The Thing About Conflict #church 09

Conflict is a thing in Jesus' Church.  

In the final post of this series, I finished my take on the wisdom we can draw from Colossians 3:12 concerning dealing with conflict in Jesus’ Church.  I finished with these six ideas for dealing with a conflict in a godly way:

• See the other the way God sees them. 
• Let compassion move you toward the other.
• Extend dignity and respect through kindness. 
• In humility, look to the interests of the other.
• Gently ask to be heard.
• Let patience create space and room to “breathe.”

There’s so much more that could be said about handling conflict in general, and there’s even more you could get out of Colossians 3 that’d be helpful.  But six is already too many for anybody to remember.  Fortunately, you don’t have to remember it, because I posted it here for you!

How might our disagreements in our local church communities (or even the world) turn out differently if we were able to apply these principles in real time in the midst of a conflict?

I’m not promising agreement if you follow these guidelines.  Often, godly conflict management just means we’ve heard each other, and we may agree to disagree.  It takes a lot for someone to change their strongly held belief.  

Likewise, if your goal in a disagreement is to make the other person believe what you believe, then you might take a closer look at what’s going on in your heart.  Why is it so important to you that the other person agree with you? 

Here's the thing about conflict in Jesus' Church:

It Takes Two To Resolve A Conflict

The hardest part of this whole conflict discussion is that you can do everything in a godly, compassionate way, and still end up with a broken relationship.  The other person in the conflict doesn’t have to cooperate.  They don’t have to abide by these guidelines.  They don’t even have to participate in the discussion if they don’t want to.  

As I mentioned back in the Conflict Is A Thing In Jesus’ Church post, Paul and Barnabas blew it.  They got into an argument about whether of not John “the Quitter” Mark would be allowed to go on the second missionary journey or not, and ended up parting ways.  I think we can safely say this disagreement was NOT handled in a godly way.  The powerhouse apostles had a petty squabble that ended by breaking up the band.  

I picked at the story a bit in that post, trying to see what we could learn from it.  But there’s at least two other things I want to say before we’re done.

First,

God makes good despite our bad behavior. 

As a famous pastor here in Kansas City says so well, “The worst thing isn’t the last thing.”  The resurrection of Jesus Christ establishes this pattern so well for us.  When it looked like Jesus was completely defeated, he rose from the dead, showing us that there is always hope for those who follow Jesus.  The worst thing isn’t the last thing.  

Paul and Barnabas break up and go their separate ways.  This was almost certainly not an outcome that anyone wanted.  I don’t think it’s what God wanted.  It wasn’t a good example of what it means to act with Christlike character when we disagree.

But, the net result of this squabble was that the mission team doubled.  Paul took Silas and Barnabas took John Mark and, where we started with one mission team, we now had two.  Despite the apostles’ lousy behavior, God made good out of it. 

I also don’t believe God CAUSED the conflict so he could double the mission team.  That would mean that God was willing to introduce conflict and encourage ungodly behaviors just to get what he wanted.  That would also mean Paul and Barnabas were used by God like puppets on God’s strings.  This seems inconsistent with the character of God revealed through Jesus Christ.  

I think it’s this simple: Paul and Barnabas were painfully human - just like me and you - and they had an ugly, ungodly argument.  They handled the conflict poorly, and it resulted in relational destruction.  And despite that, God took their mess and made something good out of it.  

Let this be an encouragement to all of us.  Even if you’ve blown it in a conflict and really messed things up relationally with someone, the worst thing isn’t the last thing.  As long as you continue drawing breath, you have the opportunity to choose another way.  The sun will shine again.  The past can’t be changed.  You can’t undo what you’ve done.  But what you do next is still yet to be written.  How might you come into alignment with God’s desire for you in the relationships you still have?  Is there a path to godly restoration that still exists for the conflict that went poorly?  If not, how might God be making good despite the relational mess you made?

That’s how amazing our good and beautiful God is.

Second, 

We’re LEARNING how to love.

What if we were able to think of disagreements as something more than just normal in a fallen world? What if we were able to see them as an opportunity for growth?  What if we’re able to see a conflict as an opportunity to practice what it means to be Christlike?  I used Colossians 3 - Paul’s own words - to critique how Barnabas and he handled the conflict poorly.  I have a sense that Paul was able to write the words he wrote years later in Colossians, BECAUSE he’d gone through this conflict in Acts 15.  He handled it poorly and he learned from it. The experience helped shape the man Paul was becoming.  He was learning how to love just like we are!

A common criticism of Jesus’ Church is that we don’t practice what we preach.  Sometimes that’s true, but often the problem is that we ARE practicing what we’re preaching.  

We’re PRACTICING it, because we’re not very good at it yet, and we want to get better.  

Implicit in the concept of “practicing” is the idea that there’s room for improvement. By practicing and getting it wrong, we’re engaging in the process of God’s holy transformation.  We’ll try to do better next time, but this time we blew it.  This isn’t an excuse for bad behavior, it’s engaging with the world as it actually is instead of pretending it’s something different or sweeping the situation under the rug.  Our imperfection in our practice is an application of God’s expansive grace so we can grow and become more like the God we serve.  We’re all hypocrites who want something good for this world - for everyone to know the God that we know and his incredible, lavish love.  We do it imperfectly.  

