So far we have covered the principles of loving one another, what our love for one another should show and how we can be practical about it. We’ve discussed the church as a family and how we should act towards each other. Last time we considered our the value we place on people through our listening, speech and how we deal with anger.
Today we’re going to look at dealing with conflict: how to handle church relationships when things go wrong.
Larry Crabb once wrote, “The difference between spiritual and unspiritual community is not whether conflict exists, but is rather in our attitude toward it and our attitude in handling it. When conflict is seen as an opportunity to draw more fully on spiritual resources, we have the makings of spiritual communities.”
Notice that he did not say that the difference between the world and the church is a lack of conflict. You only need to be in the church for a little amount of time before you realise that there is conflict in it.
The truth of the matter is that relationship can be strengthened through conflict – if we handle them correctly. What makes or breaks churches and relationships is what they choose to do in conflict because conflict is going to come.
Matthew 18:15-20: 15 ‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’
Jesus shares some tremendous wisdom with us here about conflict.
Conflict can cause us to be frustrated if we don’t follow the instruction of Jesus.
1. Be direct but discreet
In our passage in Matthew, the first step He tells us to follow is to go directly to the person who has offended you.
This is so contrary to what we normally like to do. When someone hurts our feelings or does something to offend us, what is the first thing we do?
We let everyone else know! Too much of the time, we talk about the situation with those around us with the words, “You’ll never believe what so and so did.”
This is gossip. We may not think it is but it is! We will spiritualise our language and say, “I needed the loving support of my brother or sister,” but the truth is this: by sharing a grievance with a third party we are assassinating the character of someone without them having an opportunity to put things right.
The problem is we all like a bit of juicy gossip!
Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22 both say the same thing: The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.
Why do we like to hear stuff that is unedifying? It’s kind of like we know it’s bad for us but we can’t help ourselves.
Golden rule: when someone comes to me and says something about another person my first question is this: have you spoken with them about this? If they say no, I then say, go and talk to them first before you talk to me.
Two things can happen at this point: they go and talk with them or they don’t, but in most cases I never hear from them again on the issue. You might say, “Well that’s because you have rejected them!” But we do people a massive disservice and allow immaturity to continue if we don’t follow Jesus’ principles!
I know it may seem awkward and uncomfortable to go to those who have hurt us, but it the way that is best because it is God’s way.
It is also the quickest and easiest manner to resolve the conflict.
John Maxwell: “When confronting a person about a conflict issue, I have discovered that 50% don’t realise there is a problem. 30% realise there is a problem but don’t know how to solve it. 20% realise there is a problem but don’t want to solve it. Notice that 80% of the time there is potential to solve the conflict.”
We need to remember this when we go to the other person in love. Chances are, they don’t even know there is a problem, and if they do, they are more likely than not to want to get it solved right away. That should encourage us.
2. Be patient and personable
So, what do we do with that last 20% that will do not want to solve the problem?
Can I have a witness?
It does not say that we are to gang up on this person by bringing in our friends to prove a point.
After all, no one should know what is going on except for you and the person at this point. Notice, this will only work if you have not maligned the person to anyone else!
Who do we take along? Not a union representative! We want someone who will give greatly of themselves to help us get health back into our friendship!
We just need to bring in some neutral parties to help use try and work out the problem. To be honest the best people are often an assistant pastor or an elder (mainly because if we have shared the issue outside of the relationship and there is no one neutral left). Ideally it should not be a church leader at this stage.
The word for witness here is martus and it is where we get the English word martyr from; one who will go to great lengths to bear witness to the truth, one who will even die.
When we have the word witness we are not talking about those who have ‘witnessed’ what happened, but those who will help us assess what has happened and find a way forward.
Again this needs to cooperation of both aggrieved parties but I have seen it work.
3. Be contrite not contentious
Matthew 18:17: If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church
If this does not work, then we take it to the church. This should not make us happy, but sad. There is no sense of victory when things get to the wider community.
Every church will do this differently.
Some will make pulpit announcements but this seems a bit premature. It seems that when an announcement is made from the pulpit that there is little opportunity to turn back. It doesn’t meant his is wrong to do so, but just premature.
Telling the church means involving the governance of the church, the pastors.
Basically we would then go through the issue again with all parties concerned. But you need to trust us and any guidance given.
Sometimes a conflict in the church gets beyond who do what to whom and when. Sometimes the original problem gets buried under a pile of rotting accusations, half-truths and the pride of both parties.
At this point is better to ask both parties to surrender and agree with each other in the Lord (Phil 4:1-3), for the sake of peace!
4. Be mournful not malicious
17b: …and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
This can be a very confusing verse. It means treat them as though they were unsaved.
Within our partnership structure we have three types of membership – full partners who are here each week and committed to Life Church as their family home; Associate partners – those who have moved away or overseas and have no church fellowship for a period of time; and suspended partners – not hung from the ceiling, but whose privileges are removed.
But this passage intimates that we can actually remove membership! It’s about saying that the lifestyle of someone is hurting God.
Now this can be quite traumatic. At this point it can be helpful to give a pulpit statement – but not always. In my years as a minister I have only given three such statements out and these concerned unresolved infidelity.
Have there been more than three problems of various kinds in these years? Yep! But most things get resolved at stage one or stage two!
We are not to kick them out of the church. We are to continue to love them – Jesus loved even these people, but we individually should just steer clear of them until the situation changes and you can be reconciled.
This is how we are to handle ever conflict that arises.
5. Be repentant and reconcile
The goal of all conflict should be reconciliation.
John Maxwell says, “Successful confrontation usually changes both people, not just one.”
This is the truth, but it is a hard truth. How many of us like to be told that we are right?
When you get in a spat with a spouse or a close friend, don’t we feel great when the other person says, “I’m sorry – I was wrong.”
The problem is that this rarely happens. Why? It is because almost every conflict is caused by some type of action by each person involved.
It is hardly ever just one person’s fault.
Therefore, we must be willing to compromise in every conflict because we should approach every conflict as a chance to promote resolution.
The point is not to fight, win, or prove someone wrong. The point is to bring about reconciliation and to restore trust and harmony in the relationship.
Too often we’re keen to hand people over to the devil (1 Timothy 1:20) but when Paul did this it was because of blasphemy and means that they were put out of the church and named and shamed. We’re not talking about that here. We’re talking about disagreements in church.
We can also hand things over to heaven! We need to be careful with this too, especially if our cause is based on our pride and lack of repentance!
But we can actually give people to God in the right sense – asking Him to bless them!
18 ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.
Compare this to:
Luke 6:28: bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you.
Romans 12:14: Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
When we start to bless people we begin to find that unity grows in the church!
19-20: Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’
Unity does not come through trying to prove others wrong. I comes from praying right for them.
Unity is not thinking the same way about a subject, but about allowing each other room to change.
Unity releases God’s presence in a place (Ps. 133; Acts 2:1)
How many of us want God to be as near as possible to you? How many of us want God to give us anything we ask for?
It is possible according to out Scripture. What is the condition? We have to be in agreement with another brother and sister and come together.
There is tremendous power in a unified church.
Wrapping it up:
If you are having trouble with conflict in your life, remember this quote from John Maxwell: “Unsolvable conflict is almost always because of a wrong attitude…not because of the issue.”
Check your attitude, and then, follow the steps of Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment