Growing Your Church Through Conflict

1. Growing Your Church Through Conflict Source: Elmer Towns

2. Fairy Tale Church Growth? • Church growth guarantees conflict within the church body. • folding in new people • sanctification gap • been here/come here • growing into new sizes

3. Seven Kinds of Conflict in a Growing Church • The goal is not to eliminate conflict but to • do it well • grow from it • move on beyond it to task at hand • Diagnosing which of seven types of conflict in your church can help you detoxify and grow from it

4. 1. Territorial Conflicts • More than one person or group wants the same responsibility • Turf battles over “who has say?”

5. 2. Border conflicts • Occurs when people do ministry that is perceived to belong to others • Boundary issues

6. 3. Resource conflicts • Occur when two or more groups within the church use the same resources • many growing churches design new buildings for multi-purpose use • ie. SS on Sunday, Scouts on Monday

7. 4. “Ethnic” conflicts • Not simply in racial terms, but also generational values, been here vs. come here • dress codes • quiet vs. loud • sanctification gap

8. 5. Influence conflicts • As new leaders emerge in a growing church, the once-dominant leader’s influence changes • as the leadership pool gets diluted and rearranged

9. 6. Ideological conflicts • New people coming into a church bring a sense of what is right with them; this may or may not conform with the values of the organization they joined

10. 7. Personality conflicts • Everyone has a “button” • As a church grows, the more likely we’ll encounter somebody who knows just how to push it • Also, the more deeply we know and are known, the more this happens

11. 4 Principles of Resolving Conflict in the Growing Church • Successfully navigating conflict resolution into reconciliation is a prerequisite for ongoing growth • God will not entrust to us new assignments until we complete existing assignments

12. 1. Collect accurate data. • Three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth • Sifting through various accounts • Guard against gossip

13. 2. Treat each member in the conflict fairly. • Win-lose solutions sacrifice long-term relationships for short-term quiet • Those who lose unfairly go underground with their dissent

14. 3. Maintain mutual respect. • Conflict related to issues is manageable; conflict related to personalities gets out of control • Jesus did not attack individual leaders in confrontational situations • Matthew 18

15. 4. Attempt to find consensus decisions. • What may not be your best solution may be the best action for the church at this point in its experience • Blackaby on 97-3 vs. 55-45

16. Acts 6:7 • When dispute arose in early church and threatened growth, apostles led effective conflict resolution • Result: “a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith”

17. Summary • When growing churches deal with internal strife in a godly manner, they are able to look outward again toward the Great Commission!

18. Growing Your Church Through Conflict Dr. John P. Chandler The Ray and Ann Spence Network for Congregational Leadership www.rasnet.org Copy right John Chandler, 2000