Elders Course — Session 8: Dealing with Conflict

Opening: Naming the Topic

Bruce:
All right, we are back on session number eight, and this is a very interesting topic, very important, and it’s conflict.

Abby:
Yes, we have to deal with conflict in the church.

Reality Check: Conflict Happens

Bruce:
Now, when I entered ministry, I had this lovely picture of the church—that Christians all loved each other, we all got along. And I found that’s just not true. If there’s anything that the enemy—we talked about spiritual warfare—anything that the enemy wants to create, it’s disagreement and division within the church, and he does his work pretty well.

I’ve had conflict. I’ve experienced conflict in every church I’ve served. The role of the elder was important in all of those situations.

In the first church I served, a little, tiny church, I found that I had stepped on some of the—you know, they call the holy cows—the things that are holy in the church, that somehow belong or are identified with a beloved previous pastor or something. And I found that I transgressed those, and some people would express their dissatisfaction with that.

In the second church, we were relocated in a six-and-a-half-year project. And—wow—I found that a lot of the conflict was directed at me as the leader. You know, we looked at that thing that leaders are the ones that the sharpshooters shoot at—if they can get a leader out, it’s going to impact the whole church.

Anyway, this is going to be part of your reality in the church. If you are an elder, there will likely be conflict during—if you’re on a term, or if you’re not on a term—whatever the situation, there will likely be a period where there’s conflict, one person against each other.

Biblical Frame: Acts 15 (Conflict Is Not New)

Bruce:
Now, the Bible indicates to us that this is something we shouldn’t be surprised at. There is one of the most powerful conflicts in history recorded for us in Acts chapter 15.

Paul and Barnabas, who were the first missionaries who had gone out, and Gentiles were coming to faith, churches were being established. After their first missionary journey, there arose a conflict between the Jews who said, “Well, they gotta keep all the Jewish laws,” and Paul and Barnabas and others said, “No, you know, we couldn’t keep those laws. We’re saved by grace,” etcetera, etcetera.

And so it all culminated in a council in Acts 15, and at the end of that, the decision was made: No, we’re not going to require new converts to keep that Mosaic Law.

And Paul and Barnabas are excited at the end of that, and they said, “Let’s go back and visit the other churches, and go beyond and plant new churches.” And so they decided, “Yes, let’s go,” and they’re getting ready to go, and they had a conflict.

The conflict was over a man named Mark (John Mark)—who was the man who wrote the Gospel of Mark in the Bible. Mark had gone along on the first missionary journey, but had abandoned Paul and Barnabas—had gone home. And so Barnabas wanted to take him along again, to mentor him, to grow him in ministry. And Paul said no way, and they couldn’t reach an agreement, and so they split up. Scripture says it was a very strong disagreement.

Now, the good news is that apparently some of that was healed over time, because later in Paul’s letters, he refers to Mark as a fellow worker, as somebody who’s with him. He tells Timothy at the end of his letter, “When you come, bring Mark with you, because he’s a great help to me.” But we never read about reconciliation between Paul and Barnabas.

So conflict is real. It’s in the church—even that early church, that was so driven by the Holy Spirit.

So—what do you do when it’s in your church? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this session. So—session eight is dealing with conflict. And—yeah—that’s an image I found online. It’s very, very real.

Reference: Resources & Levels of Conflict

Bruce:
Now, a couple of resources that I’m going to refer to as we go on here. The first one is Moving Your Church Through Conflict by Speed Leas. He says there are five levels of conflict. Okay?

• Healthy conflict is: you’ve got a problem to solve—“How do we solve this?” Or: “We’ve got a disagreementabout something—how do we deal with this disagreement?”
• Unhealthy conflict is where there’s a contest—who’s going to win? Somebody’s got to win, and that means somebody’s going to lose.
• And then a really unhealthy conflict is fight or flight, where, you know, it’s a heated situation, where somebody’s just going to lose, and so they will end up leaving your church in that type of conflict.
• And then there’s the intractable situations where there’s just basic disagreement about significant things, and as a result, people divide.

And church splits—I’d love to tell you that they are rare. They are not. They come often in the history of the church. And usually after a church split, there’s a period of time and both the new churches will die. You know, it’s a tactic of the enemy.

Conflict Navigation: The Grid (Styles)

Bruce:
So what do we need to know about conflict, that we can go through it healthily and well? This is a well-known graphic. You’ll notice that where high conflict and low conflict are the right-hand, the vertical; and avoid and accommodate are low—low—the left-hand is one.

What’s important here: achieving my goals and the goals of the church—or the low end: importance of maintaining and improving relationship with the other party to the comp—(to the conflict). And what’s more important?

Now, if achieving your own goals is a low priority, then you can avoid; you can give in.

