CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND RECONCILIATION: MANAGING CONFLICT IN THE CHURCH

So I thought I'd post that's absolutely stimulating doctoral dissertation...er, I mean, paper for my Ministry of Leadership class. I figure that this is just another post that nobody will read, but if you ever have church conflict, and you will, never say that I didn't try to help you, or at least notify you of some good resources (note, I would not recommend every book that I used in compiling this paper--if you want to know which ones, email me).

“Conflict is not necessarily bad.” “Conflict is God-purposed…. Peace is God-provided.” According to Ken Sande, “The Bible teaches that some differences are natural and beneficial. Since God has created us as unique individuals, human beings will often have different opinions, convictions, desires, perspectives, and priorities. Many of these differences are not inherently right or wrong.” He notes, however, “Not all conflict is neutral or beneficial.”
To biblically resolve conflict, the leader in the church must start by properly defining and understanding conflict in a Christian worldview. After coming to a biblical understanding of conflict, the leader must know the proper way to manage and resolve church conflict and employ this knowledge. Finally, after having a proper theological understanding of conflict and knowing how conflict is to be addressed in the church, one is able to apply conflict to both generic and specific occurrences of conflict and to know when conflict is necessary and when it should be avoided.

Biblically Understanding Church Conflict
In defining conflict, there are elements used for identification that must be both accepted and avoided. Gangel and Canine give “seven misconceptions of what conflict means” that must be avoided: (1) the idea that conflict is abnormal, (2) that conflict and disagreement are synonymous, (3) that conflict is pathological (resulting from frustration, “psychologically maladjusted” people, or neurotic behavior), (4) that conflict must be both reduced and avoided, (5) that it stems from personality problems, (6) is essentially linked with anger, and (7) that it is an “admission of failure.” They also detail five elements that must be accepted in coming to a proper biblical understanding of conflict: (1) it stems from interdependency, that is, the participants in the conflict must be connected to one another for conflict to be present, (2) that it is an “interactive struggle,” (3) that the main issue is “incompatible goals,” (4) that there is an actual or perceived hindrance to at least one of the parties involved, and (5) that there is an “interface of opposition and cooperation,” as the parties involved in the conflict have a “symbiotic element” in their relationship.
The Bible has conflict throughout its pages, yet interestingly, the word is not used very often. Words such as “dispute, quarrel, strife, and contention are used more frequently [than conflict] in Scripture to describe biblical conflicts.” Jim Van Yperen identifies five biblical truths about conflict: (1)“All conflict involves broken relationships,” (2)“All conflict is in some measure about spiritual warfare,” (3)“Conflict, like sin and death, is inevitable,” (4)“Conflict is necessary,” and (5)“conflict is an opportunity to trust God for positive change—to make peace.”
With all that is true about conflict, it is no wonder that conflict comes in many forms and for various reasons. Norman Shawchuck defines three broad areas from which church conflict can result: as a result of seeking to understand God’s direction for the direction of ministry for a specific local church, as a result of differences between individuals, and as a result of sinful motives. He goes on to note that there are three basic types of conflict among God’s people: “Conflicts over Purposes and Goals,” “Conflicts over Programs and Methods,” and “Conflicts of Values and Traditions.” Ken Sande notes four primary causes of conflict: (1) “Some disputes arise because of misunderstandings resulting from poor communication,” (2) others from differences in people’s opinions, goals, priorities, vision, etc, (3) from “competition over limited resources,” and (4) also from “sinful attitudes and habits that lead to sinful words and actions.”
In light of this discrepancy, are there three, four, or more causes of conflict? It seems that Shawchuck fails to note that conflict can occur due to misunderstandings, or a breakdown in communication. He covers quite well the other three categories outlined by Sande, but he does not include this category. Miscommunication, resulting in misunderstanding is a serious and distinct cause of conflict, and so Sande is correct to include it—Shawchuck probably overlooked this type of conflict in his evaluation.
The great diversity that exists in the broad categories of causes of conflict should bring every church leader, especially pastors, to realize that conflict is not only possible, but inevitable in churches. Richard Dobbins observes that modern churches are perhaps even more susceptible to facing conflict than the church of the past.
A majority of the conflict experienced in churches is the product of changing times rather than creative leadership. Remarkable changes have occurred in the pressures that pastors bear compared to pressures they experienced when their word was seldom questioned and their authority prevailed. Pastors need not be surprised when they find their authority and plans challenged, and they are caught up in a whole storm of protest. It's happening in every institution in our society, including the church.

