Our family is learning a lot about lacrosse these days. It’s a relatively new sport in our part of the country, but our younger son plays it. We’re learning the various techniques for handling the ball, attacking the opponent, scoring goals, and defending one’s net.
In a recent game as I watched our son play his position, I was confused by the movements he was making on the field. After the game I asked, “What were those moves you were making out there when your opponent was guarding you?” He replied, somewhat sheepishly, “Oh, I was just trying to avoid letting that big guy crush me!”
I laughed with him: “It’s always a good idea to know how to keep from getting crushed!”
I have had to learn a similar strategy in ministry: There are times when the best way to deal with conflict is to avoid it in the first place.
When I was a boy trying to get along with kids in the schoolyard, my father used to tell me, “The easiest fights to win are the ones you stay out of.” He was right, of course. But that’s easier said than done. I have a cartoon on the side of my filing cabinet that shows the pastor behind the pulpit on Sunday morning saying, “I interrupt this sermon to inform you that the fourth-grade boys are now in complete control of their Sunday school class. And they are holding Miss Mosby hostage at this very moment.” That’s a light way of talking about a painful truth: church conflicts can be nasty and bruising affairs, hazardous to the health of both the pastor and the church.
How do we stay out of a hostage situation? It’s not something discussed in seminary, or if it was, I was gone that day. I’ve learned the hard way, through years of mistakes caused by a brash style of leadership that alienated those who did not share my take-no-prisoners approach. I thought I was doing the work of God with passion and zeal. I accepted nothing less than total commitment from myself—the problem was I had the same rigid expectations of others. I believed that conflict was the natural companion of devoted service to Christ.
In time and in pain, I learned otherwise. God showed me that to avoid conflict is not to be lukewarm or unspiritual; on the contrary, Scripture pronounces a specific blessing on those who excel in the art of peacemaking. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). I have learned to extend more grace to others and build more lasting relationships through mutual ministry. I now know that while no pastorate will be conflict-free, neither should conflict be shrugged off as an occupational hazard a pastor has to live with.
Effective ministry does not have to be carried out in a hostile environment.
Battle choosing
It was a great revelation to me to discover that not every battle is worth waging and not all conflict is worthy of my engagement. Some incendiary issues simply need to be avoided. When Nehemiah was leading the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, he had plenty of opportunities for conflict. I am continually amazed at his skill in deciding which conflicts were worthy of his response and which were to be ignored so the work could continue.
After repeated attempts from Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem to thwart Nehemiah’s efforts, they concocted a scheme to get rid of him once and for all (Neh. 6). Their ploy was to lure him to the peace table so they could ambush him. Rather than confronting this trio of trouble head on, Nehemiah sidestepped their trap. He simply sent his regrets: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” (Neh. 6:4).
While writing this chapter, I had an opportunity to practice some of what I’d learned from Nehemiah. Normally I receive from our worship team the service plan two weeks in advance. However, due to spring break for our school district, a number of the team leaders were out of town, and so I didn’t get the worship service plan until the Monday before. There were a couple of significant problems with the service that I felt would adversely affect the flow of worship. I called our lay worship leader and talked to him about the changes I thought were necessary to allow for a better worship flow and build a stronger worship experience.
Somewhat reluctantly, he agreed to make the changes.
Then on Saturday evening I received an e-mail from him informing me that he had reconsidered, and he now wanted to stick to the original service plan. He said he was “sure I’d understand.”
There was a time in my ministry when I would have been on the phone two minutes later, demanding an explanation. In a diplomatic but direct way, I would have reminded him that the proper way to handle something like this is through personal conversation, not by e-mail, and that since I was the one ultimately responsible for the worship services, we would do it the way I proposed.
This time I took a deep breath, prayed that God would bless the service, and asked him to help me be gracious and affirming toward our worship leader and the worship team on Sunday morning. I then put the matter to rest for the remainder of the evening. On Sunday morning I acknowledged to our worship leader that I had received his e-mail, thanked him for thinking the situation through, and affirmed his decision to proceed with the service as originally planned. Nothing more was said about any changes to the service.
That response settled the issue.
The service proceeded as planned. While, in my humble opinion, the flow felt slightly disjointed during the early part of the worship, no one seemed to notice. Afterward I thanked God for his wisdom in teaching me how to choose my battles carefully.
