Resolving Church Conflict

If you google “church conflict” top results bear titles like, “6 Principles Churches Use to Deal with Conflict Well,” or, “Five of the Most Frequent Issues of Conflict Among Church Members,” or, “9 Lessons for Pastors Facing Leadership Conflict.” These articles share a couple of things in common. Their titles are excessively long, and they treat the subject of church conflict generically.

To deal with conflict wisely, church leaders must first understand which kind of conflict they face. The tendency in most church conflict teaching is to focus on the process laid out in Matthew 18:15-18 which addresses conflict with an individual, usually in the form of church discipline. However, there are two other categories of conflict in Scripture and all three are not created equal. Let’s explore the three varieties of conflict that show up in churches:

• Church Discipline Issues – Church discipline has been a part of church life since the book of Acts. When Peter called Ananias and Sapphira to account for their deceitful behavior (Acts 5) it put the fear of God in the Jerusalem church. We see another instance of church discipline (or lack of it) in the case of the adulterous man in the Corinthian church (I Cor. 5). Paul had to step in and call the church to repent (as well as the man) for their lack of church discipline.

Church discipline issues are very common in churches but require leaders to demonstrate a boatload of courage and compassion. Some churches handle church discipline consistently, others not at all. The former are vulnerable to becoming loveless as they zealously correct sin (the problem in the Ephesian church in Rev. 2:1-7). The latter risk a myriad of spiritual and relational problems by ignoring it (the problem in the church of Thyatira in Rev. 2:18-29). As mentioned earlier, passages like Matthew 18:15-18 are the go-to scriptures when dealing with church discipline issues. Books like The Peacemaker by Ken Sande can be a help too. (See chart below)

• Interpersonal Conflicts – The Bible also contains examples of conflict between parties within the local church. The choosing of the first deacons in Acts 6 arose over a conflict about prejudicial treatment toward Hellenistic widows in the distribution of food. Perhaps more famously, we have Paul’s admonition in Philippians 4:2, “I urge Euodia and Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord.” Even the apostle Paul was not immune to interpersonal conflict (Acts 15:36-41; Gal. 2:11).

Interpersonal conflicts require as much courage to address as church discipline issues, but they require a different method. Like the “true companion” Paul asks to help mediate between Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 4:3), or the Apostles stepping into the conflict about the widows (Acts 6:2),  interpersonal conflict often requires a mediator or arbitrator to work through the offense, misunderstanding or confusion that fermented the interpersonal conflict. Sadly, whole ministries and businesses (with real lawyers) have arisen to mend these kinds of fences in the church.

• Corporate Conflicts – What I mean by “corporate” conflicts is conflicts that impact an entire body of believers. We see examples of corporate conflicts in Acts 15 where the nature of the gospel was at stake and in 1 Cor. 11 where believers were taking communion in an unworthy manner. Similarly, in Jesus’ letters to the seven churches He addresses problems that impacted entire churches (Rev. 2-3), calling them to repent as entities.

What kind of issues generate corporate conflict? A pastor goes undisciplined for abusing his flock, church leaders overlook their abuse of church staff, rebellion by a congregation that leads to a split, prejudice toward a different race that gets cloaked by cultural norms, and leadership immorality are just a few examples of painful corporate conflicts.

The tricky part to resolving church conflict wisely, is that in many cases what appears as a church discipline or interpersonal conflict, can be an expression of an unresolved corporate conflict in the history of the church.

So, how do you know if the conflict you are facing is a case of church discipline or an interpersonal conflict or something deeper on a corporate level? Here are some questions to consider:

• Has your church faced similar conflicts in the past? Unresolved corporate conflicts tend to be cyclical because the underlying historical pain has never been healed.
• Are you dealing with a conflict in an atmosphere where there has been a loss of trust for church leaders? That lack of trust is a signal that something deeper is amiss. If you address the conflict as if it were a “one off,” you will not achieve long term resolution.
• Is the conflict you face causing a loss of resources, ministry fruitfulness or compromising the spirit of your ministry? This is a sure sign of a wounded church and it must be healed corporately before you can hope to resolve the conflict.

Of the three types of conflict in churches, corporate conflicts take the most amount of courage to address. This partially explains why so many ministries languish with unhealed wounds. Another reason why corporate conflicts go untreated is that North Americans Christians have been tainted by our cultural tendency toward individualism which blinds us to many of the passages in Scripture which shed light on the corporate nature of the church.

Mark Barnard serves with Blessing Point Ministries. Blessing Point Ministries exists to help churches experience breakthrough moments in ministry, particularly in the area of corporate healing.