Category Archives: Church Conflict

Some people cannot be reasoned with. Don’t try.

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A few millennia ago, Solomon said, “Do not speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.”

My wife was in the left turn lane of a busy boulevard in our community, a suburb of New Orleans. A driver who insisted on maneuvering his car across five lanes of traffic–he was crossing the street!–managed to hit her car on the side, just behind the right front tire. Then, he had the audacity to sue her, saying she had hit him.

In court, the judge noted our photos showing the front of the man’s car smashed and the side of my wife’s car dented.

“Mr. Davis,” the judge said, “Don’t you mean you hit her car?”

“Oh, no sir, judge. She hit me.”

Even when the magistrate pointed out that for this to occur, her car would have had to be moving sideways, the man kept insisting that she had hit him.

The case was thrown out.

There’s more to this.

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Blindsided by opposition. Welcome to the ministry, pastor.

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(In our experience, most of the Lord’s people are wonderful and most of His churches are filled with sincere and godly workers. But once in a while, pastors come upon sick churches led by difficult people who seem to delight in controlling their ministers. When they find themselves unable to do this, they attack. Pity the poor unsuspecting preacher and his family. What follows is written just for them.)

“But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues….” (Matthew 10:17)

You and your wife–please adjust gender references herein as your situation demands–went into the ministry with heads high, hearts aglow, and eyes wide open, idealism firmly tucked under your arm, vision clear and focus solid.

As newly minted ambassadors for Christ, the two of you were ready to do battle with the world, eager to serve the saints, and glad to impart the joyful news of the gospel.

Ministry was going to be great and noble and even blessed.

That’s what you thought.

You expected the work to be hard, the hours long, and the needs great.

What you did not expect was to be blindsided by members of your own church leadership–to be slandered by people you counted on as friends when you took a courageous position, criticized for something you did well, even lied about.

You knew there would be vicious people “in the world,” outsiders who do not believe in God, cannot discern spiritual things, and will not subject themselves to moral absolutes.

You were ready for that.

What caught you completely off guard was to find members of that sweet pastor search committee which brought you to this town with glowing recommendations and high hopes now turning on you, accusing you of misrepresenting yourself to them, blaming you for the ills inside their church family that were present long before you became their shepherd.

Some you loved best are now leaving your church, saying unkind things about you and your family.

You are stunned, puzzled, frightened, and more than a little angry.

Questions bombard you and rob you of sleep.

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It’s all right to let some people leave your church.

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“As a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” (John 6:66)

“They went out from us because they were not of us.” (I John 2:19)

Sometimes the best thing to happen to your church is for a few people to leave.

Not long ago I ministered in a church where a few longtime leaders had just left. From the little I know, these were the ones who had controlled that church for decades, who dominated pastors and drove them away whenever it suited them, and who resisted anything remotely looking like change. The pastor’s greatest surprise was that they had left. He was one happy camper.

My seminary professor used to say, “People measure the effectiveness of a revival by the additions to the church. Sometimes, a better gauge is the subtractions.”

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Choose Your Battles: Why we walk away from some people who need us and even unfriend a few

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When I was in seminary, a prominent Baptist leader speaking in chapel one day made a statement which brought forth a roomful of “amens” but which upon reflection I came to reject as forcefully as though it were pure heresy.

The leader of our worldwide force of missionaries announced, “Wherever there is a need, there is a mission field and the nearest Christian is the missionary.”

That sounds so good on the surface.

On closer inspection, that statement has a fatal flaw.

The principle that I am to meet every need I encounter and respond to every emergency situation that presents itself before me is disastrous. It says anyone with a problem has a claim on a Christian’s time and energy and resources.

Consider what our (ahem) Role Model–all caps–did when facing a long string of needy people waiting for Him to meet their needs–

And in the early morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there.

Simon and his companions hunted for Him, and they found Him, and said to Him, ‘Everyone is looking for you.’ (Can you hear the irritation in their voices? They’re fussing at Jesus for spending time alone praying when He should be back at the house taking care of all those problems.)

But He said to them, ‘Let us go on to the next towns, in order that I may preach there also. For that is what I came out for.'” (Mark 1:35-38)

Jesus walked away from needy people with legitimate requests in order to stay with the Father’s agenda for His life.

