June 10, 2002
Consultant urges churches to 'fight fair' for health
___By Leslie Scanlon
___Religion News Service
___LOUISVILLE, Ky. (RNS)--Lin Schussler-Williams remembers hearing a story about a congregation--a "nice church," she was told--that had a history of going out and starting new congregations.
___"About every 30 years, that church did what their denomination called 'seeding' a new church," said Schussler-Williams, a consultant who helps congregations locked in disputes. "It wasn't in fact seeding a new church. It was about every 30 years, the conflict got so bad, they split."
___In reality, church is not the place most people go wanting to fight.
___But it's also true that religious congregations aren't immune from conflict. Disputes break out over everything from important doctrinal matters to whether the painting that's been hanging in the hallway for the past 30 years can ever be taken down.
___Pastors working in their first jobs say conflicts in the congregation are one of the most difficult professional challenges they face. And during a recent workshop on managing conflict, a seminary professor said the goal should be not to stop disagreements in congregations, but to get the people involved to fight fair.
___Hugh Halverstadt, a professor of ministry at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, said he started his career as a Presbyterian minister thinking, "I hate conflict."
___But he quickly learned, at his first parish in Alabama, about 60 miles north of Selma in the early 1960s, that conflict wasn't to be escaped.
___"All hell broke out, and I was baptized in that moment into understanding that conflict is part of the life and the work of the church," Halverstadt said in the seminar at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
___Some at the workshop, such as Schussler-Williams, have taken training in conflict mediation--and have learned conflicts in congregations often are like disputes within families, where people may not like each other but have to learn to live in the same house.
___And some raised the idea that conflict, while painful, may be a push in the right direction--from the tumult can sometimes come new realizations and growth.
___Christian Boyd, pastor of Jeffersontown Presbyterian Church in Louisville, is a redevelopment pastor who tries to think of conflict not as battle, but as a new beginning.
___"Redevelopment is synonymous with change," Boyd said. "Whenever there's change, there's going to be conflict."
___Boyd's congregation, like many in the United States, is small, mostly gray-haired, and full of questions about the future.
___"It's human nature that as you get older, you want to hold on to something you know and you're comfortable with and that gives you comfort," Boyd said. "When the world is changing around you, you don't want your church to change."
___Elsewhere, disputes have broken out over traditional hymns versus praise music, and one speaker said he has seen deacons stop speaking to each other "because of the brand of iced tea they're using."
___Often, congregations don't ask for help soon enough but wait until the conflict has moved way past grumbling--sometimes to the point of physical threats.
___They may not know who to call for help, said Mark McDaniel, a pastor of Community Presbyterian Church of Leavenworth, Ind., who works with the conflict response team of his presbytery, a regional body in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
___But there's also "the idea that Christians don't fight. If you're arguing and fighting, you're not good Christians."
___So the fight is kept quiet, covered over. Some of the disputes involve whole families--the disagreement may have more to do with those relationships than the church--"and some of these things go on for generations," McDaniel said.
___"Does it ever reach a point where it's healthier to get a divorce?" asked one woman at the workshop.
___"I don't mean to say don't ever leave," Halverstadt replied. But "don't leave too soon. And don't leave as a victim" because chances are that everyone involved has contributed to the problem.
___Duke University recently released the first findings of a major research project on pastoral leadership undertaken with funding from the Lilly Endowment.
___Among its many findings, the survey reported that ministers find significant levels of conflict in their congregations. Two-thirds of those surveyed reported some level of conflict in their congregations over the past two years, and one in five reported the conflict was "significant" or "major" and sometimes intense enough that people did leave the congregation over it.
___The research found that congregations fought about different kinds of issues than those that are dividing the denominations. While many denominations are battling over things such as homosexuality, the ordination of women or doctrinal debates, many congregations disagreed about matters such as the pastor's leadership style or relationships among people in the church, priorities for spending money, or changes in the style of music during worship.
___Often, what's on the surface "is not what it's really about," said David Sawyer, director of graduate studies and continuing and lay education at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Underneath are deeper conflicts over power and control and trust and belief, he said.
___Some people assume the role of leaders in the congregation is to avoid conflict altogether. But Halverstadt argues the goal ought not to be tranquility and harmony--the lack of any disputes--but the idea of "shalom," of wholeness, of a community of faith that is interdependent and willing to fairly and honestly address differences.
___The way to handle conflict, he said, is not for one or two people at the top to try to calm everything down by themselves--that's a recipe for stress and usually won't work, he said--but to try to mobilize those who are interested in the well-being of the congregation, to insist that if the congregation is going to fight, it's going to use rules of fair fighting.
___Among those rules, Halverstadt said, are being assertive rather than aggressive; showing respect; being accountable for one's actions and keeping the larger good in mind. Things not allowed are name-calling, gossip, interrupting, personal attacks and the certainty that God's on your side only.
___Fair fighting isn't easy, either. But when a church can come through conflict with a measure of grace, the process can bring healing and even new growth, Halverstadt said.
___"Every congregation that I've had that has ended up fighting fair has been totally revitalized."
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