I’ve received many calls over the years from leaders in the church about conflict. Small group leaders, elders, key volunteers and staff will call and say, “Frank, my team/group is in complete turmoil.” I’ll often be silent for a minute or two and let them share and then I’ll be quiet for a moment and say… “THAT’S AWESOME!”
Often they’ll be in a state of shock and I’ll explain myself. It’s awesome because it is the perfect opportunity for a healthy confrontation. I don’t love confrontation because it’s fun, I love the end result of confrontation when it is done in a Biblical and loving way.
Galatians 6:1-2 says, “1Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Confrontation is not about getting your way, it is about taking advantage of an opportunity to teach someone how to manage conflict in a Christ-like way. Biblical confrontation can be a part of discipleship. Fortunately for us, Jesus lays out four steps in conflict resolution and some ground rules for a healthy confrontation.
Matthew 18:15-17
15“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
Step 1: Confrontation in Private
In my personal experience over 90% of our conflict can end with step one. There are quite a few things I think we can learn just from this first step. Often I think we want people to come to us because we’re the ones that have been offended. We’ll say, “they’ve hurt me so it’s their fault.” However, Jesus flips our expectations around and basically says that we’ve got it backwards. He’s telling us that if we’ve been hurt it is our responsibility to go to the person that has hurt us and initiate the confrontation.
The other hard part about this first step is keeping it private. I don’t know about you but when I’ve been hurt by someone, I want to tell the world. I’m tempted to gather an army against them. I want to find allies and go on the attack! This is NOT what Jesus expects from me. He’s telling me that I need to keep my trap shut and keep it between the two of us.
16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
Step 2: Confrontation With A Witness
What is the definition of a witness?
Witness – One who can give a firsthand account of something seen, heard, or experience
This is not just someone that agrees with you! This is a person of integrity that has experienced or observed the behavior or has personally experienced the issue in question. Why do you think Jesus asks us to do that? I think it could be because, the person that has been hurt may be over reacting. When I’ve been hurt I tend to get emotional and when I’m emotional I’m not always thinking clearly. This is when having an unbiased third party can make a difference and help bring clarity to a situation. Not only may the person that’s been hurt be over reacting, but it is also possible that the person who has caused the hurt may not understand the seriousness of their offense. Again, sometimes hearing another party present the problem from a different perspective may help resolve a difficult situation.
17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church;
Step 3: Confrontation with Leadership
The first two steps were fairly private. Now things escalating to a new level and it is necessary to involve the leadership of the church.
Now this is a matter of my opinion. Personally I don’t believe that when Jesus said, “tell it to the church” that he meant standing up on a Sunday morning and saying, “hey I’ve got a problem with that guy!” I believe he was indicating that you should go to a well respected leader in the church to aid you in conflict resolution. Paul addresses this as a problem at the church in Corinth when in 1Corinthians 6 he is upset over lawsuits among believers.
and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Step 4: End the Relationship
I think this is probably the hardest thing to do. I would hate to have to bring a confrontation to this point but Jesus says,
-if that person won’t listen to you
-if they won’t listen to an objective small group of people
-if they won’t listen to church leadership
END THE RELATIONSHIP!
Don’t pretend that nothing happened. Don’t act like everything is ok, because it’s not ok. This person has turned their back on you, objective witnesses, and even the leadership of the church. Sometimes moving on has to do with self preservation and we need to take the initiative in protecting ourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Plus, if you’ve handled the confrontation in a biblical manner you can rest your head on your pillow at night and know that you’ve done everything in your power to salvage the relationship.
While confrontation is never easy, confrontation is not a bad word…
We see this demonstrated for us all over the Bible. There is probably more documented confrontation with Paul than any other person in scripture. God regularly used Paul to instruct and correct the early church, but how does that translate to the present? How do I really know God is using someone to tell me something important?
