole Strengths Finder material in his own way, and he was part of the strengths finder book from before, and now he's brought it to an updated version. And he'll talk about the Pioneer, the pioneer, which is the catalyzer, and the catalyzer and pioneer really is the same. I'm gonna blaze a new trail. Here we go. Not sure all we're gonna get there, but God willing, we'll go there. And so then we get into the early adopter. Who is that, organizer? Says, Okay, I see the vision. I see the idea. Got it now, like now, now and then the super organizer, who, maybe the middle adapter, and not the early adopter, but the middle adopter. What that means is that that middle adopter who says, Wow, great idea. And I see some organization, but do a little more research, please, so we can then understand better how this is going to work and so on. To get the late adopters,  those who are even more suspicious of the idea, but they say, Okay, I'll buy in. I'll get in on the idea, and I'll organize more for you as as part of the team. But did you look at this? Did you look at that? And I don't think you really saw how this could be over here and and there's other technologies to look at. Boy, those ideas, but look at it four more times for me and and then we'll talk more.

And then you have other people on the team who or who aren't even or in the congregation, if you will, they hear about this idea and so on, and but they just won't budge. They're the never adopters, the never, I don't want to be a part of that idea, bad idea. However, you've got a good majority who are already bought into the idea and into the end and the idea is going to happen. So you got the catalyzers and pioneers. The same. You have your organizers and of all levels, and, of course, your adopters of all levels. And then you've got your never adopters, as we have listed here on the on the slide. And the whole thing is this, everybody conflicts, and I think you already see where I'm headed with this. You've got the person who wants to make it happen, who is over here as that catalyzer, who's going to cause action that's going to make someone who is a late adopter, who's more about the details, a little nervous at first, so the catalyzer has to step back and say, Okay, here's this great idea, but to consider everybody on the team or in the congregation or in the community, will this serve God, honor God To begin with, and serve what God wants, as God has given me this idea, can Holy Spirit, or is it you? Which one? And if it's truly holy spirit, giving you that idea, and you're looking forward, was sure. And you test the waters, you ask other people, and then ask other people, and then eventually, your other adopters will adopt into the idea. But that could be a source of conflict: other people have other ideas. They will have different agendas. Plan on it. And so redirection, solution and adoption, all right, so we've got into the area of leadership conflict and the dynamics of how conflict can happen, as far as expectations.

Myself, you as a person with your God given strengths, and of course, you look at first Corinthians chapter 12 here, First Corinthians chapter 12 says that we are Christ's body. Some people are the head, others are the hands. Others are the feet, the legs, the torso, the arms, the fingers or the eyes, the ears, and when we look at conflict, the ears may not agree with the eyes, and the eyes may not agree with the mouth. Some people have a big mouth, don't they? But the mouth also may not agree with the nose and the nose may not agree with the toes. Nose and toes may not get along. However, there can be a solution through the conflict. There can be clearly the air and also a clarity of expectations, and also a win win that's established over time. Sooner or later, that's the goal, but red zone and Blue Zone, this is where Osterhaus and his other authors have come to teach us how we redirect ourselves again, starting with me, not you, not the other. It begins with me and God, and how God is in control of me and not me. So the two approaches in dealing with conflict, the two approaches, red zone, Blue Zone, red zone focuses more on feelings than results. There are no common standards. There's no way of monitoring performance or behavior. There's blame shifting everywhere. There's an unwillingness to accept personal responsibility.

