I don't like conflict. In fact, I struggle significantly in dealing
with conflict. Mainly because I hate anger. When people get angry I
withdraw. Some people think of anger as a way to motivate others to
perform better. This doesn't work with me. If you want me to shut down
- get angry at me. Anyways, all this means that it is a struggle for me
to enter into conflict because people get angry during conflict, yet I
see conflict as an essential and healthy part of being a Christian and
part of a Church Family.
Oftentimes we leave churches when conflict arises. We are
uninterested in dealing with the pain and discord that comes from
disagreements about worship music, anger over differing parenting
styles, differences in theology, or arguments over who gets to use what
portion of the facilities and when. We want to find a better church -
and end up hopping from church to church for the rest of our lives. I
think, however, that church is supposed to be different. Not that we
have to find the most dysfunctional church that we can, but rather that
once we become committed to a church, once become a party of its "local
body" we understand that it takes significant reasons for us to
withdraw from this body and insert ourselves into another.
When we have arguments and disagreements in the church we can respond in one of three ways:
- We can remain silent and allow other's to decide on practical and theological issues.
- We can withdraw from the church and find another group that better agrees with us.
- We can dialogue and debate the issues, working through the mire of relating with people of different worldviews.
In most circumstances, I think it is the third that God has called
us to practice. Painful, but effective. Through conflict we learn many
lessons that we perhaps would not learn if we continue to avoid
conflict such as:
- Our response to conflict and how to modify it to better love others.
- Learning to enter into dialogue with others rather than shouting matches.
- Evaluating our own belief systems and modifying them as necessary.
As Americans, especially, we love our independence, but I believe
that the Christian who walks into a room and reads his Bible without
entering into communion with his fellow believers will eventually be
led astray. He deceives himself into thinking that he is capable of
understanding all that God has spoken, that God has not led other's and
taught other's what we have not been taught. Kyle Strobel in his
excellent book Metamorpha suggests that there are three aspects of the
Christian life and that we must emphasize all three rather than any
one. Namely, Scripture (the Word of God), the Holy Spirit (the presence
of God), and the Christian Community (the body of God [Jesus]).