According to research by Eric Reed for Leadership Journal, in surveying 506 pastors, ninety-five percent of churches report experiencing conflict. While such a finding may seem alarming and frightening, it is no surprise considering the elements that lead to conflict and the range of causes of it. What may be a surprise is that ninety-percent report positive results from conflict. With this knowledge concerning church conflict, Ken Sande’s statement, “Conflict is not necessarily bad,” may be an understatement. Conflict should be seen as an opportunity for growth in the church. It must be noted, however, that some conflict does end in negative results. Positive results are desired, and after understanding conflict biblically, the next question must be, “How and why are we to resolve conflict biblically?”

Biblically Resolving Church Conflict
Conflict can and does occur in healthy churches. As Jim Van Yperen notes in an interview for Leadership Journal, “Health is not the absence of conflict. A healthy church has learned a way of thinking and seeing and behaving that’s redemptive, so that when the inevitable conflict comes, they’re able to handle it.” “Conflict is actually an opportunity,” according to Ken Sande. You cannot measure the health of a church merely by the presence of conflict, but rather the health of the church must be determined by the way the people, especially the leadership, handle conflict.
Conflict is healthy when it is handled in a healthy manner. “Christians fight,” observes Hugh Halverstadt, but “Christians not only fight, they also often fight dirty. Issues are personalized.” Christians fight dirty especially in the context of the local church because of “threats to self-esteem, pressures for and against personal and social change, and vulnerability to power plays in voluntary systems all combine to exacerbate the sinful humanness of parties to church conflicts. Indeed, one marvels that any church conflicts are ever Christian or constructive.” Christian fights do not have to be conducted in a unChrist-like manner, however. Christians can work in a collaborative manner to understand and appreciate their differing views. They can work to “acquire new perspectives from which they create genuinely workable win/win solutions.” The key to healthy conflict is biblical, peace seeking management when conflicts arise.
From the conflict that arose in the Jerusalem Church over the responsibility of caring for the Hellenistic widows in Acts 6:1-7, Richard Dobbins notes, “The apostles followed a 3-stage pattern of conflict management: (1) Desensitization. The widows were allowed to air their complaints, desensitizing the conflict. (2) Deliberation. There was time for serious, mature discussion of the conflict. (3) Decision.”
“Desensitization requires active involvement by leadership.” It is not avoiding or denying conflict; neither is it dominating the conflict or forbidding it.
Instead, you first reassure everyone involved that conflict is normal in any human relationship, and the church is no exception. The ideal of perpetual peace in the church-without conflict-is unscriptural and unrealistic. Remind your people that differing viewpoints are perfectly normal. Emphasize that conflicts occur because people choose to look at matters in different ways, not necessarily because those matters are the way people choose to see them.