And finally, people expect it to be a family and will assume family roles. What do I mean? See in the red zone, as I was talking about, so when you're working in that team and you're leading your congregation, and you're walking into the room with that committee, or you walk into that bedroom with your spouse, and you have expectations inside of you that she or he does not understand yet. And you're not thinking it through. You're not going through the questions of the who, the what, the why, the when, the where, which, of course, God says to Isaiah, or through the prophet, Isaiah says, Come Israel, let us reason together. Come. I'll make your sins as white as snow Come. Let's, let's clear the air. We see that all throughout scripture, God. God meets with his people, albeit directly or through a prophet, of course, through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, he brings resolution to the conflict between us and God the Father, namely, salvation from our sins. So when we look at conflict between myself or between each other, between me and another person. What we tend to do our tendencies is that we want we begin with emotion. We begin with emotion. It's hot on: boy, you're not meeting my expectations. I'm gonna give you an earful, and you do the here to for or you just blurt it out. Or  you emote with tears and frustration, and it's just so out here. Or you can see it build up. You see that with people who are more, shall we say, introverted. And if you're an introvert, you know what I mean. It's just all inside. It can't come out yet, and when it does come out, just comes out all wrong or all in a mess. Of course, it's a mess, either way, when we start with emotion, the red zone, as well as blame:,  you did it, you and not me.

Of course, when it comes to projection, what projection is is I'm often that, practically all the time, pointing, throwing on you what I don't like about myself. Pastor that sermon was too long. You spent too much time on those verses. Oh, really? Maybe it's because what you're telling the pastor is you tend to be a little long winded. You tend to be rather elaborate with what you do with the Bible, or what you do with content in a speech. Now, it could be that he was long or she was long in her sermon. Could have been shorter by five minutes or so. Okay, but how do you deliver that? How do we frame this? How do we reframe what it is that's really going on again, the who, what, where and why? Because, if we're blaming the person, that's not necessarily them,  it's you. So emotion, blame shame, kind of shame the other person because they should have known, or why don't you get with a program? Don't you have a life? And we say these things, yet we're really pointing at ourselves. Matthew, chapter seven in Scripture, Jesus says, How can you judge your own brother, (and I'm paraphrasing) and he's saying you're trying to get the speck of dust or of a little shard of wood out of a person's eye that might be just irritating their eye when you have a whole log in your face, as if you take a log that's right there, you take the end of the log, as if you're able to lift it and take the end of a log. And Jesus is literally saying, it's in your face, and the log is right here, right here, and you just can't see anything. How can you judge your brother or sister? Jesus is very clear on that, and he uses hyperbole. He uses humor in that, to make a point.

We tend to go here: emotion, blame, shame, and also with a red zone, we create fires. We create fire versus solutions. We create fire now we say, we've got to put out the fires. Put out this fire, put out that fire. Do damage control. Well, we create fire. We create damage versus creating solutions. Solutions. So that's red zone. Red Zone is, well, we focus more on the feelings the eotion rather than on results. There's no common standards. Again, the what? What are we dealing  with here, truly, what's really going on? Also, there's no way of monitoring the performance. There's none. There's always blame. Unwillingness to accept my part of the problem, my part, and also people expect it to be a family, and assume family roles. And I'll make this case. How often do you hear people saying in the organization, we are a family? I argue that you really aren't. It may feel that way because we take on family roles. Who is the dad, who is the mom, who are the kids, who is taking full responsibility, expectation, who is taking part of the responsibility for the whole organization, who, and we do assume these roles of family, these these familial roles, but really we are still an organization, or we really are a team in ministry, like a football team and also basketball team. We're here to get a task done. Yes, we do create relationships, and that's good. It builds trust, so we don't get caught in our dysfunction because we are dysfunctional to begin with. We're sinners. However, it's the the idea and reality of the fact that we are here to get a solution and get a plan fulfilled and go home and be a family with our true families. See, we don't live 24/7 with our teammates. We don't live 24/7 people who are in our organization. I don't go home to the people that I preach to on a Sunday morning. I don't and you don't either. So how can we say, well, we're all a family.

It's the heart that gets dangerous. It gets messy. So we need to understand that we either avoid these things as best as we can. Yeah, you can have your days. It's going to be tough, but with God's help, we can go over to now what we call  the blue zone. Yeah, that's the challenge, but a good one, because that this is where we get to the solutions. Here's where we get beyond our pride, our arrogance, our agendas. Blue Zone is focusing on efficiency and effectiveness. That's the first priority. Secondly, we look at structures of the organization or team and how they're closely monitored and respected. So who does have the role of executive director? Who, how are? Who, where does the buck stop with? Who takes care of a lot of the grunt work? Yet we all work together in team. We never say, it's not my job. We always say, it is my job. But we all have different roles, and we work as a body of Christ. The foot is at the hand. The hand is at the foot. Okay, the hand of the hand does look have the foot to the foot. Does do we all clean toilets? You bet I do. Do we all wash something off the wall? Sure, we're all there to bring life to the organization. What we're prepared to do? However we all look at the structures and make sure the structures are healthy. Third thing, business issues are first priority. Business issues, which means the task at hand, the goal in view, and how we are working towards that goal. Also, we're focused on the goals of the team, not of Me. If I'm focused on my goals, what I want all the time, and as I looked at addiction or addictive behavior, I want what I want, and I want it now.

It's all about me. The narcissist would say, right? So if that's the case, I can't go to the blue zone. I got to get get over myself in the red zone. Get over my tendency which is to blame and shame and get over to the business issues if the real issues are that we need to solve, so being focused on the goals of the team and also doing the right things the right way based upon the world. You based upon the culture of the organization. And organization culture is huge, because if we understand the culture of the organization, then we understand the rules of the organization, we understand how the team works together for the best, and finally, people will win and feel like winners. We want people to win, so I need to empower other people, not put them under my thumb, not to put them under my expectations, much like that Christmas morning with the wife going into the bedroom and whacking the husband with that pillow. I don't whack people with pillows or with words. I ought not. Do I make mistakes? Yes, we all do. The Blue Zone gives us a plan to work on where we put the pillows away. Leave your pillows at the door and your guns at the door and your arrows at the door, whatever it may be. Leave those toxic opinions at the door. You follow what I'm saying? Let's get to the win. What is the win? Win with every situation? Okay, that's what Blue Zone does. So to illustrate in contrast, emotion, blame, shame and creating fire versus solution. Blue Zone is this. We look at what the real issues are, issues not emotion: very different. We don't blame. We take responsibility. Take responsibility, which also involves self care, being self aware and knowing and working on self to the point of saying, How can I reframe me what is really going on with me so I can respond better to my teammates? So I can respond better as a leader and serve God better so that we bring solutions to problems, not get caught up in emotion so issues take responsibility and also not to shame, but to empower, and you need to empower my team people, instead of creating fire, yes, we create for God's help all the way, create solutions. Solutions are very different. So we are in the business of creating solutions in every relationship.

So you've just re entered society from jail prison. Congratulations. We applaud you. Or if you're seeing this in jail prison right now and you're looking forward to your out date. Please, take this to heart, because this will help you to succeed when it comes to building new relationships and moving forward in rebuilding your life with God's help. For God is bringing you to the places where he wants you to go and, of course, working with others on a support team that we encourage you to create, to help you to win in him now, in not only in the end, as they say, but to win progressively continually as you move forward in life and go into the calling God has for you.

So, issues. What are they? Who, what, when, where, why, how, oh, and the how. That's the other one I needed to put on there to the how. The how, so, who, what, where, why, how, how are we going to do this? How are we going to do this, that just me, not just her or him? How are we going to do this so I can take responsibility for those issues, I can empower someone else in the gifts God has given him or her, so that we can create the solutions collectively. You can't do it alone. As I said earlier, we Americans are so individualistic. We're a bunch of individuals. We have to learn how to connect and do these things for the win, and not to make someone lose, but to make someone win. So the kingdom of God wins. Kingdom of God is empowered to fulfill. God has called us all to do, per Matthew 28 the Great Commission, Jesus said, Go to all of the world and baptize, make disciples. That's an involved conflict, because not everybody's gonna agree with you right away, but eventually you come to an understanding of how you can work for that solution for the issue, Blue Zone. Blue Zone, red zone-- red zone, Blue Zone. And if you are able to get a hold of this book, although I will probably be able to put a few of these exercises online, but there's the red zone Blue Zone quiz. I'll highlight it here in the video, and it says in the book here review for a moment, the points that Elliot referring to the story they have in the first part of the book, made to Barry, who is the pastor in the story regarding the red zone, Blue Zones, by taking the following quiz.

