conflict

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7 Ways to Fight Well

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7 Ways to Fight Well

We all have conflict in our lives. Have you ever slammed a door or punched a wall? Have you ever hung up on someone? Have you ever sent off an email or a text with the jab of an angry finger?

We walk through conflict every day: we have disagreements with our spouses, with our parents, with our children, with our co-workers, and with our neighbors. But how do we navigate conflict and come out the other side in one piece? How do we not become the worst version of ourselves in the midst of conflict? What if conflict actually provided an opportunity for us to grow as people, but also to glorify God?

There’s a passage in the Bible that shows just how well conflict can go when we respond out of humility instead of pride.

There’s a massive conflict that is brewing in the early church that has the possibility of destroying the church.

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7 Ways to Fight Poorly

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7 Ways to Fight Poorly

If you have breath, you are the proud owner of conflict.

It lurks around every corner of our days.

I wake up first in our home. I get dressed and start the coffee. I wake up Angel and our two teenage kids. The other day I kissed my daughter, “good morning, sweetie, it’s time to wake up.” “No, it isn’t!” she responded, pulling her covers over her head. My first whiff of conflict.

I go back downstairs and work on breakfast. At 6:50 everyone is supposed to be gathered around the table. Usually only one of the three is there. I would tell you who, but you know, conflict. It lurks again.

Eventually we are all around the table. We do our family devotions, but now they’re a little compressed and maybe one of the kids isn’t that engaged. Conflict sneaks its head in again.

We’re off to school, but there was a lunch forgotten at home, and so we’re circling back. Now we’re late. Frustration in my heart tells me conflict is all too near.

And now the two slowest drivers in Northwest Tucson have decided to drive side by side in front of me Parcheesi style, five miles below the speed limit. Conflict!

And now I’m pretty sure the lights are in on the conspiracy. One light turns red and there isn’t even anyone at the intersection. Seriously? In 2019, our traffic signals aren’t intelligent enough to catch that? Conflict, code red.

The kids are dropped off and now I’m headed to work. I pull in and head to the fridge to drop off my lunch. Seriously? Has anyone removed his lunch in the past month from this thing? More conflict?!

I look over to the office sink: is this just a holding bay for dirty dishes? Do we not use the cabinet anymore? Conflict!

I haven’t even reached my office door and conflict has reared its ugly head no less than eight times. And I’m not even mentioning the email I saw with the subject line that indicates my first email of the day is going to put my heart in knots.

Sound anything like your day?

How in the world can we navigate all of this conflict? The answer to that question is found in James 1:19, where James says, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.       Three Predictors of Porn Use: Jay Stringer explains, "Perhaps you’ve found yourself not able to turn off your allure to porn. If so, a far more beneficial approach to recovery than combating lust is to focus on the themes that drive and necessitate your use of pornography. Until these themes are transformed, you will find yourself in the same, pernicious cycle of pornography use."

2.       How to Heal the Damage Caused by Family Conflict: Mark Gregston wisely reflects, " Not following up on hurtful actions of confrontations to either correct the mistakes you’ve made or affirm the relationship is what allows conflict to cause damage to your relationship with your child.   Remember that you’re not only resolving issues that you have with your child, but, more importantly you are setting the example of conflict resolution and teaching your child how to admit fault, assume a position of humility, and ask for forgiveness for any wrongdoing; all characteristics in a person’s life that are more caught than taught."

3.       5 Honest Struggles Church Leaders Don't Want to Admit: Carey Nieuwhof with a good reminder of the lies leaders can easily get entrapped by, "Greater faithfulness should result in greater impact in ministry. Pursue God, and pursue a great mission. Both are critical. But God doesn’t reward the most faithful with the best results."

4.       The Best Preacher in the World: David Murray says, " Every church needs two preachers. We need a human preacher, one who is visible, audible, tangible. But we also need a divine preacher, one that is invisible, inaudible, and intangible. I’m speaking of the Holy Spirit, without whom the work of the human preacher is in vain."

5.       Girl Scout Marketing Meeting: Jon Crist will have you laughing at the silliness of the Girl Scout's marketing plan.

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Keep Giving Thanks

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Keep Giving Thanks

Before Thanksgiving, my aunt’s rotary club hosted a speaker from the University of Arizona Center on Conflict Resolution who presented tips on how to navigate a Thanksgiving conversation that avoids conflict. What a low bar we’ve set for ourselves: our definition of success is simply escaping a holiday gathering without offending someone.  Thanksgiving ought to come not from that superficial posture, but from a heart that is engaged and transparent.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Not a “glad-I-survived-that” kind of Thanksgiving, but one that truly allowed you to stop and cultivate gratitude in your heart.

Before we move on to Christmas shopping and parties, I want us to stop and pause just a bit longer and consider how we can nurture a heart of thankfulness.

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6 Ways a Leader Needs to Respond to a Departing Congregant

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6 Ways a Leader Needs to Respond to a Departing Congregant

I sat across the room from the couple, trying to slow down my mind and open my heart to the criticism they were leveling at me. They had been offended by my sermon and had reacted on Facebook, indicating they were leaving the church. I reached out privately and asked if we could meet to talk. They agreed to do so. When we met, he was relatively calm, but she was very upset and I knew that I needed to hold my own emotions in check to be able to listen to the heart of what she was saying and respond in love, not hurt. As I had prayed to prepare for the meeting I genuinely didn’t think I was going to be able to ask for forgiveness for anything as I didn’t think I had done anything wrong. But in the midst of the meeting God opened my heart to see an area of blindness. I was able to ask and receive their forgiveness for the way this blind spot had injured them. I then asked if they would be willing to ask for forgiveness for their slander. They were willing to do so and I forgave them.

These are not the meetings that you think about when you sign up to be a pastor or leader, but there are few moments more important in your ministry than these tense conversations.

Two friends have responded to my series on leaving and finding a church with questions about a pastor’s responsibility in the midst of church departures. It’s a fair and helpful question. Over the course of this series I’ve reflected on a congregant’s responsibility, but pastors and leaders bear a responsibility to help congregants navigate departures well.

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6 Things to Do Before You Leave Your Church

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6 Things to Do Before You Leave Your Church

So, you’ve decided to leave your church: you’re moving, or you’ve come to a doctrinal impasse, or there has been conflict that you’ve tried to navigate, but the church has been unwilling to biblically walk through a peacemaking process to bring about reconciliation.

As a pastor, every person who leaves the church hurts. As a pastor of ten years, there have been hundreds that have left the churches I’ve served at and I can only think of a very small handful that I was glad to see go. Every goodbye is painful.

But, as we discussed last week, there are times to say goodbye (although a lot fewer than we are encultured to believe). When you say goodbye, say goodbye well. Sadly, in today’s culture, most of us say goodbye very poorly (usually by not saying goodbye at all, just slipping away). We’re called to say goodbye in a harder, but better, way.

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