The church, more than almost anyplace else in human experience, is a place where how we do something matters far more than what we do. Now, of course, that does not mean that it is acceptable for churches to engage in human sacrifice -- so long as they do it well. In making that statement I begin with an assumption. That assumption is that in large measure, most people do not come to church looking to do evil. That does not mean it doesn’t happen, from the current rash of pedophilia in priests to the Spanish Inquisition, lots of evil has been done. But we do not generally encounter that on a day-to-day basis in our lives in the church.

That being said people are hurt in the church every day -- often by people with the best of intentions. How does that happen?

"You will know them by their fruits." Where have I heard that before? What does it mean? Well scripture tells us to some extent. The "fruits" are listed:

If you examine that list closely, you note that those are things that result from attitude, not action. They are about how things are done, not what is done. I think that says volumes about how to handle conflict in churches.

Nearly everyone involved in leadership in a church readily acknowledges that conflict is inevitable. People will just disagree about something. Maybe it's musical choice in worship. In times of tight money maybe it is whether to fund and African mission of Vacation Bible School. Maybe it is what color to paint the fellowship hall walls. Often it is trivial, but it is conflict nonetheless, and even trivial conflicts have been known to tear a church apart. So the question is not one of avoiding conflict, but of managing conflict in a way that bears the fruit listed above. How do we do that?

I think that there are two key issues involved in managing conflict in a church in a fruit-bearing manner.

The first key issue is the spiritual maturity of the people involved in the conflict. Those are harsh words in our non-judgmental times, but I think they are vitally important. These conflicts usually occur in church leadership, Sessions, boards, Deacons. Different denominations organize themselves differently, but they all have a leadership group and it is within that group that these conflicts become critical. It is vitally important that the people in that leadership group be spiritually mature, because it is only by years of walking with the Lord that we can begin to bear fruit. When a grapevine is planted, it can be up to 20 years before it produces useful fruit, so it can be with a Christian.

Finding and keeping spiritually mature people to help lead a church is a daunting and difficult challenge. To start with our culture dictates that exercising judgment of this type is somehow bad. It's as if discriminating on ability, a significant factor, was the same as discriminating on skin color, and insignificant factor. It is hard in this day and age to remember that discrimination in and of itself is not a problem; it is the basis upon which one discriminates that is the issue.

A second challenge is that the more mature a person becomes the more likely they are to bail out of leadership, because the more futile it seems. I think this is a core issue facing the church today. A very large part of spiritual maturity is knowing what is important and what is not. Yet participating in the leadership structures of the church often seems to be an exercise in the unimportant. Endless hours are spent on issues like painting walls and planting shrubs when mature Christians are worried about building disciples and converting the lost.

It seems like the really spiritually mature go into ministry and the rest of us can only grow so far. I think that is the church's fault. By reserving the very important stuff for the clergy, lay leadership when he or she matures sufficiently must go into the clergy, or start endlessly casting about for a place where they can be effective in the areas to which they are drawn. This is an issue that the church must, and very soon, address.

Fruit bearing in conflict management is generally a matter of maintaining the proper priorities. I think it can be summed up in one sentence -- "The person you are in conflict with is more important than the thing you are conflicted about." That is easy to read, but almost impossible to execute.

Failure to maintain that priority reveals itself in so many ways. I probably cannot think of all of them, let alone write them all down, but I would like to concentrate on two really important aspects of maintaining that priority.

The first aspect is communication. Ignoring someone is invalidating of the individual. This, by the way, is a common ploy amongst pastors. Most pastors tend to be passive-aggressive -- I guess it just goes with the job description. As such, they often move forward with an agenda without consulting those within the leadership that they know might have an objection. They surround themselves with those that agree and ignore those that disagree. This, in my opinion is an awful move -- it serves only to build resentment. That resentment builds to an explosive point, and then you really have a problem on your hands. The source of the resentment is not losing on the issue; the source is being ignored. The statement made is, "I don’t care about you." That is simply a statement the church cannot make.