Sad but true – I’m a reluctant flyer unhelpfully captivated by recent stories of turbulence impacting long-haul flights. Terrifying interruptions to otherwise bland experiences involving food, movies, and if you’re lucky – sleep! Two things stay with me: first, pilots assure us that turbulence is a normal part of flying, and second, while we can’t avoid turbulence, there’s much we can do to mitigate its effects. Buckling up helps, but so does pilot training, aeronautical engineering, weather agencies, air traffic controllers… the list goes on!
The point is, navigating turbulence is a complex but unavoidable part of flying, so we need to be prepared for it. Congregational conflict is no different!
Conflict in the Church
Life and ministry have taught me many things, but without a doubt, the hardest lesson is that when it comes to conflict, good intentions are not enough to get us through! The Church is called to be a reconciled and reconciling people, bringing hope to a broken world. But when things go pear-shaped, the challenge is not only spiritual but practical.
When we say the Lord’s Prayer, we hope God doesn’t engage too closely with that line about forgiving others. We’re great on paper – not so great in practice! Yet conflict is one topic of universal concern. Most people will kōrero about a family, community, or workplace conflict – they, we, all have a story to tell. Most have someone they struggle to forgive.
A Common Challenge in Church Leadership
It’s no different for those of us in church leadership. There’s often a gap between our aspirations to be known as peace-makers, and the dailyness of the challenges we face: backstabbing gossip, unhealthy triangulation, people arriving due to conflicts elsewhere, and others leaving due to conflicts here. Destructive conflict is costly: personally, it affects our physical, spiritual, and mental wellbeing; relationally, it casts a long shadow. Organisationally, it taxes both financial and human resources. All this leads to missed opportunities and a compromised witness in the world.
Navigating Conflict with the Right Tools
The Good News is that things do not have to be this way! We need three things to navigate conflict in ways that transform rather than harm:
- Theological Understanding
We need to reclaim a theology that centres reconciliation at the heart of the Gospel – the God dimension. This includes a theology of enemies, without whom the Story cannot be fully embodied. - Conflict as Normal
We need to embrace conflict as a normal part of the ebb and flow of community life – the human dimension – and find the tools to navigate it well. - Spiritual Practices for Resilience
We need to cultivate spiritual practices to sustain our commitment to the costly but sacred call of forgiveness and reconciliation, where the God and human dimensions meet.
As leaders, it’s easy to resent conflict as an interruption to ministry. But as a people called to join God in the ministry of reconciliation, working through conflict is at the very heart of ministry. It’s not an optional extra for peace-geeks – it is the real work of ministry!
Every conflict is a test of our true identity, an opportunity to practise the work of reconciliation that God has entrusted to us.
Supporting Conflict Transformation with The Centre for Church Leadership
Like flight turbulence, conflict can be complex, scary, and harmful, but it is not insurmountable. The Centre for Church Leadership offers coaching, consulting, and practical training to not only navigate conflict when it comes but to cultivate brave communities predisposed to make peace whenever conflict arises.
Like turbulence, conflict will come – the question is, are you ready for it?
