May 19, 1999

Forum focuses on relationships
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___IRVING--Relationships, not issues, are the key to reconciliation, a mediation expert told about 40 pastors participating in the Texas Baptist "reconciliation forum."
___"Every conflict has at least two levels--issues and relationships," said Blake Coffee, a San Antonio attorney who specializes in conflict mediation and works with churches.
___"Our tendency is to think the issues are what the conflict is all about, and relationships take a back seat," added Coffee, a member of First Baptist Church in San Antonio.
___The forum is an outgrowth of a "reconciliation movement" that began with a handful of Houston-area pastors last year. Disturbed by two decades of theological/political controversy that has divided the Southern Baptist and Texas Baptist conventions, the bipartisan group began meeting for discussion and prayer.
___Those meetings have grown to include a statewide reconciliation convocation, a series of regional discussions and creation of the pastors' leadership forum, which has met twice.
___"The perception across the state is that this group is trying to resolve the issues" that have divided Southern and Texas Baptists, Coffee told the forum, which met at First Baptist Church in Irving.
___"But I don't have enough information about the issues. Everything the Lord has given

"What's tearing God up are relationships that do not honor the Lord."

me is about relationships. The most important function this movement may play is leadership in reconciling relationships."
___The conflict that divided the Baptist denomination in recent years is not much different from conflict that splits churches, observed Coffee, who regularly meets with severely fragmented congregations. "Most conflict in churches isn't about issues, but about conflicted relationships," he added.
___"I have not seen a conflicted congregation that is conflicted seriously--churchwide--over denominational issues," he reported. "The churches are fighting over other equally petty things--music, where to put the pulpit on Sunday nights, what kind of Sunday school literature to use.
___"What's tearing God up are relationships that do not honor the Lord."
___Isolating conflict into issues causes churches and conventions to miss the point of the conflict, Coffee warned.
___"Issues in the body of Christ are like waves across the seashore: You always know there's going to be another one," he explained. "The solution must lie in how we address the issues that come along."
___Whether it takes place in a congregation or a convention, "unity is not about agreeing all the time," Coffee insisted. "That would be uniformity. The body of Christ always will be about diversity. Our diversity got us through a lot of hard years in our denomination."
___Unity develops when Christian believers recognize Jesus is the only head of the church, he said. "We all say we understand it, but we don't act like it," he acknowledged.
___Unity involves "our relationship with Christ both through personal prayer and interpersonal relationships within the body of believers," he added.
___Unity also involves the Holy Spirit, "through whom we relate to one another," he pointed out. "It is our lavishing the fruit of that Spirit on the Christ in one another.
___"Concerning doctrine, (unity) means sharing common convictions about the most basic doctrines and, at the same time, creating an atmosphere for growth together despite disagreement about the less basic doctrines."
___Unity provides the framework for handling conflict, Coffee stressed.
___"Unity is a framework from which to deal with whatever conflict arises," he said. "Conflict almost never is good or bad in itself. What makes it good or bad is how we respond to it."
___Coffee spent about five hours with the pastors, teaching his new book, "Five Principles of Unity," which recently was published by the Texas Baptist Leadership Center.
___Those principles are:
___The Spirit. "There is only one head of the church, and he is in us all."
__ The enemy. "There is only one enemy of the church (Satan), and he hates unity in the body of Christ."
__ Perception. "I have responsibility for how others perceive me."
__Accountability. "We should love one another enough to confront and restore."
__Focus. "My focus should be on Christ."

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