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The “church conflict” question that will get you laughed out of church

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“Why do you not rather suffer wrong?” (I Corinthians 6:7)

A dog can whip a polecat, the saying goes, but it’s not worth it.

Some fights you need to walk away from.

We’ve told here of the time in 2004 when a small group of members of a local Baptist church was taking the pastor and trustees to court over what they perceived as breaches of scripture, ethics, and good sense.  As their new associational leader, I was invited to sit in with them one evening and hear the reasons they were taking such serious action. Toward the end of the evening, the leader said, “So, what do you think?”

I said, “I think you should walk away from this. No one is going to win on this thing except the lawyers. Everything about this is wrong and bad.”

He said quietly, “We can’t. It’s gone too far for that now.”

He was wrong. They could have stopped that train in its tracks by a phone call to the lawyers. In doing so, they would have saved a church from going out of existence (within a year, the church “gave” itself away to another church that would take over its indebtedness), saved themselves and the church a ton of money (both sides hired teams of lawyers from high-priced New Orleans firms), and saved the cause of Christ a lot of bad press (the media jumps all over these things).

It’s never too late to back away from a fight.

It’s just hard. And takes more strength than most people can muster.

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When Resolving Conflicts, Try Not To Start New Ones.

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“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

There is no problem-solving section of the Bible.

Sorry if that disappoints you.

What we do find across the New Testament are large servings of healthy food of the spiritual kind, instructions on how to serve God and live well and relate to one another in the close confines of the forever family. Imbedded throughout are insights on resolving collisions between the Lord’s children.

Hold on.

Do you mean to say that from the beginning Jesus expected clashes and collisions within His family? That His disciples would be torn apart by jealousies and competitions and divisions?

Not only did He anticipate such conflicts, He observed them firsthand among the twelve. Here are a couple of instances…

–A disciple said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to hinder him because he was not following us” (Mark 9:38). How modern is that? Our denomination is best; the rest of you are failing God.

Jesus was tolerant of a lot of things, but not this kind of spiritual snobbery.

–“And hearing (that the sons of Zebedee had tried to gain the advantage over the other apostles by asking for the best places in the Kingdom), the ten began to feel indignant with James and John” (Mark 10:41). The genes of competitiveness have been among us from the beginning.  “We shall now give our ranking of the top ten churches in our denomination.” “My church is better than your church.” “We may not be the biggest church in town, but we’re the best.”

Sometimes idealistic Christians want to drop out of church altogether because the congregations they’ve found all have problems of one kind or another. “Whatever happened to New Testament churches?” they ask.

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12 Things Happen When You Get It Right

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But I say to you who hear, love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you…. (Luke 6:27ff)

From time to time, all disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ will have it hard. Things will not go right, someone will falsely accuse you, you will be victimized by those who oppose what you stand for, that sort of thing.

In many countries of the world, the opposition believers face will not be nearly that subtle, but open persecution. In fact, surely a third of the governments of this world are repressive regimes in which a religion hostile to Jesus Christ is in control. Martyrdom for Jesus Christ did not go away with the printing of the New Testament; it’s a common occurrence throughout the world.

In America, the opposition to Christ tends to take quieter forms. A neighbor curses you out over nothing. An atheistic neighbor accuses you of being the problem in your community. Liberal unbelieving critics place you on a par with Islamic terrorists simply for believing the Bible.

They go to court to stop you from buying a piece of property for a church. They erect billboards with the John Lennon line, “Imagine no religions,” and this in a city which was fairly well rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina by Christians.

They hate you. They drop their beer cans on your lawn. They discriminate against your children because they are home-schooled by a Christian mother.

All of these and more.

And what are you to do? You are to love them and bless them, to pray for them and do good acts to them. You are to rejoice when you suffer for Jesus’ sake and to count yourself blessed.  (The biblical teachings for this are found in Matthew 5:43-48, in Luke 6:27-42, and several other places. The Lord has not left us in the dark on this.)

Why? Why should you do this when everything inside you cries out to do unto them as they did to you?

Here are the 12 things that happen when a Christian turns the other cheek and loves the enemy, when he blesses those who curse him, when she prays for those who mistreats her, and when we give to those who would forcibly take what is ours.

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