If you’re in a church, you’re going to deal with conflict. That’s why I am a strong proponent of learning conflict management.
One of the misconceptions about conflict management is that some people enjoy it. Let me say: Nobody enjoys conflict management. Some people simply realize how important it is and that conflict won’t go away on its own. Actually, quite the contrary — it often gets worse on its own!
Here’s the other thing: Conflict is not always bad. Often, conflict is necessary to find new ways to do things, to help something bad go away, or to find something good that would have been otherwise missed.
Conflict has a bad connotation, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. It’s a necessary thing for us to grow sometimes and to teach people.
Most conflict is the result of misunderstanding. Most of the time it’s either a misinterpretation of what someone does or says, it’s incorrect third-party information, it’s context confusion – when, how, where, who, why. Sometimes it’s a lack of underlying knowledge about an issue. Those four things can probably account for a large percentage of conflict. If you realize that, then I think it helps you approach conflict in a different way because you’re not necessarily perceiving those you’re in conflict with as mean. They just may be misunderstanding something.
The most invoked Bible passage for managing conflict is Matthew 18:15-17. It says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
You’re familiar with that passage. You have probably studied and taught on it. But what I want to do is take that passage and give you some between-the-lines instruction on dealing with conflict. I want to break it down into the three scenarios that you see in that passage. Here’s the first:
The involved person. Let’s say you’re the person involved in the conflict. Verse 15 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” Sometimes we have to deal with somebody being frustrated with us. Maybe they misunderstood something that we said. I think the most important part of conflict and any conversation, really, is to seek to understand before being understood.
The best thing you can do in a situation is to listen first and then talk after. One way to do that is to create well-worded questions that you can use to diffuse the emotion of a situation because emotion seldom leads to reconciliation. Emotion tends to be raw not reconciliatory. So here are some guidelines for some well-worded questions:
Well-worded questions are not accusatory. They’re not meant to help someone feel like they are wrong or that they are at fault number.
Well-worded questions gather facts, not make a case. Often, we use our questions to start making the case for why we’re right. You need to be inquisitive strictly about what the other person understands.
Well-worded questions are not confrontational. If you start with questions that are confrontational, you’re not going to go in a good direction. You’re going to have to unpack that, as well as whatever the conflict was.
Well-worded questions must be accompanied by listening well. The best way for you to help somebody understand you’re listening well is to take notes. Clearly take notes on what they’re saying. It helps you as you figure out how to how to deal with the conflict, and it also says that what the other person saying is important. I think that helps diffuse it a little bit because if people really feel like you’re listening, they want to work with you to find solutions.
And don’t try to answer your own question. That’s a diatribe; not a question. If you’re asking a question so that you can provide an answer, that’s not really a good question.
It’s okay for nobody to say anything for a few seconds. Let it hang there a little bit and let them answer the question. Save your answer for later on in the conversation.
Here are two things that I try to help my teams understand. One is to say the last 10%. So many people in the middle of a conflict will get about 90% there and then they’ll say, “Okay, this went really well. I’m done. I’m not going to do the last 10%.” The problem with that is, if you don’t do the last 10%, you’ve left something unfinished on the table that you’re most likely going to have to come back and deal with later. So discipline yourself to say the last 10%. Say it in the right way, but make sure that you say everything that needs to be said because you’re in the middle of a critical conversation already — you might as well get the most out of it!
The second thing I say to my teams is to keep a short list when it comes to having issues with somebody and dealing with them. One thing I tell my teams is if you keep a list, when it comes time that you want to deal with something, you only get to deal with the last thing on the list. The rest of them are up to you. So take a moment and deal with some of the things that comes along because, like I said before, it might just be a misunderstanding. What you don’t deal with compounds, and then it ends up becoming a situation where it is hard to find resolution because you’re dealing with so many things.
Avoiding conflict is never helpful, unless you plan to end the relationship anyway. If conflict will only lead to hurt, and the relationship is already lost – that is retribution, not an attempt at reconciliation. Don’t chase the conflict. If somebody’s left your church based on a misunderstanding, and they’re leaving in the right way, just let it go. It’s not necessary to try to chase down every conflict.
Stay tuned for the part 2 in the coming weeks! In it, we’ll explore our scripture further and talk about the role of the intermediary and what a win-win scenario looks like.
This blog was created using content from the webinar Navigating Conflict In Our Churches.
