'Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart. Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation.' Proverbs 3:3-4
There were times in the past, as a pastor, when I really thought that I had to be rough, tough and demanding. I felt people in my congregation were acting wrongly and I had to set them straight and do so directly.
Or, I felt that one of my staff was coming under unfair attack and that it was my place to defend them--by all means necessary.
None of those motivations were wrong, I was trying to protect the sheep from error or my staff from getting hurt. What I lost in the moment was the admonition to never let "kindness leave you." I have to admit, my reaction, at times, was less than kind. If we, as pastors, are going to have favor with people, as well as with God, we need to watch our reaction. There are, literally, thousands of people, we all have run into them, who have been hurt by spiritual leaders who are controlling, demanding and unkind.
This is not to say that keeping people happy is our utmost goal. It is, most decidedly, NOT! In fact, the Bible warns us against being a "man fearer". If we have to choose between pleasing God and pleasing people, choose God every time.
In fact, if we are doing our jobs right, conflict is inevitable. The question is, how do we handle disagreements in a Godly way? Here are some things to keep in mind when you go to deal with that latest congregational conflict:
- Enter the conversation with a heart of pre-forgiveness. We don't have to wait for someone to apologize before we forgive. We can enter the interaction with an attitude of grace and having already laid down the personal part of the offense. It is so much easier to love if you have already forgiven someone.
- Start with love and faithfulness, not the issue. Lay the relational foundation first; "Whatever happens in this conversation, I, first of all, love you and want our relationship to be good. That is more important than this disagreement." It is easy to let the issue become THE issue and have it overrun long standing commitments to covenantal love as brothers and sisters.
- Listen, listen and listen some more. Our tendency is to listen while we work to form a response in our own minds. As a result, we may not be fully attentive. We tend to think we know what the other person is trying to say even before they have formed the words. It may be very hard, at the moment someone is confronting us in a angry way, to say the words (and really mean them) "is there more?" How powerful, though, if we can say it. In fact, try asking it twice. When you are sure that have said all they have to say, ask, one more time, "is there more?"
- Identify with their feeling. There is little as powerful as saying, "I think if I were you and I had experienced what you went through, I would feel pretty upset too." There may be great justifications for what happened. We might have a wonderful explanation to offer but first, we must let them know we understand the feeling.
- Admit where you are wrong. We may feel like what we did wrong is only 1% of the problem. Admit that part, however small before you ask them to consider their own faults.
- Ask if you can share your own perspective. It is amazing how much more willing others are to listen when they feel like they have been listened to. We now have the chance to share simply, without accusation, from our hearts how we have perceived the situation.
- Try to discover what will help. Love means looking for THEIR highest good. We can offer solutions that may not solve everything, they seldom do, but lets the other person know that we heard them and care about them. Ask, "would it help if?" as a way to begin working for a solution.
Bottom line: not every conflict is resolvable--that is why Paul said, "AS MUCH AS IT LIES WITHIN YOU live at peace with all men." The key is, when faced with someone who is upset, even unfairly, still Never let loyalty and kindness leave you! Tie them around your neck as a reminder.
Write them deep within your heart. And let us allow our response to come from that perspective.
