Conflict in Church

William Muir, a researcher at Purdue University, studies the productivity of chickens. He wants to know how to breed chickens that lay lots of eggs and create environments that foster greater productivity. To research how to make super chickens, he did an experiment.

Muir put chickens into two groups. One group contained normal, healthy chickens. He left them alone for six generations of a chicken’s life. Another, separate group included all the super chickens, those who are proven high producing egg layers. Muir also left them alone for six generations. He provided food, water, and a clean environment, but did nothing to influence the chickens egg laying.

At the end of the experiment, Muir discovered that the group of normal chickens were flourishing: they were laying more eggs per chicken than when the experiment started. In the group of super chickens, only three were left. They had pecked the others to death. The super chickens had laid more eggs through a strategy of suppressing other chickens’ productivity, by killing, or intimidating them, so they were unable to lay eggs.

Possible Preaching Angle

Competition; Leadership; Success - Leadership can fall into the same trap. We believe that if we find the right super chickens we will have success. We look for superstars. In our culture, and in our churches, we often create super chickens, because we desperately want success. We think it can come through one superstar leader.

Set adrift into the vast expanse of amorality, where do people turn? Where within modern society can one find a moral compass that imbues life with meaning? For some, the overwhelming choice made is politics, which, like any idol, consumes everything it touches.

If you put people in a moral vacuum, they will seek to fill it with the closest thing at hand. Over the past several years, people have sought to fill the moral vacuum with politics and tribalism. American society has become hyper-politicized.

According to research by Ryan Streeter, at the American Enterprise Institute, lonely young people are seven times more likely to say they are active in politics than young people who aren’t lonely. For people who feel disrespected, unseen, and alone, politics is a seductive form of social therapy. It offers them a comprehensible moral landscape: The line between good and evil runs not down the middle of every human heart, but between groups. Life is a struggle between us, the forces of good, and them, the forces of evil.

If you are asking politics to be the reigning source of meaning in your life, you are asking more of politics than it can bear. Seeking to escape sadness, loneliness, and lawless disorder through politics serves only to drop you into a world marked by fear and rage, by a sadistic striving for domination. Sure, you’ve left the moral vacuum—but you’ve landed in the pulverizing destructiveness of moral war.

Possible Preaching Angle

1) Church, conflict in; Disagreements; Could we retitle this illustration “How the Church Got Mean?” Have church members allowed taking political sides to divide their unity in Christ? Have we changed our cornerstone from Christ to a political leader we hope can set America right? 2) Arguments; Politics - When the moral anchor of biblical Christianity is abandoned then the tyranny of politics can take its place. People begin to fight political battles with outrage, exaggeration, and censorship. But life is far more than politics and perhaps the revolutionary message of Christianity can still be found by the walking wounded of the world.

A recent news article featured the story of three restaurant-owning brothers in India who constantly compete and bicker for business.

B. Vivekanandhan, the 51-year-old owner of a popular restaurant called Moonrakers, competes fiercely for customers in this southern Indian holiday town. So fiercely, in fact, that fists have flown. His chief foes are his own flesh-and-blood. His older brother operates a seafood joint called Moonwalkers right across the street. Just down the same lane, his younger brother runs Moonrocks. The menus are nearly identical.

At one time, all three brothers and their families would sit down for dinner. The three brothers behind Moonrakers agree it began as a true family endeavor. No more. One of the brothers said, “When money comes, comes, comes, love goes away.”

A couple of times in 2020, two of the brothers brawled with each other in the street in front of befuddled customers. “Sometimes it’s like a street fight,” one brother said. “People say, ‘This is a complicated family. We just came down to eat.’”

It’s all proving baffling to tourists, who frequently are stopped on the street by two of the brothers who were giving pitches for their rival restaurants. One resident said she wanted to eat at the original Moonrakers, but was bewildered by the competing eateries. Her husband, who swore he had dined at Moonrakers years ago, was even more confused.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The church looks just as petty and ridiculous when we don’t walk in unity in Christ.

Tim Keller used this story to illustrate the “conversion of the heart.”

Many years ago, when I was in college, I was part of a Christian fellowship, and there was a young man who joined up. And it shocked us all. This young man was famous on the campus for being incredibly sexually active, and he had the looks to go with it. He was handsome and charismatic. And then, to our surprise he came into the fellowship where he declared that “He’s a Christian now … and he foreswears his sexual past … and he going to live a chaste, pure life.”

He threw himself into the Christian activities. Everyone said, “Wow! This is a real change.” However, it wasn’t long before we came to realize that this young man, in every group, any committee, any Bible study, whether he was the leader or not, he had to be the leader. He always sought control. There was power struggle after power struggle, and after a while it became clear that when he was sexually active it really wasn’t about sex; it was about power. He would go after some girl until she fell for him, and then he lost all interest. It wasn’t about sex. It was about power.

When he came into the church, he suddenly adopted all the Christian beliefs, the Statements of Faith, and Christian practices. He stopped living in sexual promiscuity. But deep down inside, he still wanted power. Power in relationships.

