We all meet situations in church life where people have been hurt through being at odds with another leader.
Perhaps it never happens in your set-up, but I seem to have run into it quite a lot recently. There are examples in youth and children’s work where there is conflict either within the team or in the youth ministries relationship with the church body. Why do we do this when at the heart of our ministry should be the love of Christ?
‘We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers’ (1 John 3.16) makes it not just desirable to love our brothers in Christ but a clear sign that we are no longer under condemnation but ‘made alive in Christ’. This, in other words, is how we should be, but we still have the ability to do each other damage.
It can take all sorts of ugly forms. There can be jealousy of another’s gifts or maybe an issue we feel very strongly about and another person has a different view. More often than not a conflict flows from a lack of communication. Recently, I encountered a newly appointed youth worker who had served for just a few months and was then told the church had run out of money and he must leave. He was told how much his work had been valued, but he had to go. I once came across a church where there were two youth meetings a week — one for teaching on Sunday and one for a social gathering on Friday. The leaders of the two meetings were not speaking to each other and hadn’t for years, each claiming that his meeting was indispensable to the same young people.
Pride and prejudice
Pride plays a huge part in conflict. Issues in ministry can become singular issues to us — we can see nothing else except this all-consuming point that seems to dominate every working hour. We cannot see an alternative view. These things can be theological issues or matters of practice and we lose the ability to see reason and the issue becomes more important than the relationship with our brother in Christ. I am not saying we should not defend key doctrines but that leads to the next issue. Are we defending a primary issue or a personal agenda? I have been in meetings where key doctrines have come under fire. But I have been in many more meetings where one person with a personal agenda has caused deep division in a group of God’s people.
Let us learn to distinguish between key issues and defend what are real issues but in a context of brotherly love. It means learning how to disagree without feeling personally criticised. And some of us may need to understand that some issues are not worth falling out over. Being brothers in Christ who love one another is far more important. Some people reading this may need to pick up the telephone and speak to someone and tell them they’re sorry. And that’s not an email or a text — it’s a real conversation.
Dave Fenton is the Training Director of Root 66 which runs training courses for youth ministers across the UK.