I think the key to knowing (or maybe I should say attempting to discern) this is from God is that the information being communicated is usually something you DON”T want to hear… here is an example:
I love my brothers. They have always been there for me when I needed them most. After leaving the military I brought Shelli to New York with me to be closer to my family, but it was sooooo challenging. She was working full time at a law firm as a legal secretary and I actually had two jobs so we could make ends meet. I felt bad about it because she was often alone while I was at my second job. Thank God for my brother Pete. He was there for us any time Shelli needed a friend or I needed someone to lean on when the crap in life seemed overwhelming. God used Pete to express care and concern for us through a tough transition.
After a challenging 9 months in New York I had a difficult conversation with my brother Dave that completely took me off guard. We were at my parents house for a Sunday dinner and he asked,
“Frank, why are you still here?”
I replied, “What do you mean?”
“You should just go…”
“Uhhhh.. go where Dave?”
“To college Frank, just leave and go to college.”
“Yeah sure, hehe, its not that easy bro.”
“Frank, it is that easy. You said living here is killing you financially and you know you want to go to school for ministry so why not just go. If your money situation is going to be bad, why not go to PA anyway and at least be productive. It has to be better for you in PA.”
I don’t know if I ever thanked my brother for that confrontation. God used him to change the course of my life in that moment and we moved to PA on New Years Day. I know it sounds cliché but, January 1st, 1998 was the first day of the rest of my life. It is kind of weird reflecting back on that day because I never expected God to tell me something through my brother. It was almost as if it wasn’t my brother speaking to me, but I think that is the key to recognizing God’s voice. Plus, as I reflect further I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it in the moment… its often sometime later when I can see the impact that person has had on my life.
When these sorts of things happen (to me) it seems to come from a source that I don’t expect and they often will tell me something that I don’t want to hear.
Has God ever used someone to tell you something that you didn’t want to hear?
I saw the video below on a friend’s blog and I had to pass it on. The short film shows how a little validation can go a long way in building relationships and impacting one’s circle of influence. However, there is also a subtle lesson in the video as well. When we become solely dependant on the validation of one single person, it can be unhealthy for you and for others around you. If you have 15 minutes to spare, the video is worth watching.
My boys are getting older and beginning to play together more and more often. You know that that means… they fight more often too. The latest was this morning. Shelli made us some great french toast and we enjoyed breakfast together at the table as a family. Shortly after, Shelli went up to shower and the boys were playing with cars and toys on their train table. They were being civil so I began reading today’s paper.
All of a sudden I hear my oldest son scream, “No AJ, NOOooooooo.” Anthony looked like King Kong on a path of destruction in the little town Michael had created on the train table. Michael gave him a big shove and my youngest boy brandished his teeth like a german shepherd on the attack going in for the bite in defense. Luckily, referee dad stepped in just in time and separated the the construction engineer from the wrecking ball before any injuries occurred. What I did next was set some ground rules for the boys. I gave them each a side on the table to play on and they each took a few toys to play with and asked them each to stay on their side. The rest of our morning was quite peaceful.
Sometimes I think as Christians we should be referees for one another as well. There are times I will have a small group leader at our church call me and say, “Frank, I need help. There are some people in my group that are at each other’s throats.” For some strange reason they don’t share my joy when I say, “THAT IS GREAT!” I recently shared why I love conflict and confrontation at a small group workshop I lead at Princeton Community Church. I am often asked how I help manage conflict in small groups and in our church. I normally start where many Christian leaders do following Matthew 18:
15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
- Go to them privately and confront them on the issue
- If a private discussion doesn’t work take a witness. That means someone that has seen the behavior you are speaking to them about.
- If that doesn’t work attempt to involve church leadership to aid in resolution of the problem.
- If that fails, end the relationship.
That is pretty much what Matthew lays out, and it is sound advice that works. However, I do have a few other guiding principles I follow that aid in confrontation and conflict resolution:
- Be wise with your words. Everything you say in a confrontation will either escalate or de-escalate a conflict. Try to use words and responses that we de-escalate the tension.
