Last week I had the privilege of meeting with a fellow EFCA pastor for the first time. We have a lot in common together, not only being pastors in the same denomination, but we also both graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary and he even pastored the church where I was baptized, though we were there at different times. He is a more experienced pastor with a large and effective church- we will be staying in contact and I’m excited to glean some wisdom from him through continued conversations.
He shared with me one of the most painful moments from his ministry. Within a year or two of his arrival at a large church, he made a commitment to reach the community in the area surrounding their church. That may sound non-controversial, but the problem was that the community outside the church looked drastically different from the community inside the church. His belief is that God had them there at that strategic spot to love on the people the LORD had given them proximity to. People started coming into the church that looked different, talked differently, and had different perspectives on life and ministry, and these people began to integrate into the church family and take leadership roles. This made a large number of people in the church very uncomfortable, and so people began to leave. A lot of people. Some left quietly, but many were not gracious or kind on their way out. One person even took out a full-page ad in the local newspaper, airing his grievances against the church and pastor, and line-iteming his reasons for leaving. When it was all said and done, over the course of a few years, immense damage had been caused to the Body of Christ and that church family in particular. Thousands of people had left, each one of them representing a breaking of the fellowship of friends at the church, and bringing division and confusion regarding who could be trusted. Sadly, many probably walked away from the Church period.
He shared with me one of the most painful moments from his ministry. Within a year or two of his arrival at a large church, he made a commitment to reach the community in the area surrounding their church. That may sound non-controversial, but the problem was that the community outside the church looked drastically different from the community inside the church. His belief is that God had them there at that strategic spot to love on the people the LORD had given them proximity to. People started coming into the church that looked different, talked differently, and had different perspectives on life and ministry, and these people began to integrate into the church family and take leadership roles. This made a large number of people in the church very uncomfortable, and so people began to leave. A lot of people. Some left quietly, but many were not gracious or kind on their way out. One person even took out a full-page ad in the local newspaper, airing his grievances against the church and pastor, and line-iteming his reasons for leaving. When it was all said and done, over the course of a few years, immense damage had been caused to the Body of Christ and that church family in particular. Thousands of people had left, each one of them representing a breaking of the fellowship of friends at the church, and bringing division and confusion regarding who could be trusted. Sadly, many probably walked away from the Church period.
As my friend shared with me the struggles he experienced, the pain in his voice was very real and clear. My heart hurts for him, but I appreciated knowing that we are not alone when we go through periods of church conflict. His church has rebounded well and the LORD has honored his heart and commitment to reach their community. But it came at great cost to him personally, going through times of deep discouragement and grief. The cost of church conflict can be devastating to all involved, but it is unfortunately a very common occurrence. As long as there’s people there’s going to be differences of opinions and how things should be done. It’s been well said that the Church would be perfect if it wasn’t for all the people!
We need to be equipped and prepared on how to handle church conflict. It has the potential to devastate our relationship with God, wreck our witness to the watching world, and create confusion in the faith of our families. Thankfully we can turn to scripture for guidance here. This weekend we are resuming our study of the Book of Acts, we’ll be picking up right where we left off last summer in Acts 15. Acts 15 famously describes the conflict between Jewish believers in Jerusalem, and Gentile believers in the church at Antioch. The Jewish believers were imposing their tradition on all the gentiles, saying that faith in Jesus was insufficient for salvation, and that everyone must follow the law set forth by Moses to be saved. Paul, Barnabas, and Peter set the church in Jerusalem straight, and the church was filled with great joy as it set its focus and hope squarely on the grace of Jesus for salvation. However, that isn’t the only conflict in the chapter. A lesser known, highly controversial dispute broke out in the last few verses between Paul and Barnabas, of all people. These two close friends, who had been friends for many years and had done much ministry together, were at a seemingly unbreakable impasse.
This dispute has brought a lot of confusion among people reading the passage, but as I’ve studied it, I’ve come to believe this serves as a very godly example of how we can manage conflict between believers today.