What’s the Goal of Conflict Resolution?

People have conflicts. Groups of people have conflicts. Nations have conflicts. It should be no surprise that there is conflict in churches. And conflict occurs among church leaders.

But wait! If Jesus prayed for our unity, and our leaders are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and if our leaders love Jesus, are spiritually mature, and not in sin, how could there be conflict?

Churches have conflicted all the time. My thesis for this article is that conflict, in and of itself, is not the problem. The problem isn’t that we have conflicts, it’s that we don’t handle the conflicts we have well.

There are enough conflicts in our family of churches to keep me pretty busy most all the time. Some are simple, some are more complex, some have been disastrous. But each time I have been asked to intervene within a conflict, I have been asked to help with conflict resolution. But I’m not sure we all mean the same thing by “conflict resolution” – and that’s why it’s something to talk about.

Scripture is filled with accounts of conflict. From Adam and Eve’s conflict with God, to conflict between Cain and Abel, to the many conflicts among the wandering Jews in the time of Moses, to Paul’s conflict with Barnabas about John Mark’s fitness for missionary duty, to the early church’s conflict between Gentile believers and the Judaizers, to conflict between Paul and Peter about hypocrisy in his relationships with Jews and Gentiles, scripture is filled with conflicts.

A church board that has internal conflict that festers or is poorly resolved can be an existential threat to the church. We are naïve to believe that we can prevent conflicts – we can only respond to them (notice I did not write “react” – quick reactions don’t work).

Typically, the person or persons inviting me into a conflict between church leaders demonstrates one of three main desired end states from my consultation. They want to win, they want to find a magic decision they all agree with, or they just want it to go away.

I WANT TO WIN!

It’s usually easy to figure out if the desire is to win. The person blames the other party or parties for the problem. Occasionally there is an admission that they may have contributed a somewhat benign “something” to the problem, but it is obvious that they believe the other is to blame and that the other needs to be convinced that he or they are wrong.

A MAGIC SOLUTION

The desire for a magic solution can be a temptation for a consultant. The church’s leaders ask him or her to come in and tell them what they need to do. It assumes, perhaps subconsciously, that there is a solution out there that someone knows. But church conflict seldom has a simple solution. Oftentimes conflict is rooted in years and even decades of dysfunction or cultural issues within the team and/or church. The consultant can be tempted to play the hero by telling them “the answer” without doing the work of having those in conflict figure out the answer. The former may solve the presenting issue but does nothing for the underlying issues – conflict will soon come back. The latter takes time, and sometimes the consultant or those in conflict are unwilling to do the hard work of resolving the conflict.

CAN YOU MAKE IT GO AWAY?

The “just make it go away” has similarities to the magic solution folk with a big exception – they just want the conflict to stop. How to do that? Resignations work. So does never talking about that topic again. Avoiding one another is another tactic often used. The narcissistic leader may initiate “ghosting” or “gaslighting” maneuvers. These all make the presenting issue go away (at least for some of those involved), but it ends up with long-term hurt and the likelihood of future conflict eruptions.

REACHING AN UNDERSTANDING

There is a fourth conflict resolution option – it’s called “reaching an understanding.” And it’s hard. Yet when we do it, the conflict gets resolved and the underlying issues get resolved. But it only works if everyone involved wants it to. The “win at all costs” leader cannot resolve conflict – he/she can only exacerbate it and/or eliminate the competition. Don’t be that guy – and don’t put him on your team.

The goal of church leaders is to discern the wisdom and will of God in the matter, not to win an argument. In a conflict that one must win, the only option is to win, and the tool of choice is the ultimatum. Ultimatums are not always presented as such – we word things more nicely such as, “I don’t think I can continue serving if we don’t do what I think we should do.” This is decision making in the realm of kings rather than teammates in the ministry of leadership.

The tool used in conflict resolution is understanding – mutual understanding. It is in knowing the other’s points as well as my own. It is humbly probing one another’s thoughts on the matter to gain clarity with the goal of finding points of agreement as well as points that require further discussion to understand. It is ensuring that our conflict is over ideas and is never allowed to become personal.

Understanding – we cannot resolve that which we do not understand. Analyze the most recent conflict you faced.

• What did you do?
• What was your initial preference (win, magic solution, ignore, or understand?)
• Do you have plan for resolution? What is it?

Let us know if we can help and how your conversation goes. Contact Bob Osborne by e-mail at bob.osborne@efca.org. 

This is one of a series of articles intended to facilitate and guide church leaders’ conversations about significant issues that often are not talked about among pastors, boards, and church leadership teams. Visit the EFCA West website to see prior Something to Talk About articles.