Reconciliation is the goal of confronting and resolving conflict. The goal behind reconciliation is the unity of the church. Christians must learn to love one another and live harmoniously together despite differences in opinions, visions for ministry, and personal convictions, while seeking to resolve conflict in the church that may and will arise over these, or other related issues. “Only when differences can be expressed in an atmosphere of acceptance and tolerance can a truly church-unifying point of view be discovered and defined.” Only by allowing for the expression of differences can Christians work together to resolve their differences without compromising the church’s witness to the world of the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. Conflicts are to be addressed, but they must be addressed in a biblical fashion.
In conflict resolution, Christians must be wary of what Jim Van Yperen calls “counterfeit peace,” for they have a responsibility to seek true peace. He notes, “The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. Shalom is not a feeling of peace; it is a covenant of peace. It is complete, encompassing the whole of life…. Shalom implies a relationship with God and others… it’s the gift, evidence and fruit of Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” Van Yperen identifies and labels five practices of seeking false peace: “personal peace,” which is peace sought without concern for the peace of the community, “agreeing to disagree,” “forgiving and forgetting,” peacekeeping,” and “détente,” which is seeking “to negotiate compromise without reconciling fundamental differences.” True peace involves reconciliation. “Reconciliation is the process of bringing our lives—our differences, failures, sins, and fears—under the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Keith Huttenlocker observes, “When we are confronted with the possibility of conflict, three courses of action are open to us. We may attempt conflict avoidance, conflict management, or conflict resolution.” Styles for managing conflict include avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, compromising, and competing. Shawchuck accepts collaborating as the best style for managing conflict. Van Yperen identifies four ways of responding to conflict that he says are negative: passive, evasive, defensive, and aggressive. What is the biblical way to respond to conflict?
Deliberation demands confronting the issues that are causing conflict. Christians must practice assertiveness when confronting and deliberating about conflicts. “A Christian ethic of assertiveness prescribes the exercise of power in ways that balance one’s own rights with respectfulness of others’ rights in pursuit of universal human solidarity.” In the context of church conflict, the pursuit is church unity and solidarity. Assertiveness is not a negation of the command to ‘turn the other cheek,’ for Jesus Himself was assertive when conflicts arose with the religious leaders and the people. There are times when conflict should be avoided and offenses actively overlooked, but there are also times when conflict is absolutely necessary and a Christian leader must step-up and be assertive, such as when a person is trapped in a habitual pattern of sin.
John MacArthur clarifies four principles of Christian leadership that are exemplified in the Apostle Paul that reveal the assertiveness of a leader. First, a leader takes the initiative and says, “Here is the problem, and here’s how to solve it.” Second, a leader speaks with authority, seizing the moment and speaking definitively, sounding “certain and assertive” in his/her speech. Third, “A leader doesn’t abdicate his role in the face of opposition.” Fourth, a leader is passionate, not detached and indifferent. Leaders possessing such qualities will exhibit assertiveness when conflict occurs.
Assertiveness is seeking reconciliation—and this must be done in submission to Christ. Halverstadt notes that Christian assertiveness involves “a deep inner conviction that one is a creature of inherent worth and a loved one of God.” One must recognize that he/she is created in the image of God, and therefore has important contributions to make in conflicts. This understanding however, must be coupled with humility such as comes only from a clear comprehension of our sinfulness and an appreciation of the work of Jesus Christ in reconciling us to God—Halverstadt does not put a sufficient emphasis upon these Christian truths. Christian humility will seek to serve the other party above one’s own interests (cf. Philippians 2:3), yet to be assertive, Christians must accept their reconciliation with God in Christ rather than operating from a mindset of self-abasing shame; for “shame-based people cannot assert themselves because they secretly think of themselves as inferior to other parties in a conflict.”
After careful deliberation by all parties involved in a conflict, the time for decision making and resolving the conflict comes. “Church conflict is never about who is right and who is wrong. It is about lordship and submission; it is about a people who have stopped being the body of Christ.” When making decisions on how to resolve conflict and seek reconciliation in the church, “covenants between the parties (written or verbal) which will motivate personal commitment to carry out the agreements which are made” should be established. Those people who are involved in the conflict should help create the solutions for resolution and personal commitments should be made because people tend to support what they have helped to create.
“Of great importance is how we address sin within the church…. We tend to objectify sin. That is, we tend to identify and address sin as a violation of a moral law that has independent existence apart from the community, from our common relationship or experience.” While sin must be seen as failing to meet up to God’s righteous standard (cf. Romans 3:23), Van Yperen is correct to note that “with this understanding of sin as forensic alone, we claim some forensic remedies, failing to recognize or address the ethical and dynamic natures of sin.” He goes on to give the solution to the problem:
To be reconciled, we must proclaim the power of the Cross over our thinking and our habits—over the ethical and dynamic as well as the forensic nature of sin. As members of a local body of believers, we must nurture forgiveness and restoration rather than encourage greater sin and conflict… much church conflict is not about personal forensic sin, but about systemic ethical failure. Church conflict is about character. To redeem character we must be a community of faith being saved and sanctified together in mutual submission under Word and Spirit.

Hugh Halverstadt stresses win/win solutions, and this type of solution will quite often be desired when resolving conflict, but such resolutions are not always right. Consider the Apostle Paul, for instance. In Paul’s conflict with the Judaizers in his letter to the Galatians, Paul did not seek a win/win solution to the issue of whether or not circumcision and the keeping of the Mosaic Law is necessary for salvation. If Paul had sought a win/win solution, what might the outcome have been? Might the agreed upon solution have been that Gentiles do not need to keep all the commandments of the Law, but they must be circumcised to be welcomed as Christians into the community of God’s redeemed people? This solution would have undermined the entire gospel. Paul makes clear why compromise is not acceptable:
For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM THEM.” Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM. (Galatians 3:10-12, NASB)

If the Galatians resorted back to seeking to follow the Law, they would be following a false gospel; in essence they would be claiming by their practices, “Christ died needlessly,” and that righteousness comes through the Law (Galatians 2:21, NASB). If they were to receive circumcision, Paul tells them, “Christ will be of no benefit to you” (Galatians 5:2, NASB). Paul could not seek a win/win solution; it was all or nothing, for the integrity and the purity of the gospel was under attack.
There is not always a clearly defined path for biblically managing church conflict. Those involved, especially leaders and outside mediators and arbitrators, will have to rely upon Scripture, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and discernment when aspiring to resolve church conflict. The only sure matter when dealing with conflict is the reason for engaging in conflictive situations: to bring the reconciling work of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How does confronting church conflict for the purpose of reconciliation for unity look when applied to general situations?
Applying Biblical Resolution of Church Conflict
Ken Sande wisely observes, “Overlooking [an offense] is not a passive process in which you simply remain silent for the moment but file away the offense for later use against someone.” Overlooking a wrong done is not as simple as a one time ‘forgive and forget.’
That is actually a form of denial that can easily lead to brooding over the offense and building up internal bitterness and resentment that will eventually explode in anger. Instead, overlooking is an active process that is inspired by God’s mercy through the gospel. To truly overlook an offense means to deliberately decide not to talk about it, dwell on it, or let it grow into pent-up bitterness. If you cannot let go of an offense in this way, if it is too serious to overlook, or if it continues as part of a pattern in the other person’s life, then you will need to go and talk to the other person about it in a loving and constructive manner [seeking reconciliation].

