Growing Your Church Through Conflict

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Growing Your Church Through Conflict

• Source Elmer Towns

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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

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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

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1. Territorial Conflicts

• More than one person or group wants the same
  responsibility
• Turf battles over who has say?

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2. Border conflicts

• Occurs when people do ministry that is perceived
  to belong to others
• Boundary issues

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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

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4. Ethnic conflicts

• Not simply in racial terms, but also generational
  values, been here vs. come here
• dress codes
• quiet vs. loud
• sanctification gap

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5. Influence conflicts

• As new leaders emerge in a growing church, the
  once-dominant leaders influence changes
• as the leadership pool gets diluted and rearranged

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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

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7. Personality conflicts

• Everyone has a button
• As a church grows, the more likely well
  encounter somebody who knows just how to push it
• Also, the more deeply we know and are known, the
  more this happens

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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

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1. Collect accurate data.

• Three sides to every story your side, my side,
  and the truth
• Sifting through various accounts
• Guard against gossip

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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

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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

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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

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Acts 67

• 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

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Summary

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

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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