Understanding congregational splits

Fred Starke and Bruno Dyck

When I was pastoring a church in California, a man came to see me after a business meeting and berated me for my incompetence as a leader. He angrily stated, “You’re not fit to

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be even a youth pastor in this church!” I replied, “You know, sometimes I agree with you. I don’t feel capable of leading this church. May I ask you to be my mentor? Come and talk to me every week and help me to be a better leader.” The man stood up and walked out of my office. Two months later, he organized an appreciation lunch for the pastors in our church.

Questions

Let me ask you some questions:

Are you the kind of person who is energized by change? Can you live with questions, without immediate answers? When there is conflict, do you address it openly and directly, or wait to see if it will go away? Have you recently looked a brother or sister in the eye and lovingly confronted their sins, admonishing them to change? Can you hear criticism or unfair personal accusations against your leadership and still keep your eye on the vision? Are you the kind of person who can make a Spirit-led decision, against vocal opposition? Can you stand firm in God’s direction without any tangible proof or human certainty that you are right? Are you quick and ready to say “I don’t know” or “I was wrong” when these are true?

If you cannot answer yes to most of these questions, you probably do not have the call or gifting to be a church leader. The spiritual gift of leadership involves seeing God’s vision and guiding people to follow that vision. It also involves making decisions and resolving conflicts on the basis of God’s revealed plan.

Focus on patterns, not events

The role of leadership is to keep the big picture in view. Satan wants to preoccupy the leadership and the church with the small picture – pleasing people and looking at events. If leaders get caught in the web of reacting to events, emotions and behaviours instead of focusing on the underlying truth of God, Satan’s ploy will succeed.

In the Old Testament, when the nation of Aram sent an army of horses and chariots to capture the prophet Elisha, his servant saw the army surrounding the city and cried, “What shall we do?” Elisha replied, “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then he prayed that God would open the servant’s eyes, and the servant saw that the hills were full of the fiery chariots of God’s army (2 Kings 6:14-17). Leaders who look for patterns will see God’s spiritual truth beyond the current conflict. Spiritual truth, not human strength, opens up opportunities for God’s power to be revealed.

Confront power with truth, not power

The first instinct of most leaders is to respond defensively when they are challenged. This is always the worst response. In conflict, we should never confront power with power. We should always confront power with truth.

Relying on power hinders learning and growth. It polarizes the issues, so that people take sides, for and against. The resolution to the conflict will then be connected to pride, personality and persuasion. Someone will have to win, and someone will have to lose. Someone will have to be right, and someone will have to be wrong.

Once the problem has become a power struggle, the church will fall into a predictable pattern. The crisis escalates as both sides feel threatened by the other. Other issues feed the crisis, and soon the original issue becomes irrelevant. Church members become convinced the pastor and board are manipulating and controlling the situation. The pastor and board, in turn, view the members as rebellious, and single out key members as “troublemakers”. Each side becomes convinced that it alone is acting on God’s behalf to “save our church”. Each side sees the other as a threat to achieving the kind of church it wants. Each new issue that arises feeds the division, like adding fuel to a fire. Members accuse the leaders of not listening, and leaders accuse members of “gossiping”. To fill the vacuum of information from a board that is no longer communicating, members rely on hearsay to interpret what is happening. And so the cycle spins on.

Interestingly, escalation can work the other way too. Either side can break the cycle simply by not responding to the perceived threat from the other side, by turning the other cheek, by doing good, by praying, by telling the truth.

Affirm truth in the community

In the midst of conflict, we need to ask ourselves: What is God saying? Further, we should not ask, “What is God saying to me?” but “What is God saying to us?” We are the body of Christ, and collectively we have the mind of Christ. This is important to remember because most conflict in the church is between brothers and sisters, people with whom we will spend eternity, people in whom the Holy Spirit resides. This means that we have a way, by God’s grace, to resolve conflict together. Why should we behave like people without the Spirit when we have access to God in all His truth?

Be the first to own your part of the problem

When seeking help in a crisis, there are three questions church leaders and members should ask themselves:

Do I want to be healed? Am I willing to place absolutely everything on the table for evaluation? Am I willing to identify and own my part in the problem?

Beneath these questions lie some critical assumptions. First, the cause of the conflict is internal (and so is God’s solution). Second, the immediate crisis is likely not the fundamental problem, but only a symptom of a deeper conflict (and healing will require understanding and healing the underlying conflict). Third, a leader does not know all the answers and is not the solution; God does and is. The easiest mistake a church leader can make is to try to resolve a conflict too quickly. We think we know what the problem is, so we believe that the remedy is simple, but conflict is always complex. The leader must look deeper, acknowledge uncertainty and live with pain.

Eliminate blaming

Assuming that I am part of the problem has another benefit: It eliminates blaming. Blaming others is one of the greatest obstacles to real learning and resolution. It is one of Satan’s tools to divide and conquer the church. That is why Scripture exhorts believers not to judge but to discover “the log in their own eye before removing the dust in another’s” (Luke 6:42). By resisting the urge to blame, we can remove people and events from our focus and discover and correct the underlying patterns of behaviour to which the whole church contributes.

The church is a body, not a machine. You can dismantle a machine into its parts, fix it and put it back together again. Each part stands on its own. If a part breaks, you can just throw it out and get a new one. But you can’t throw people out of the church any more than the eye can tell the ear, “You are not important.” As leaders, our goal should not be to fix anything. It is important for the church to grow like the living, interconnected organism God created it to be.

Stand firm, in faith

Scripture is clear: What God wants in our lives is obedience. When honest differences exist after a process has clarified the issues, a leader must make the call by faith. This may result in one of at least three positive outcomes if the leader acts wisely and humbly:

The two sides might separate peaceably, as Paul and Barnabas did (Acts 15:36-40). The two sides might reach a compromise, agreeing to disagree on nonessential matters, each side giving up something for the sake of unity, while respecting the other’s convictions. One side might voluntarily remove its protest, allowing the other to move ahead.

Last modified May 31, 2005.

© 2005 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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