Charles Spurgeon tells his students:
There is a world of idle chit-chat abroad, and he who takes note of it will have enough to do. He will find that even those who live with him are not always singing his praises, and that when he has displeased his most faithful servants they have, in the heat of the moment, spoken fierce words which it would be better for him not to have heard.

Rather than growing angry and causing contentions with those who speak such harmful words, Spurgeon reminds Christians, “you also have talked idly and angrily in your day, and would even now be in an awkward position if you were called to account for every word that you have spoken, even about your dearest friends.” He exhorts leaders therefore, “Let the creatures buzz, and do not even hear them, unless indeed they buzz so much concerning one person that the matter threatens to be serious; then it will be well to bring them to book and talk in sober earnestness to them.”
The reconciliation model of church conflict, whether personal or corporate, is the grounds upon which Matthew 18:15-18 must be interpreted. The church has nothing to do with judging those outside of the Christian community. It does, however, have every right and the obligation to “judge those who are within the church,” and to remove those who refuse to repent of sin (1 Corinthians 5:12-13, NASB). David Neff of Christianity Today notes,
In economic terms, high-intensity religion demands a high price. But… people will pay a high price to obtain a product of high value. And high-demand evangelical religion indeed offers great value: transformed lives, support and motivation for moral reform, a deep sense of connection to a community of believers, intimacy with God, and ultimately, salvation.

Practicing church discipline as outlined in Matthew 18 requires humble assertiveness. When an offense is heinous or habitual, conflict is necessary for the good of the church, both local and universal, and for the individuals who make up the church (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:25-26). The purpose of the steps of discipline is always to plea in love for reconciliation (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:20-21). The conflict incurred by church discipline is embraced in hopes of bringing a priceless reconciliation to the Christian community. It may even lead to the repentance that leads to salvation—only God knows the true state of a person’s heart. James, the brother of Christ exhorts us, “If any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20, NASB).
Conflict must be dealt with biblically. A leader in the church, and anyone who desires to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, must confront conflict—whether personal conflict in the war on sin (cf. Luke 9:23-24) or communal conflict in the church. Conflict is a part of life in this fallen world, making it imperative for a Christian to know how to approach conflict from a gospel perspective—one that seeks reconciliation for the unity of the church and the furtherance of the kingdom of God. The Christian should not fear conflict but rather should confront it and endeavor to resolve it under the lordship of Jesus Christ to the glory of God.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Gangel, Kenneth O. and Samuel L. Canine. Communication and Conflict Management: In Churches and Christian Organizations. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992.

Halverstadt, Hugh F. Managing Church Conflict. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991.

Huttenlocker, Keith. Conflict and Caring: Preventing, Managing and Resolving Conflict in the Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1988.

MacArthur, John. The Book on Leadership. Nelson Publishers, 2004.

Sande, Ken. The Peace Maker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004.

Shawchuck, Norman. How to Manage Conflict in the Church: Understanding & Managing Conflict. Vol. 1. Spiritual Growth Resources, 1983.

Spurgeon, Charles H. Lectures to My Students. Complete & Unabridged ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954.

Van Yperen, Jim. Making Peace: A Guide to OVERCOMING Church Conflict. Moody, 2002.

Articles

Dobbins, Richard D. “Managing Church Conflict Creatively: Part 1.” Enrichment Journal. (2004) [journal online] Accessed 28, September 2005. Available from http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/199802/086_managing_conflict_1.cfm; Internet.

Dobbins, Richard D. “Managing Church Conflict Creatively: Part 2.” Enrichment Journal. (2004) [journal online] Accessed 28, September 2005. Available from http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/199803/098_managingconflict_2.cfm.

Neff, David. “Healing the Body of Christ: Church Discipline is as much about God as it is about Erring Believers.” Christianity Today. (August 2005):35-36.

Reed, Eric. “Leadership Surveys Church Conflict.” Leadership Journal. 25 (Fall 2004): 25-26
Sande, Ken, Rene Schlaepfer, and Jim Van Yperen. “Keeping Conflict Healthy.” Leadership Journal. 25 (Fall 2004): 20-24, 27.