Keller points out that we all have the need for deeper conversion in our heart. He says, “Deep down inside, every one of our hearts is saying, ‘If I have money, if I have approval, if I have power, if I have comfort, if I have control, if I have romance ….’ Every one of our hearts needs that deeper conversion from our idols to the Living God.”

You can read a free PDF copy of the book here.

In an issue of CT magazine, author and musician Sandra McCracken writes:

I played softball in a community league when I was a teenager. We didn’t know each other the first time we stepped out under the lights together. We were strangers in gray polyester uniforms and orange baseball caps.

At the start of our opening game, there was a palpable feeling of possibility. My teammates were talented, and the coach was tough. As he invested time watching us throughout the season, he positioned and repositioned us in different roles, playing to our individual strengths. As each player lived into her giftedness, there was more synergy and success.

Today, instead of feeling like a single team with diversely gifted players, we find ourselves in a cultural moment where it often feels we’re on different teams altogether. This is true in society at large, and sadly, it seems just as true inside the church.

But there was a time when the church was like a brand-new softball team, stepping out onto fresh-cut grass in late summer, individual differences obscured by what they were as a whole: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit ... All the believers were together and had everything in common” (Acts 2:4, 42, 44). God is so committed to this unity that Jesus prayed specifically for us, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you … so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

Jesus was not naive. He knew that finding unity is patient, slow work.

Let’s open up our echo chambers and build bridges instead of moats. Let’s listen for the still, small voice of the Spirit and attend to what he may ask of us. These are heavy times, but there is kingdom work to be done.

Rumors have been circulating that Mathew McConaughey might be considering a run for governor of Texas in 2022, and perhaps a higher office after that. In a recent interview in Men's Journal, Jesse Will cornered the Hollywood star on the topic. McConaughey, resisted confirming or denying his thoughts on the matter. But when pressed to give a hypothetical campaign slogan, he shared that his favorite suggestion has been, "Make America All Right, All Right, All Right, Again." Then he paused and said, "But for me . ..It’s ‘Meet Me in the Middle—I Dare You.'" He then explained:

When facing any crisis, I’ve found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, then respond. You can’t have unity without confrontation. And to have confrontation, you have to at least validate the other’s position. We don’t even do that. So, I’d say, I’ll meet you in the middle. I dare you. It’s a challenge, a radical move. You come this way, I’ll come your way. That’s how democracy works.

In other words, to explain to another human why they are wrong (if in fact it is them and not us in error), we must listen to them. We must understand where they are coming from? Why do they make the choices they do? You must meet them in the middle.

In the Entre Leadership podcast, author Stephen Mansfield compares how barnacles slow down sea vessels to the affect gossip can have an organization or church. Some of the facts discussed in the podcast:

-Barnacles can slow down ships by as much as 40% as reported by the US Navy.

-Barnacles can get inside engines and can be added weight on the hull.

-Barnacles can actually crack the hull of smaller vessels.

-Barnacles diminish the aerodynamics of the boat.

-The number of barnacles multiply rapidly due to the constant reproduction.

-The US Navy spends $500 million a year to scrape barnacles off ships.

Possible Preaching Angles: Faultfinding; Gossip – Gossip slows down the mission and vision of the church and it affects the health of the body. There is a cost to dealing with gossip, but it’s worth it. This illustration provides a positive way to preach on a negative subject.

Physician Horace Smith warns that in the church "we must guard against 'spiritual autoimmune disease,' in which spiritual white cells see normal cells within the body as enemies and try to destroy them" Dr. Smith adds:

Is it possible for a human body to "bite and devour" healthy cells, destroying life? Absolutely. Sometimes white blood cells mistakenly attack healthy cells in the blood, causing disastrous results. The immune system fails to recognize components of the body as normal. It then creates autoantibodies that attack its own cells, tissues, or organs. This causes inflammation and damage, and it leads to autoimmune disorders. For example, autoimmune hemolytic anemia is a group of disorders that attack red blood cells as if they were substances foreign to the body. Like other cases of anemia, the person may experience shortness of breath, tiredness, and jaundice. When the destruction of healthy red cells persists for a long period of time, the spleen may enlarge, resulting in a sense of abdominal fullness and pain

God intends for his body to be healthy, nourish each other, protect each other, and carry harmful waste away.

Two devoted friends and brilliant minds—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—fell out with each other over politics, personal slights, and both feeling betrayed by the other. The feud not only embittered both, causing them to abandon all correspondence and relationship of any kind for many years, but it troubled their closest companions who could not imagine these giants of the Revolution becoming estranged for the rest of their lives.

In 1809 a mutual signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, had a dream about the two former Presidents, wrote it down, and sent it to both men. In the dream he saw the alienated statesmen renew their friendship and begin corresponding with each other. John Adams, again in the dream, addressed a short letter to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson responded. These two brief letters were "followed by a correspondence of several years in which they mutually reviewed the scenes of business in which they had been engaged, and candidly acknowledged to each other all the errors of opinion and conduct into which they had fallen during the time they filled the same station in the service of their country." Both Jefferson and Adams politely but separately acknowledged their friend's account of the dream and thought no more about it.

