“Kara, we want to meet with you because we don’t think you’re teaching the Bible enough to our kids.” This was John and Patty’s greeting one Sunday morning as I was getting ready to speak to our students. Not only were John and Patty parents of two high school girls, but also influential leaders in our congregation.
“Jeff, there are no high school students in the worship service. What are you going to do about it?” asked a colleague as I was walking to my car after a church service one weekend. He was actually more than a colleague; he was a close friend who had been in my home, was at the birth of my son and whose wife is a close friend of my wife.
During the combined 41 years the two of us have worked in youth ministry, it’s hard to think of a month that hasn’t involved conflict—occasionally with teenagers but most often with their parents, our ministry volunteers and our church staff colleagues.
As much as we would choose to avoid such tensions, it seems impossible to lead without creating conflict; leadership involves inviting others to change, change brings pain, and pain often causes conflict.
Today we both serve at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, which joined a Sticky Faith Cohort two years ago and made a renewed commitment to intergenerational ministry and partnership with parents. Still, we could not avoid significant conflicts that sometimes demoralized and depressed us.
Then we realized conflict is more than a necessary evil (thanks to Dr. Scott Cormode, the Hugh De Pree Professor of Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, who helped us see the light). In fact, conflict can be a catalyst for growth in our lives and our ministries if we practice the three habits for leading through conflict described below.
Habit No. 1: Listen
Fight or flight. Put up our dukes or head for the hills. When conflict first rears its head, we commonly think these two polarities are our only options. Neither response is entirely satisfactory. One risks alienating the people we are called to serve, and the other risks retreating from God’s vision for our ministries.
The good news is there is a third option. This third path is not rocket science. In fact, it’s rather simple; but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, it’s so rarely practiced in the midst of conflict (not to mention in life in general) that when it occurs, it has startling effectiveness.
What’s this third option? Listening—really listening to the other party (or parties) involved. We don’t mean listening so you know how to refute their main points and win the argument. That’s not really listening. That’s just using your ears prior to opening your mouth.
We mean listening so you truly understand. As Dr. Cormode instructed us, the goal is to listen so you understand not just others’ rationale for their position, but so you can peel back a layer or two (or three or 10) and discern some of the deeper heart issues behind their concerns.
I (Jeff) learned the power of listening when I was approached by another pastor who requested that some students to come and help set up some of the adult classrooms. In the past, I generally have declined these sorts of invitations. I have seen too many times that when adults need help, they expect it from students; but once the helping was finished, so was adults’ desire to be around young people.
For some reason, I restrained myself from critiquing his request. Instead, I started to ask him questions in order to find areas of mutual agreement we could build upon. As he explained his viewpoint and the needs of the adults, I was able to marry them with the needs and benefits of our students.
The pastor explained that one particular room needed set-up help because the adults in this room were older and less able to move the tables and chairs they used for their early morning tradition of eating a full breakfast together each week.
As a result of hearing more about the class and its needs and traditions, I was able to help mobilize our students not only to move the chairs but also to stay and eat a meal with some senior adults in our church. As students stepped up to the plate and rearranged chairs, the practical needs of these senior adults were met. Even more, the spiritual and emotional needs of our students were met as they entered into relationships with adults over a shared meal.
Equally important, the steps I took to listen to my colleague changed me. I was able to realize that my default response is to defend. For years, my first instincts in conflict had kept me from hearing the real needs behind the many requests that came my way. As I have learned to listen more, I have been able to move from feeling overwhelmed with requests to being encouraged by the possibilities that could emerge.
Habit No. 2: Create New, Explicit Rules
Both of us are football fans. If we could wave a wand and change anything about the game, we would remove the potential for injury to the players (our next two changes would be to guarantee the San Diego Chargers a playoff spot every season and grant the injury-plagued UCLA Bruins a chance at a winning season).
The good news is that more research and reflection is being devoted to identifying the scenarios on the field that yield the greatest injuries. As the NFL and college football leagues have recognized these patterns, they have created new, explicit rules to protect their players (and we urge them to introduce more).
Granted, most church conflicts don’t leave leaders on crutches (note we said most; we have heard some pretty scary tales), but when we start to see a pattern—especially the same sort of injurious conflict from the same individuals—we probably need to introduce some new, explicit rules to lessen the possibility of lasting pain.
Note we said explicit. For these rules to be effective, they can’t just be ideas in your head or notebook. They have to be discussed and agreed upon with the other relevant parties prior to the next round of potential tension.
Our church is large and complex with many pastors, departments and specialized ministries. In the past, when a key leader changed ministry methods or programs, the process of change was typically carried out in isolation from the rest of the staff. When the leader finally announced the changes, coworkers felt they had been deprived of the opportunity to offer different perspectives or opinions. As a result, major aspects of our church and its ministries have been beyond discussion; to discuss these changes could imply criticism of a leader or threaten the leader’s authority.
This approach recently resulted in major conflicts for the church’s summer calendar. Working in total isolation, our Children’s and Student ministries designed summer programs on their own. The two ministries had scheduled events starting the same day at the same time for kids and students that were 15 miles (and 30 minutes) from each other. Neither area had thought about the other or the challenge this would pose to the many families who have children involved in both areas.
We realized too late that our poor planning and communication would hurt the families we sought to serve. So we created a new, explicit rule: Everything is discussable.
Keeping this rule has helped us tremendously. Now, when leaders want to raise a question or say something but are fearful to do so, they simply ask, “Is this discussable?” This conveys to the rest of the team that tough questions are coming.
We want to make all things discussable not because we want to call out each other’s blind spots, but rather to make sure we are thinking together about what’s best for our congregation and community.
It was also good for me (Jeff), because I realized that often the way I present information makes it not discussible. My very passionate communication style can stifle input that might improve my ideas. I now try hard to say something such as, “Please feel free to help me think through this. As finished as these thoughts may sound, they are not. I want to hear anything you might be thinking.”
By modeling this to my team and colleagues, we have begun to turn conflict into creativity and collaboration.
Habit No. 3: Make Time for Self-Reflection
It has been said, “Experience is a great teacher,” but we disagree. We don’t think experience in and of itself is much of a teacher at all. Instead, evaluated experience has the power to create the best insights.
Our experience leads us to recommend that you reflect on three powerful questions when you face conflict:
1. What can this conflict help me learn about myself?
2. What can this conflict help me learn about my ministry or church?
3. What can this conflict help me learn about God?
Sometimes we are able to answer these questions as individuals in our own reflection. Other times we talk them over with our spouses, close friends or small groups. This helps take our process to a deeper level because while these folks are our biggest fans, they also know our weaknesses and blind spots.
Practicing these three habits has had a huge impact on our church. It’s not that we have zero conflict as we continue to try to be catalysts for change at our church. Conflict hasn’t evaporated. It is still a monthly reality. However, we now live with another reality: God can take anything—even the potential chaos of summer planning and requests for students to move chairs—and use it to change not just our church, but us, too.
Dr. Kara E. Powell is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI), a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary and a volunteer small group leader at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena.
Jeff Mattesich is Lake Avenue’s full-time associate pastor of Children and Student Ministry.
