Peacemaking in the Church and Beyond - Lesson 4

So, what are some of the sparks that ignite conflict in the church. Well, here's a short list. I want you to think about these, and I'd ask you to think about others as I go to the end. The first is just plain old, innocent misunderstandings. We communicate pretty poorly at times, don't we? There was a church board that requested a meeting with the pastor to review his ongoing role at the church, and there was no desire to get rid of the guy, but the pastor showed up at a meeting with his attorney, and needless to say, this led to a meltdown, and the pastor left the church. That's what you call a misunderstanding. 

There’re also careless words, gossip, that James chapter 3, verse 5, calls it. There's pursuing uniformity rather than unity sometimes. I was in a three-hour conversation with someone today over whether the issue that he was so passionate about was a main point or a supplemental point, and I would maintain that it's a supplemental issue when it came to how we're to work together. He felt like it was a major, main issue, and it was very interesting how that conversation went. So there can be issues of doctrine that cause us to want uniformity rather than unity. We'll get into that more. 

Competition over limited resources can be a big issue, staff, money, space within the church. Change, I mean, we just went through a whole course on change, so I don't have to review that. There's legitimate desire that’s elevated to sinful demand. There're also character flaws that often show up in leaders’ lives like control, a sense of entitlement, lack of accountability, resistance to correction, insufficient self-awareness, sexual immorality, abuse of power, mishandling of finances, poor work ethic, and desires to be served rather than to serve. What are some other sparks that ignite conflict in the church that come to your mind? Yes. 

STUDENT:  The one that I've observed the most is differences in the interpretation of Scripture, which people hold very dear, so they tend to get upset about those things more than other things.

So, interpretation of scripture. That's good. 

STUDENT:  I mean, I've seen that lead to conflict in a lot of Christian settings. 

That's an interesting one. We could talk about that for a long time, but that's driving a lot of people back to church traditions that not everybody interprets the scripture; we depend on one person's interpretation. Yeah, that's great. 

STUDENT:  I guess along with that is what is going to be the main thing? Like you were saying today, your conversation, what you saw was a minor point someone else saw as a major point, and you know, as a community of believers, what do you want your identity to be? 

What's the main thing? A lot of disagreement over what's the main thing. 

STUDENT:  Preferences. People have different preferences, and they push that to the conflict of others. 

Is there anything wrong with having preferences? I don't think so. I mean, I like chicken. I happen to like fried chicken, spicy fried chicken. My wife doesn't like spicy fried chicken, but I like it. So, I enjoy preferences, but I'm not going to force her to eat it. I'm being silly, of course, but yeah, I think preferences are good things; it's what makes life interesting. 

STUDENT:  I've heard before, you know, to split a church trying to decide what color a carpet could be, you know, that kind of thing.

So, the carpets become the main thing, right? Yeah. 

STUDENT:  I guess the main thing is one can seek the kingdom without really seeking the King, and that's really tricky because you see, you're attracted to the things of the kingdom, but are you in love with the King? 

That's a pretty profound statement, David. I think what you're basically saying is we can get all excited about causes, good causes, just causes, Christian causes. That's very good. Other thoughts, other things that spark conflict? 

STUDENT:  I think one thing which is not necessarily a cause of conflict, but can be one of the factors that allows conflicts to escalate in the church is that I don't see very many churches -- it seems to be not fashionable in our days to follow some of the practices which I think in Scripture are intended to help churches think through difficult issues, like spending a lot of time in fasting and prayer. 

So, ignoring the basics of spiritual discipline, so ignoring the basics -- maybe I could just put that -- the spiritual basics. That's good. 

STUDENT:  And, I may not know, it's interesting that probably, the reason for so many denominations is because of all these different conflicts. 

STUDENT:  Yeah, I heard one person say they rightly divide the word but wrongly divide themselves. 

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your thinking; those are some excellent additions to the spark question. Of course, these are the sparks. Then there are those things that serve as gasoline to the sparks to cause a raging inferno. Worldly attitudes is one; we deserve our rights as leaders, and we're going to show you my attorney is more powerful than your attorney. Of course, once a conflict breaks out, reckless words can be an aggravating source of conflict. 

Two is, frankly, lack of peacemaking skills on the part of leadership. When pastors are asked what was lacking in their preparation for ministry, the number one answer was conflict resolution, the number one answer. There's a lack of peacemaking theology. There's a lack of skills. Fear can serve as a gasoline, and it almost always leads to control and increased isolation, and I could give you a plethora of examples, things that I've seen over the years in my consulting work. A lack of adaptability, in terms of dealing with conflict; we want to win every race with the same horse. Or to use a golfing analogy, we want to win the game with one club. Sometimes we need to learn this skill of peacemaking that uses the tools that are available to us. 

And then finally, I think oftentimes we just simply don't fully embrace the gospel. We feel like that, well, the gospel is this, but, you know, if we just don't quite get along and we have conflict, well, that's important, but it's not quite the level of the gospel. We use the gospel as an entry point, but we don't fully embrace the gospel as the air we breathe in this area of reconciliation. Sometimes the attitude is I can fix it myself, I don't need anybody's help, and that can be a tremendous problem. 

So, when it comes to facing conflict, one leader summed it up very well. “Many church leaders are not only poor firefighters; all too often they are unwitting arsonists.” But the good news is that arsonists can learn to stop triggering conflicts and, being poor firefighters, can develop peacemaking skills. I can say that from experience, and I may as well start with a confession. I have not only been a victim of conflict in the past some very painful conflict, but I have sometimes been a perpetrator, mostly unwittingly, but destructive nonetheless. So much of what I share in this course is that of personal experience, and so you may as well know that up front. Some of it's good. Much of it is not so good. Some of it is painful memories that I hope that I've learned some things over the years. But hopefully, my journey can help you to arrive at a better destination because peacemaking is at the heart of our gospel.