Three years later, at Rush's urging, Thomas Jefferson sent a very tentative letter to John Adams who responded with a guarded reply. One letter followed another until John Adams wrote to Jefferson on July 15, 1813: "Never mind it, my dear Sir, if I write four letters to your one; your one is worth more than my four … You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other."

Bitter enemies prodded by a friend's dream were brought back together for the last several years of their lives until they died—both on the same day and only three hours apart: July 4th, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

"Is disbelief enough to keep a Sunday gathering together?" That's the question facing "worshippers" at The Sunday Assembly, London's atheist "church" (described as "part quixotic hipster start-up, part Southern megachurch") that's been spreading to other major cities around the world, with an in-depth franchising process almost denominational in scope.

But it hasn't been all a smooth humanist dream. Recently, their New York faction, concerned that the group's tone and content wasn't atheist enough, decided to split from the rest of the assembly. Issues of contention included practical and "theological" differences.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians get a bad rap—deservedly so—for our factions and disunity. But every so often, we need a reminder that faith isn't the culprit here. In fact, lack of faith might be just as big a problem.

Imagine this scenario: A man invites a friend into his home for dinner. They enjoy a delicious meal that the man's wife has graciously offered to make. The man and his friend casually catch up on life, but then halfway through the meal, the invited guest starts do to something unbelievable. He starts listing things that his friend's wife could have done better.

"The chicken was way too tough," he says. "You should have marinated it longer. And the broccoli is overcooked, mushy and bland. My 12-year-old daughter could cook a better meal. And you should really do something else with your hair." Then he starts to criticize her character, even ridicule her.

I'm guessing his visit would be cut short. And the guest would probably get sent away with a few choice words. Even if he was right about certain things, the typical husband simply wouldn't tolerate someone openly and caustically criticizing his wife. He loves her, and for a husband that leads to accepting and honoring his wife despite her quirks and shortcomings.

Unfortunately we tolerate this mean-spirited criticism all the time when it's directed at the church. If we're not careful, it's easy for us to look at the church and her leaders, and say, "The church should have done ____." Or, "I wish they hadn't ____." You fill in the blanks.

A young rabbi found a serious problem in his new congregation. During the Friday service, half the congregation stood for the prayers and half remained seated, and each side shouted at the other, insisting that theirs was the true tradition. Nothing the rabbi said or did helped solve the impasse. Finally, in desperation, the young rabbi sought out the synagogue's 99-year-old founder.

He met the old rabbi in the nursing home and poured out his troubles. "So tell me," he pleaded, "was it the tradition for the congregation to stand during the prayers?"

"No," answered the old rabbi.

"Ah," responded the younger man, "then it was the tradition to sit during the prayers."

"No," answered the old rabbi.

"Well," the young rabbi responded, "what we have is complete chaos! Half the people stand and shout and the other half sit and scream."

"Ah," said the old rabbi, "that was the tradition."

When you experience conflict or pain in a church setting, don't run away to another church. It's often better to stay put and work through it. That's the advice from two early Christian sources.

An anonymous 4th century Christian leader wrote:

If a trial [with other people] comes upon you in the place where you live, do not leave that place when the trial comes. Wherever you go, you will find that what you are running from is ahead of you. So stay until the trial is over, so that if you end up leaving, no offense will be caused, and you will not bring distress to others who live in the same neighborhood.

In the 12th century, Anselm of Canterbury compared a restless believer to a tree that can't thrive because it's "frequently transplanted or often disturbed." Anselm warns: "If he often moves from place to place at his own whim, or remaining in one place is frequently agitated by hatred of it, [he] never achieves stability with roots of love."

Twenty years ago, [my wife Bonnie] and I went through what was for us the most difficult experience of our lives. We were sued by a young woman … [whom] we had tried to help. On several occasions Bonnie had gone over to clean her house, and we'd had her over for dinner. When we got that suit, it just felt like we'd tried to wash someone's feet and got kicked in the mouth. She blamed us for things for which we weren't responsible. I saw how lawyers work. They were constructing a case I didn't believe was there. That suit came after we had begun [teaching at a seminary], and I think I was down emotionally. Bonnie and I used to walk together and commit the situation to the Lord. In fact, every time we drive that way, Bonnie says to me, "Remember the walks we had?" I wish I could tell you I was pure and noble, but at that time, I would have been happy if this woman had gotten run over by a truck.

But love doesn't think like that. I found that as we prayed about it every day there came a time when I could no longer talk about it to the Lord. I'd say, Lord, you know what's on my heart, and you know the details. You do it. And then there came a time when I prayed, Lord, you know that I think she's done us wrong. But I may be wrong. If vengeance is necessary, you do it. And again and again I found myself thinking, I serve a God who has forgiven all of my sins, and they are many. And on the basis of that I can begin to forgive her.

I tell this story not because I'm an expert about how to show forgiveness, but I do know that when, in the power of the Spirit and the love of God, you work with it, you can take that truth about love off the page and see it work in your life.

Alfred Lord Tennyson said of Archbishop Cranmer: "To do him a hurt was to beget a kindness from him. His heart was made of such fine soil that if you planted in it the seeds of hate they blossomed love." I want that to be true of us. And we're better at it than we think we are, because the Spirit of love lives in those who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.

Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter.