S1E3: Dealing With Conflict

Hey pastor, hey leader, I'm excited to jump into session three today. We're gonna be looking at the idea of dealing with conflict. If you remember back in last month's session, looking at accountability, the next step in kind of working through relationships, being on a team, and leading your organization is really effectively dealing with conflict. And it's one of those topics that every leader and every organization has to deal with. Now Most of us don't wake up in the morning and go throughout our day thinking, you know, I can't wait to deal with conflict. Most of us typically try to avoid it. And in fact, it's kind of a natural thing for many of us to say, hey, at any and at all costs, we're going to avoid conflict. But the truth of the matter is, conflict is inevitable for any church staff, regardless of your team culture or your team experience. Meaning you can have a great team culture. And you may have had many great team experiences, but conflict is going to be one of those things that you're going to have to deal with from time to time. Now, when you think of individuals and you kind of think of how organizations work, conflict typically comes in because over time people begin to fight for their individual goals rather than the goals of the organization. And as leaders, you and I need to protect and project the vision of the church. It's one of our goals. It's one of the things that we get to do. I know oftentimes if you're a pastor and you're in pastoral ministry, ⁓ we think of Sunday mornings and and being able to share from the word, which is a great opportunity and a great experience as steward. But as we are leading organizations, we have to protect the vision of what God has called us and the church to do. And so as a leader How do you deal with conflict? And how do you deal with conflict and still lead your team effectively? Now, usually around this topic of dealing with conflict, we often think about marriage. I'm sure many of us have taught on marriage, and you know, from time to time we may think about conflict resolution, and we typically associate that concept of dealing with conflict with marriage. And it's a great place to do that. I mean, marriage can bring about conflict, but when you think about larger organizations, we can learn something about conflict from marriages. And in fact, there was a study done by Dr. John Gottman and he looked at 700 couples and he studied studied this seven these 700 couples for over 20 years. Now the research was pretty amazing. In fact, the research could predict within 91% accuracy which couples would get divorced. Now you may be asking yourself, well how and why? How could that ever happen? Well, they observed in this research and in their study how these married couples handled conflict. So effectively, how they handle conflict would determine if they would remain married or get divorced. Now, when we start thinking about conflict and we start thinking about kind of our lives, it's not a matter of if we will face conflict. No, it's it's when, right? It's a matter of when. And in fact, Many of us try to go about our day-to-day lives and we try to avoid it. We don't want to think about, you know, when it's going to happen. We always think about, well, if it's going to happen. But the the truth is that it's going to happen. It's going to happen in your organization if it hasn't happened already. It's going to happen between you and staff members that report to you. It's going to happen between you and people in the congregation. It's just going to happen because it's just part of life. And so when you think about kind of where we're going for today. And where we're going to be spending our time in in this study. ⁓ every team, every team that you're a part of, ⁓ and every team that I'm a part of, it's filled with flawed people. We're flawed people, but a healthy team deals with conflict in a healthy way. And there are unhealthy ways to deal with conflict, but when we think about you know, flawed people coming together to be a part, a move of something like the church, healthy teams deal with conflict in a healthy way. Now, the Bible As we all know, is filled with stories about flawed people. In fact, this is the beautiful thing about the the Bible and the gospel when you start thinking about redemption through Christ Jesus, we can often point back to the Bible and look to the fact there are flawed people who, through an encounter with Christ, have now kind of found an understanding and just found out how bad they were and now have forgiveness of their sins and kind of like their future set before them. But again, the Bible is filled with those stories of flawed people. And if we Look specifically at a block of scripture here that I want to look at, which is going to be in Acts chapter 15, starting in verse 36 and going through 41, we see a story here. And it's a pretty amazing story. We see a story about Paul Barnabas. And in this story, we we can kind of gather a couple things before we start digging into the scripture, but we can note that they were part of the same team. That even though they were on the same team, they're going to experience some sort of conflict, right? There's going to be conflict in this team. We can see that Paul Barnabas that they had done strategic ministry together. They've done some great things, but even though they had done great things, there were going to be some sort of conflict that they were going to have to work through. And then we're also going to see that in this scripture for you and I to be able to look at and study and then kind of figure out how to model this and apply this to our life, it's a documented disagreement. So, with that said, looking at verse 36 in Acts chapter 15, it says, Then After some days Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. So God pressed upon Bal Paul and Barnabas to go back and to visit the brethren every city where they had previously preached. And it says in verse 37, Now Barnabas was determined to take with him John called Mark. Now if you recall John Mark left this missional team over a disagreement back in Acts chapter 13. You can go back and look at that. But now Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them. And it says in verse 38, it says, But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. So here we got our disagreement, right? So Paul was not in favor. Of taking John Mark with them. So whatever happened back in Acts chapter 13 made it to where Paul was unwilling to trust and to want to bring along John Mark. Says in verse 39, it says, Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another, and so Barnabas took Mark and sell to Cyprus. So there was a disagreement. Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement, both doing work for the Lord, both trying to advance a kingdom. But now they've got a disagreement. So whether it was some deep personal issue or how it was related, we don't know, but there was a disagreement here. Now, one could argue that Paul Barnabas said, man, maybe they were just kind of acting in the flesh on this issue. Maybe there were some wrongs on both sides. This could have been, you know, kind of more of a personal issue between them. But the truth is when we kind of think about what we can look at here is that, you know, we can love the Lord. You know, because I think they both love the Lord, but we still have to deal with people this side of heaven. And just like Paul Barnabas, when you think about them, like they love the Lord, but they still had to deal with people. Like we're living on in in a fallen world and we're having to deal with each other. And the same is true for you and I, that you and I can love the Lord. And the people that that kind of report to us who are on our teams or we may work with in some direct way, they may love the Lord, but we can still Have to work with each other, which sometimes can bring about difficulty. Now, when we think about continuing on, it says Barnabas took Mark and sell to Cyprus. So again, we see that he took Mark and he and he took off and went to Cyprus. And it says in verse 40, it says, But Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. Now then we so we see them separated here. Now, the observation that I want to make here. Is that we think about Paul Barnabas, they both had incredible hearts to serve the Lord. They had a heart and desire to serve the Lord. But for whatever reason, they were going about it in a little bit different ways. And one of the things I want us to think about is when we think about the cause of Christ, the cause of Jesus Christ and the cause that we've been called to, just like, just like they had been, is greater than any difference or opinion that we might have between us. That even on your teams and maybe people you've had conflict with, that the cause of Christ is the most greatest and most significant thing. And while we may have disagreements, the cause is always greater than the disagreement. It's greater. It's the purpose. It's why you and I are here. And so when you kind of think through this aspect, what would your world look like? What would your ministry look like if you began to shift your focus from being bugged with individuals? From allowing conflict to kind of come in and create discord, from allowing conflict to come in to create disunity, and looking at it for what it is that the enemy can use conflict to sow discord and create confusion. But we all know that the cause of Christ is greater. What he's doing in and through you, in and through your church, in and through your leadership is amazing. But if you and I said as leaders, we were going to focus in and shift our focus to bringing honor and glory to God. And making that our purpose, the cause of Christ, and putting that over our opinions or our disagreements or whatever, what we're gonna see is a little bit of a shift. We're gonna see a shift in the way that God is going to to ⁓ use us and continue to use us in ministry. A quote I want to give you here from Patrick Lincioni says this, he says, Contrary to popular wisdom and behavior, conflict is not a bad thing for a team. In fact, the fear of conflict is almost always a sign of problems. So this is from his book, ⁓ The Advantage. And here, it's a great reminder that conflict isn't a bad thing. Conflict in a marriage isn't a bad thing. It's how you deal with it. And just like that study that we looked at the pre- at the earlier part of our time together points to the fact that the way that we deal with conflict really will dictate how we move forward in relationships. But we can't be afraid of conflict. Because it is something that's necessary to help kind of continue to move things forward. And he says again, and in fact, the fear of conflict is always a sign of problems. We can't be afraid of it. We can't be afraid of having conflict on our teams. And as leaders, we need to expect that's just going to be part of the natural process in which God works in our lives. So you may be asking yourself, well, what are some ways that you can have healthy conflict on your team? And I've got some ideas and some thoughts here. I want to share with you. We've got six of them that I want to go over. But number one, if you want to think about how to have healthy conflict on your team, number one, be willing to disagree with each other. It's okay to disagree. You may like it this way, that person may like it that way. That's okay. The last thing you want on your staff is everyone to just simply agree with you. You don't want a bunch of yes people. In fact, I think God can bring collaboration and He can bring in some spirited disagreements. To help put us on the right page that he's on. And I think for you and I, we have to be willing to disagree with others, and we have to be willing to accept disagreement from others towards ideas and thoughts that we have. It's not necessarily a bad thing. We can't be fearful of it. Again, conflict is a good thing and it's healthy for relationships, but it's got to be done in a way that's God honoring. Number two, do not fear conflict on your team. I know the last thing you're thinking about is like, I don't mind conflict, but I really don't want it on my team. I don't want the drama. Well, no one likes drama, but we can't be fearful of conflict on our team. In fact, God can use that conflict in a way that ultimately brings him honor and glory. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. Number three, this kind of goes without saying, but I felt like it was worth mentioning. When we do experience conflict with people on our staff, With friends, family, you fill in the blank, whoever, don't resort to personal attacks. We we don't want to to bring it to a place where we're attacking someone's character or nature. In fact, conflict is often one of those things that can that can set up disagreements that can go on for months and years if left unchecked. And for us to be able to do conflict in a way that honors God, we shouldn't attack someone's character. We can have a disagreement over something, but it must be done in a way That doesn't shame someone. It must be done in such a way that again, one of the things that I've heard said in ministry oftentimes is that we want to praise publicly. And if there's something that we need to talk about that isn't as praiseworthy, we can do that privately. And so conflict is one of those things where we can do privately to where we're not putting someone down, we're not shaming someone. Conflict is an opportunity for you and I to be able to meet with someone and to talk with them, to understand their perspective. To share our perspective and prayerfully figure out the way forward. Number four, again, in ways to kind of have healthy conflict on your team, study the word together. I know that's a novel concept, right? I mean, we're church people, so we should be studying the word. But why don't we study the word together and and look at what the word of God says about conflict? You know, as there are scriptures, plenty of scriptures that helps us kind of understand how to resolve conflict between us. Again, if the word of God is kind of the central kind of movement in our life and kind of the place where we stand from, then all conflict should kind of bring us back to the place where we can look at the word of God and realize that it has a place in our lives and our teams. It has a place for us to be able to kind of figure out how to deal with conflict and how to move things forward, especially for our teams. Number five, and this might be, you know, I don't say a foreign concept, but maybe not the top of your list, but for me, I think that we've got to ensure all roles are clear. I've got to know what my role is in the organization, in the ministry. I need to know what my staff's roles are. Oftentimes that helps us avoid conflict. When we know who's doing what and when they're doing it, it helps us to avoid conflict. Oftentimes, when when conflict comes up on staff, it's often because it's there's a lack of clarity, a lack of role clarity. Well, use this time to be able to look at your roles. Look, use this time to be able to look at the roles of your staff and make sure that there is enough clarity to help you and them and all of us avoid conflict. And then finally, deal with it and demonstrate how to move things forward. You're the leader. God has put you in charge of this organization. If you don't deal with conflict, I promise you your staff know that it's there. And if you don't demonstrate how to move things forward, then I think we as leaders are missing opportunity. To be able to steward our staff to help them understand how to work through in a biblical way, in a way that honors God, conflict. Because again, it's healthy to be able to do that. And so I hope and pray that you get to have healthy conflict. And it's again not a matter of, you know, if it'll ever happen, but it's gonna happen if it hasn't happened already. And I pray that this kind of time, our time together is giving you some tools or some thoughts at least to kind of think through on how you might need to work through some some conflict in a healthy way. You may have some some conversations, some hard conversations that you might need to have. Well I would encourage you to to soak those in prayer. I would encourage you to prayerfully consider how you can approach conflict, but do so in a way that honors God and honors the person that you may have that conflict with. Always be approachable. Always let your team know that just like anyone else on this planet, you know, we we we're all sinners We all miss the mark and we're all capable of messing things up, but let us as leaders be the first to kind of demonstrate how to deal with conflict in a healthy way. Hope you have a great time kind of unpacking this for your life, and I pray that God uses it to help you advance the ministry.