When to go to the mat
In deciding which issues are significant enough to confront and run the risk of conflict, I usually ask myself three questions:
1. Does the situation involve something that is contrary to our mission as a church? If the issue before me does not conflict with our church’s mission of helping people discover a personal relationship with God and become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, then I begin to think of it as something that ought to be left alone or dealt with in a nonconfrontational manner.
The leader of our worship team does a fine job leading worship, but he struggles to communicate with the worship team and staff. One team member recently told me, “We would work well together if we just didn’t have to communicate.”
It is not that the worship leader does not communicate; it is the way he communicates. He prefers not to speak face-to-face with people; he uses faxes, voice mail, e-mail, or memos. Seldom does he speak face-to-face with someone for more than thirty seconds.
Rather than making his style of communication into a huge issue, I’ve told people to be willing to adapt to his methods. In addition, I’ve suggested to the team to take the initiative in setting up meetings with him, with every member of the team present. As the leader has heard from the team how much they appreciate personal interaction with him, he is becoming more receptive to adapting his style of communication.
2. Does the issue cause us to compromise our commitment to being and building faithful followers of Christ? A problem arose with our adult-class leadership teams, which were not adequately preparing for their Sunday morning classes. This was hindering our efforts to model and teach the principle that we offer our best to God in serving him, so I decided that we needed to address the issue directly with the class leaders. I attended the monthly leadership team meeting for one of the classes and asked if I could speak to them about the issue. I explained, “This issue is not just about what day of the week you prepare your lesson or the amount of time it takes you to prepare for it. It is about us in leadership providing a model for the church body about the cost of serving Christ.
“If we are willing to pay that price in the small things, then God can entrust us with much larger responsibilities and give greater blessing to our service.”
There was nothing but graciousness in the reply of the leaders. They committed to strengthen that area. One leader replied lightheartedly, “If you call me on any Saturday this month and my lesson is not already 80 percent prepared, then I promise I’ll eat the coffee grounds in front of the class on Sunday morning!”
3. In one year will it make a difference in our church whether we dealt with this issue? If it seems to me that the situation is not going to make a difference in the church that anyone will remember or recognize in a year, then I am inclined to leave it alone or at least not deal with it in a confrontational way.
It’s amazing how few issues will be significant or even remembered in a year. What makes many of them significant or remembered is not the issues themselves but the degree of conflict they needlessly caused. I try to evaluate the “one-year significance” of potentially volatile issues and use that as an indicator of whether a situation should be avoided or addressed.
One challenge in our congregation is to get people in our Christian education ministries to arrive early enough to set up their classes by the time class is supposed to start. I’m often told that “for years our church has been ‘flexible’ with the time the Sunday morning Bible Discovery Hour begins.” In essence, that means a couple classes start at 9:15 A.M., the scheduled start time, but others begin at 9:30 or even 9:45.
No one got too worked up about that—except me!
I was tempted to attend the Christian education leadership meeting and announce that we would no longer have a delayed start on Sunday mornings. But then I asked myself, Is having all the classes start on time really going to make a significant difference in the church next year?
Since the education ministry was growing and had not been starting on time for years before I arrived, I had to answer no. I left the issue alone and labeled it “one of the quirks of our church.” There was no confrontation and thus no conflict.
If I answer no to all three questions, that tells me the issue is not worth risking conflict.
Integrity slide
A family in our church recently had their basement finished by a contractor. The process ended up being one of those construction nightmare stories. I knew both parties in the debacle and somehow got myself in the middle of the dispute.
As the conflict became more ugly, I received calls from both sides; each party tried to use me to reinforce their case. Such conversations turned negative quickly. The homeowner once told me, “And not only does he [the contractor] do shoddy work, but I’ve heard stories about how unethical he has been in paying former employees.”
The contractor was guilty of the same low blows as the conflict escalated.
Eventually, I found myself succumbing to the temptation of letting my knowledge of the other party leak out in conversations with each side. It wasn’t until too late that I caught myself and moved back to a neutral position. But by then I had already said too much. One party confronted me about my loose tongue. I had to admit my error and then I went back to the other party and did the same. In the end, my error turned out to be a lesson for all three of us; the two parties admitted they had made the same mistake.
Conflict has a way of growing from a small snowslide into a full-scale avalanche, and on its way downhill it can sweep victims into its wake. A conflict has the potential to mar the integrity of combatants on both sides. That happens as each side seeks to garner support for its position—making exaggerated statements, shading the truth, impugning the motives of others.