So here's a quiz. Let's consider, for example, to agree or disagree, conflict and confrontation are the same. Do you agree or disagree? Or conflict in teams is good? Do you disagree or agree with that? Or lack of competent teams indicates high team cohesion. Agree or disagree and so on. Great questions, great to check yourself on these things. And you'll probably see a few of these things on the quiz. Well, you, in fact, I guarantee you will see a good number of things on these content, on these quizzes, or quiz for this unit from this material, there we go. So red zone, Blue Zone quiz. And also there's whole list of boundaries to consider another quiz on that in the book. Also another quiz to see if the boundaries you create between you, because again, comfort is not only about resolving issues, but also, what boundaries Do you have that help you to thrive. Help you to say, I am me. You are you. We're different. That's okay. And also how boundaries need to be there so we can do things well together, or we get caught up in co-dependency, as we looked at that earlier here in the course so boundaries and as we look at the red zone, as we look at the blue zone, as we look at how those two work together, because you're always going to deal with both. Now the red zone needs to be dealt with internally, so the blue zone can truly come to the forefront.

Here are some questions to ask yourself. First of all, who gives me the most resistance? Again? Here's the who, what, when, where, what form of resistance are they giving to me? See, this puts control back in your court, not giving control to another person. Why is it that we go to the red zone? How is it that we get caught up and tend to dive into emotion? How is it that we see blame and shame take over often? It's because we tend to give control to the other person too quickly. We need to maintain control in a healthy way, in this manner. So on the slide here, the three questions to consider to help us get right to the blue zone is this who's giving me this resistance? Who is this person? How do I know this person? Secondly, what form of resistance are they giving? And thirdly, what is my normal response here? Should I give a different response? Is the response I was going to give here in just a moment, if you stop yourself in time the right response, or am I ready to take the pillow and whack them now? What response ought I have? Is also a follow up question to this too, and so we look at projection.

Projection. There's a quiz and projection in the book as well. To take a look at that as I put that online, also problem in reframing, as I said earlier, about reframing the situation. What's the different frame? As we look at pictures on the wall, there's different pictures you. As we see here on the wall here, these are different sound absorbing pieces here on the wall, you have one that's one shape, another one that's another shape in another form, and one that's smaller, it's more square, rather than the rectangle. What? How can I reframe the situation. If the problem is this rectangle in a different color, perhaps the solution and reframing this is it's not as big of a problem, and it's more of a square than a rectangle. It's a different situation completely. If I take a good look at it ,how can I reframe the situation with the questions, the who, the what and the where and how? So we can create a whole different picture and look at the true story as they say, what's the true story of what's happening with the conflict? Clear the air. Get to the real issues. Get into the blue zone. So again, the person: how I see it, how I see the person, how I can reframe what that person's going on, what what he or she is doing and saying. And there's some principles, which I'll have in content online to give to you about this whole unit, on managing conflict, thriving through ministry, conflict and so on. So I encourage you to go to God, go to Scripture that the peace of God rule in your hearts, that love see with conflict as it goes in the negative and the red zone, the emotion, the blame, the shame that has to fear. Fear First John four says perfect love drives out fear. And love doesn't always have to be touchy feely, hug, good feelings all the time, love as we notice through Jesus Christ, has to do with commitment, doing what you say, following through and, of course, reframing things well to get at the real issue for the glory of God,.