Abby:
Right? A lot of times you can just say, “All right, whatever. That’s not important. What’s more important to me is my relationship with you.”

Bruce:
Or, if it’s really important, then you compete and recognize you’ve entered a win–lose situation.

Now, I—you know, I will tell you that that is a reality. I’ve been in both kinds of conflict—where something is just, you know, this is a minor thing, I don’t have to hang on this one. But there have been some that were about the very nature of the church I was serving. And at that point you’ve got to say, “Sorry,” and lost some people, but the vision continued.

Example: Worship Wars

Bruce:
I remember when we went through the worship wars, when we were changing the style of worship—this was in Southern California. And, you know, we had very traditional style of worship when I came there. And, you know, it was organ-led, organ-driven.

And, you know, the reality began to come that when we were looking at our community, the only place people heard an organ played was in Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, right?

Abby:
This is not what the community is.

Bruce:
This is not going to make people feel like, “Yeah, I belong here.” And so we began—(we) resignate—we began a process of changing the worship style. And we had complaints from some of the older people, and some of it got really testy—let’s put it that way.

I remember the day—I was only there a short time—and one of the things we did was change the bulletin. We used to hand out a bulletin on Sunday mornings. (I don’t know if anybody does that anymore—after COVID.) But on the front was a picture of the building. And I said, “You know, when they’ve walked into the building, they’ve seen the building.”

So I asked, “Who’s—are there artists in the church?” And I asked six artists to come up with a definition, a picture of the ministry of our church. And so these artists came up with some great pictures, and we used those on the front of the bulletin. I remember the first time—one was beautiful. It was, you know, this caterpillar going up, eating this stalk of wheat, and then turns into a butterfly. And I thought, “Yeah, that’s who we are. We’re taking people and we’re feeding them the gospel—”

And I got a call that afternoon from a woman who said, “I walked home today and I wept the whole time. I’ve lost my church.”

Thinking, “What? What are you talking about?”

Anyway, they were opposed about everything that was happening. And as a result, I went to visit them one time, directed by the elders, and I suggested that maybe they should go somewhere else, to church. Now, there are a lot of great churches in the community. And I remember the man saying to me, “We were here when you came, we’ll be here when you leave.”

So we are in a conflict, and “I’m not going to lose this conflict.” And I didn’t—they ended up leaving much later, which was a relief. But anyway—so it can be, depending on how important is this subject.

Choosing a Style

Bruce:
Now, there are other choices too—as we go back to the diagram. You know, if it’s a low importance, you can avoid it. You can accommodate. You could lose to the situation.

The best process is probably in the middle there—to compromise: to try to find a win–win, or that you both win some and you both lose some; collaborating up in the far side, where both the importance of achieving your goals and the relationship—you’re looking for a win–win. In fact, this is the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People—wonderful book; you should find it and read it. But number four, you’ll notice, is to think win–win.

Abby:
Collaborating mindset, yeah.

Bruce:
Stephen Covey is the author of that book, and I got to see him once, and he was going to demonstrate this, and I thought, “This is great.” And he started talking about dealing with a conflict. He said, “Who here says—is against abortion, and it’s wrong, it’s killing babies?” And so one couple raised their hand. And, “Who here thinks that abortion ought to be allowed in any situation?” And another couple raised their hand. He got the four of them up there, seated them together, and started looking for common ground. I went on, because they were starting to come to some agreements—agreements about the role of the church, etc. So, you know, think win–win.

But—if this is about some of the basics—about the values of your church—make sure you stick to it and win–lose if you have to. (Ooh, that sounds terrible.)

Another Framework: Adkins’ Levels & Tools

Bruce:
Another person who’s pretty helpful in this is Alyssa Adkins, and in her writing, she came up with this kind of, “How do you handle it?”

• Level 1: A problem to solve. Collaboration: seek that win–win alternative; consensus; learn where every team member’s head is in regard to the issue, and in time, arrive at a decision everyone can back. (This can be as simple as who uses which rooms. One conflict we dealt with in a church in California was which toys are being played with—an outside group used our children’s area, and Sunday users felt they weren’t cleaned well enough. So you sit people down and talk it through—what’s the win–win?)
• Level 2: Disagreement. Support empowering the other to resolve the problem. Make sure people feel safe in the process—nobody’s attacking; it doesn’t get that ugly edge. (I remember sitting with a couple once, and the guy started to walk out—“We’re getting nowhere.” Two different men in the church. I said, “Whoa, whoa—wait a minute. That’s inappropriate. We’re going to solve this. Sit back down.” Safety + collaboration.)
• Level 3: Contest (win/lose). Yield to the other person’s view when the relationship is more important than the issue. Successful short-term strategy only; becomes a liability if used over and over. Long-term: negotiate if the thing is divisible (shared resource). Negotiation will not work when the issue revolves around values (not divisible); one person giving in feels like a sellout. So: get factual. Gather facts to establish the reality.
• Level 4: Crusade. Establish safe structures; do shuttle diplomacy (go between), carrying thoughts from one group to the other, until they can de-escalate and use the tools available.
• Level 5: World War. Do whatever you can—do whatever is necessary—to prevent people from hurting each other. But then—there’s going to be a group that loses. That’s just the way it is. (That sounds terrible.)