Jesus’ Church sounds like a mess.  How do we ever hold it all together?

This is why grace is so important.

Grace is the glue that holds Jesus’ Church together.

Paul and Barnabas go on to have amazing ministries, because, instead of being cancelled by their church community, grace is extended.  The worst thing isn’t the last thing.  

Phil Strout, the national director of the Vineyard Movement up until 2021, told a story I loved.  He said that back in the 1980s, he made a $13,000 mistake in the church where he was on staff.  He went to the lead pastor and said, “I understand this was a big deal - it was my fault - I’m ready to submit my resignation.”  The lead pastor looked at him and said, “Are you kidding me?  I just invested $13,000 in your education.”  THAT’s grace in a nutshell.

Grace is what allows us to us to continue to grow as a church community.  When grace is withheld, the community suffers and growth is stunted.  When grace abounds, people are given the opportunity to get back up, brush themselves off, and continue practicing. This environment becomes the fertile ground for genuine spiritual formation - becoming more and more like Jesus Christ.  

An Imperfect Example

I’ll share one final story that shows the reality of how conflict works in Jesus’ Church.

One night back in the early 2000s, my wife and kids were at my parents house.  While we were there, my father and I had a “sharp disagreement” over how Becca and I disciplined our children.  I won’t go into all the details, except to say that on this one night our disagreement escalated into a shouting match.  Becca and I grabbed the kids, and we stormed out of the house to our minivan.  We got the kids buckled into their car-seats and I got behind the wheel, ready to pull away.  

I paused for a breath.  I could feel a pressure building in my heart - it felt like I was about to make a terrible mistake.  If I pulled away and left things where they were, tremendous relational damage could be done with one of the most important relationships in my life: my relationship with my father.  

That pause gave me space to realize I was getting perilously close to repeating the same mistake my father had made with my grandmother back in the 1970s. (See  Conflict Is A Thing In Jesus’ Church for context.) In my passion and anger, I’d strayed onto the path that would extend the family curse.  I was on the path to disowning my children’s grandfather, just like he did with my grandmother.

In that moment, God’s gracious resolve fell on me, and I turned the car off and went back into the house.  I went to where my father was sitting.  He was in his easy chair fuming and glaring at me. Again, God’s grace was poured out into my heart. Through the red haze of my mind I could just make out the situation from his perspective.  He was Silent Generation patriarch who’d been disrespected and dishonored in his own home by his son, and he was furious with me.  He was also probably a little ashamed for losing his temper like he did - as was I.  My heart was moved to kindness. 

I gently stated the facts: “Dad, I know we don’t agree on how to raise children.  Truthfully, I’m not going to raise my children the same way you raised us.”  

He took that in and then said, “Then you just won’t be able to come over here anymore.”

There it was.  The chasm between us opened and all I had to do was say yes to this broken invitation.  This would extend the family curse that had begun with my father and his mother.  All I had to do was agree to these ungodly terms.  

By the grace of God, I rejected this dark invitation.  I’ve learned since then to ask an incredibly powerful spiritual direction question:

What do you want?

In this relationship, in this context, what do you really want?  Most of us would agree that we don’t want isolation, relational devastation, or a long trail of broken relationships.  Most people, when they’re in a healthy space, want relational wholeness, lifelong friendships, and meaningful connections with others - especially their families.  

The challenge is that it can be really difficult to answer the question, “What do I want?” in the heightened moment of conflict.  That’s why regular reflection on the relationships in your life is so powerful.  We invite the Holy Spirit to help us gain perspective and understand what’s most important in our lives when we’re at peace. That reflection becomes the foundation of our understanding when we’re in conflict. 

The wake up call for me had been when my fiancé said, “You have a grandmother that’s still alive?  Why haven’t you ever mentioned her?”  Reflecting on the importance of that moment in the presence of God helped me understand the gravity of unresolved generational conflict and the legacy of dysfunction it can introduce into the family.  I didn’t want my sons to have the same experience that I had of an estranged grandfather they never talked about.  The choice was mine in the moment. 

I looked my father in the eyes and I said, “That won’t work.  That’s not what YOU want, and that’s not what I want either.  I don’t want my kids to grow up without a grandfather.”  

Again, by the grace of God, I offered to create space so we could breathe.  I said, “I can’t think of a way forward right now, but let’s just agree that severing ties is not the right answer.  Let’s talk again later, and maybe then we’ll be able to come up with something that works for both of us.”  

He grunted his agreement and looked away.  I went to the car and we headed home.  

A few days later, after we’d both cooled off, my father and I sat down, apologized to one another, and calmly came to an agreement that worked for both of us.  The curse in our family died with the first generation.  

I’m grateful beyond measure for the wisdom God poured into me in the moment.  My father passed away a few years later, and his children and grandchildren were able to be with him until his final moments.  Certainly God could have made good out of it if we’d severed ties that day.  We might’ve reconciled somewhere down the line.  But it was so much sweeter to have handled the conflict in the moment in as godly a way as we could muster.  We avoided losing some of the precious time we had left.  

How are you handling the disagreements you’re faced with right now?  

What would happen if you took a step back and tried to see the disagreement as an opportunity for growth and a way top practice being a child of God, holy and dearly loved?

What do you need to do to take a step toward reconciliation in a relationship in your life?