- Don’t discuss nameless people. Sometimes people will say, “Someone told me…” If they refuse to use actual names of real people, don’t acknowledge it as a leader in the church. It only leads to pointless discussion because you can’t get the real person behind whatever it is involved.
- If you’re wrong, admit it right away. This is powerful in conflict resolution. Think about it for a minute. How often do you hear people actually admit they are wrong? Not often, it is a real sign of maturity and it will have an immediate affect on the situation.
I find these guiding principles useful and I hope you do too. By the way… take a look at the picture below. Can you tell which side of the table belonged to Michael and which side was AJ’s?
1. It’s time to confront when things aren’t working out even after you’ve given them sufficient time to do so.
2. When you’re avoiding each other.
3. When your silence is more about fear than the truth.
4. When allowing the contact to go on is hurting the other person.
5. When the contact is hurting other people.
6. When you see there is still time to redeem the relationship, the job, the person, or the potential future.
7. When you’re responsible for the health and well-being of the people involved in the situation. You have the power to do something, therefore you have the obligation.
8. When you’re able to separate the behavior from the person. You love the person always, even though you can’t support the behavior.
9. When your integrity and reputation as a friend, manager, leader, or business owner is on the line, it’s time to confront.
10. When you understand that sometimes love must be tough if it’s truly love. Love that is based on a lie is indulgence. Love that is based on truth and applied with mercy and grace is truly a gift from God.
Confrontation can be such a good thing when done the right way. It presents a real growth opportunity for us and the other person.
The past two weeks have been a little challenging in the Chiapperino household. I have had to travel quite a bit. As you saw from the posts below I spent much of the last week in September at the Small Groups Conference in Chicago, and most of the first week in October at the Orchard Group church planting retreat in upstate NY.
Today I was reading Galatians and it says this:
Galatians 6:1 – Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.
I need to get better at the “gently” part. I tend to lead towards shoving people into restoration.
The Greek word for “restore” that Paul uses here is kat-ar-tid’-zo and it means to completely and thoroughly repair.
How does that translate into life application?It doesn’t mean stating the obvious mistake someone has made and moving on. It means that God expects us to participate in completely and thoroughly repairing that person to full health. In order to really do that we have to be in relationships with the people we are confronting, we have to care for them and they have to know we care. If people don’t know that we genuinely care, it usually means they wont allow us to help them.
I have a close friend who seems to be struggling with what Paul Tillich calls “the anxiety of meaninglessness.” He has been spiritually all over the map and took a step away from Christianity while we were striving to complete a degree in Bible together. Watching him take this journey away from his faith has been difficult. I do my best to continue to be a good friend with hopes that God will use our conversations and our relationship to speak to him. Last night I was reading The Courage To Be by Paul Tillich and I was given a glimpse of what my friend must feel.
“We use the term meaninglessness for the absolute threat of nonbeing to spiritual self affirmation, and the term emptiness for the relative threat to it. They are no more identical then are the threat of death and fate. But in the background of emptiness lies meaninglessness as death lies in the background of the vicissitudes of fate.
The anxiety of meaninglessness is the anxiety about the loss of an ultimate concern of a meaning which gives meaning to all meanings.”
There are days that I have wept for him in my prayers. That morning when I read Tillich’s words was one of them.
I love helping my son Michael learn to physically navigate where he wants to go. Lately we have been learning to climb up and down stairs. I will ask him, “Are you ready to go?” and he will vigorously nod his head telling me yes and spinning his hands around in circles telling me go in sign language.
So, where do we go from here?
The closest thing that I think we get to this experience as humans is in a marriage. There are times I feel like my wife and I are totally in sync. She knows what I am thinking and responds before I even ask. It’s the coolest thing when we are “in step” with each other relationally, it truly feels like we can accomplish anything together. I think our relationships hit a brick wall when we sabotage the synergy for which we have worked so hard. I haven’t yet figured out why we sabotage ourselves but I do know that it is possible to prevent it.
Paul wrote about this in his letter to the Ephesians (4:31-32)
31Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
I find that when I follow that instruction I have better synergy in my marriage.