How can we guard against this? One important step is to refuse to discuss the relevant issues with anyone other than those directly involved. We need to be truthful in citing the facts of a situation and not exaggerate the details. When we maintain our integrity, not only are we exhibiting Christlike behavior, but also we don’t risk losing our credibility with others—including those who may be on the other side of the argument.
A good friend of mine recently resigned from his church after more than a year of unrelenting conflict. The vast majority of people in the church were shocked to hear of his resignation. Most had no idea there was even a problem brewing in the church.
I asked him how that could be when the conflict was so severe. His response spoke volumes about his integrity throughout the ordeal. He said, “I never spoke about the problems with anyone in the church who was not directly involved. And those on the other side of the issue only spoke to each other with whom they were in agreement.”
Just because our adversaries may use a certain battle plan does not justify our following suit if it calls us to compromise our integrity. As Oswald Chambers once wrote, “To see that my adversary gives me my rights is natural; but from our Lord’s standpoint it does not matter if I am defrauded or not; what does matter is that I do not defraud.”
My friend’s response to the conflict in his church was a powerful example of what I call incarnational leadership. It’s the kind of leadership that Jesus would exhibit in the church—a leadership that refuses to win the battle at any cost. The victory won at the expense of our integrity is no victory at all.
Ounce of prevention
The sparse instruction I received in seminary on dealing with people and issues in the church could be put on a single piece of paper. However, there was one bit of counsel that was given among those limited lessons that could have saved me volumes of anguished journal entries. A pastor who was an adjunct professor said, “Work harder at maintaining relationships in the church than you do at solving problems in the church.”
His point was that if we focus on building and maintaining healthy, redemptive relationships with people, we will have far fewer problems to solve—and fewer problems means less conflict.
It was a wise statement, one that I wish I would have heeded more often in my early years of ministry. I wish I’d asked myself two questions: (1) Is this battle worth the cost of a broken relationship? (2) Is there another way of dealing with the conflict that won’t damage relationships?
A leader in one church I served was forever confronting me with ways in which I didn’t measure up to his expectations. It seemed my suggestions were seldom accepted, and my best efforts were usually not good enough. The strain on our relationship was so great that we seldom spoke to each other. We didn’t have a heated argument; we simply shut the other out.
After months of cold war, one Sunday he confronted me about a worship issue. I had felt convicted that our relationship wasn’t what it should be and was praying that God would provide a way for us to reconcile.
Several minutes after the confrontation, I walked back to where this man was standing and asked if we could talk. I told him I didn’t want the conflict between us to continue. I sincerely apologized to him for my wrong attitude and actions, and asked for his forgiveness. He granted it immediately and then threw his arms around me. In my ear, he whispered, “I’ve so needed to hear you say that, more than you’ll ever know. I only hope I can do the same one of these days.”
I knew what he meant. People who knew him were aware he seldom if ever admitted he was wrong about something. I didn’t expect I would hear an apology from him, but at least I had taken care of my shortcomings.
To make sure he knew I wanted a fresh start, I invited him to be my prayer partner two weeks later. I pray with someone from the church every Tuesday, and on his first Tuesday to pray, he arrived a little early. We talked a bit and then moved to my office to pray. Just before we finished praying, he stopped and said, “I want you to know that I am sorry for the way I treated you the past year. It was wrong, and I need your forgiveness just like you asked for mine.”
That confession melted away the last bit of hurt from the protracted conflict with him. Again, we embraced, and both of us acknowledged our new friendship was more important than any issue we had or would face. Since then we have built on that commitment to the point that we are becoming good friends.
In my recreational reading, I enjoy books on the history of various wars the United States has waged. I’ve learned a lot from studying Abraham Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War. Near the end of the war, when the scalawags were busy lording it over their Southern countrymen, a hot-blooded contingency of diehard Confederate rebels gained an audience with the president to address the issue. Lincoln’s gentle, friendly manner with the group soon thawed the ice and the Southerners left with a new respect for their old foe. A Northern congressman approached the president and criticized him for befriending the enemy. Instead, he said, Lincoln should have had them shot for the traitors they were. Lincoln smiled and replied, “Am I not destroying my enemies by making them my friends?”
Copyright © 1998 Gary D. Preston