Leader’s Role: Matthew 18 & Guardrails

Bruce:
Now let’s talk about the leader’s role. Emphasize Matthew 18—

Abby:
—as an elder, you have a very important role in all of this, right? And—

Bruce:
—and you are not to escalate the conflict as an elder. Matthew 18—this is important.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you’ve gained your brother. If he doesn’t listen, take one or two others along… If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church… let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector… Whatever you bind on earth… Again, if two of you agree on earth… For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

So, you’ve got—at the beginning—someone sinned against, someone hurt—there’s a conflict. At the end—there’s the presence of Jesus.

Bruce:
So, what is the leader’s role? You emphasize Matthew 18. In other words, if people come to you, you ask, “Have you talked to them?” Make sure they seek to play the role that’s given to them by Scripture.

Make sure all sides are heard—that’s important. (I remember one conflict where I didn’t feel that one side was being articulated well—in an elders meeting with 12 at the table, including me and another pastor. I took responsibility to make sure it was articulated: make sure all sides are heard and understood.)

Abby:
And it’s easy to get a bias—you might agree with a certain side—and then you don’t want to even have the other side get heard well enough. But that’s not right. All sides need to be understood and heard.

Bruce:
And, you know, if you’re an elder, you can say, “Wait a minute—I don’t think we’ve understood totally what’s going on.”

• Avoid triangulation. If green and blue have a conflict with red, blue will try to get you on his/her side. Some people are really good at this.

Abby:
They’re very convincing about their own…

Bruce:
And, you know, I had a policy for staff: we don’t talk about someone unless they’re in the room. I remember the day someone comes in: “So-and-so did this, this, this…” I said, “They’re in their office. Let’s go down and talk with them.” I’m not going to triangulate; not going to get on one side or the other. Your job is: don’t let it happen.

• Define the issues. “Let’s clarify.”
• Explore assumptions. “What assumption are you making? Is that valid?” (“Someone gave this toy to be used only Sunday mornings.” Really? Is that valid? Maybe go back and ask them.)

Abby:
Because sometimes a conflict is really made up by assumptions, and there really isn’t…

Bruce:
—Explore alternatives: “What else could we do?”

• Always push toward reconciliation.

This is tough. This is tough stuff.

External Help: The Colossian Forum

Bruce:
I’d like to recommend a resource if you’re in a church that’s dealing with significant conflict: The Colossian Forum. Look it up online—they’re well-known. They provide services to churches going through conflict: listening circles, small-group materials; they train leaders in the church to lead those circles; and provide speakers if necessary.

I was an interim pastor for a year and a half in a church that did this—very significant conflict that threatened the future of the church. I watched as people met in small groups with trained leaders, listening to one another, hearing concerns. They plowed a way forward. The elders finally made a decision about the future.

And what amazed me: some who could say they lost—they stayed, because they said, “We felt like we were heard. We understand the other side better.” And so they hung in there. I recommend them.

Hope: God at Work in Conflict

Abby:
And I think, as we’re in this topic of conflict, it’s one of the things where we said, you know, this is unavoidable. In ministry, this can get very intense. There can be huge losses. It can be a scheme of the devil in so many ways. But on the flip side, be encouraged: conflict is an opportunity for God to show up in ways you can’t imagine—people reconciledyou’d never think would be reconciled—and for growth to take place.

And, you know, even going back to that first conflict—Paul and Barnabas—this was very intense. But now these two missionaries got to go in different places, and—as you said—Mark was reconciled; Paul saw him show up and do amazing things in ministry. So conflict can be very hard, but don’t underestimate what God’s going to do with it.

Bruce:
Yes. And you know, the way you handle it often is the way that defines whether it’s going to—

Abby:
—becomes a positive, God-glorifying moment, or if it becomes “the devil really got a foothold and caused a lot of—”

Bruce:
—and as an elder—you know, we’ve been talking about the church in general, but this is also true individually. I had a severe conflict with a man I partnered in ministry with for 20 years, and we weren’t speaking to each other. And—give him credit—he was the one who called and said, “I don’t want to let 20 years go.” So we began to meet together.

And today I value—when I get a phone call from him, it’s one of those—I say, “There we go; I get to talk to him again.” The enemy doesn’t have to win.

So—handle conflict well, and it will be good for your church.