Seven Questions to Ask in a Church Conflict
By Eileen R. Campbell-Reed
I have been a lightning rod in a church conflict. That is how my first congregational call to ministry ended. And I’ve been embroiled in many other church disagreements and dramas.
Church change and conflict are inevitable and even a normal and healthy part of community life. You probably heard this before, but when you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to believe anything good can come from the stress and anxiety of being entangled in disagreements with your congregation or specific members.
In the most dramatic and unsettling of these conflicts, the drama and poor behavior of church members were in retrospect not the cause of the conflicts so much as the symptoms of deeper underlying (but largely hidden) decline of the church.
Neither I, nor the interim staff, nor the consultants hired by the church understood these dynamics of decline. None of us identified the profound need for spiritual and organizational renewal. (If the consultants understood, they utterly failed to educate us about those dynamics of the lifecycle of the church or how periods of decline create symptoms that indicate that decline, rather than being causes of it.)
What did it look like in the heat of the conflicted drama? Parking lot conversations. Meetings before and after the meetings. Strained worship. Angry accusations. And the personal toll for me was the loss of 15 pounds and my literal voice to laryngitis. To name a few.
I do wish we had held a shared understanding for the importance of asking the following questions. I think things could have gone much differently.
Questions for Understanding Conflict
The following questions would have been a big help in that moment years ago when I became the focus of a church conflict. May they be of use to you when you next find yourself there.
1) What else could this disagreement be about – in addition to or underlying and motivating the presenting concern(s)?
2) What are the pastoral issues involved in this conflict: Who needs care? Who is grieving? Who needs to be seen or comforted or challenged? What vocational grief is part of the situation?
3) What are the economic and financial questions that are both internal to the faith community and part of a broader set of concerns beyond the church?
4) Where are the power dynamics shifting or congealing?
5) What organizational transitions are currently underway? For example, is the lifecycle of the church in a plateau or a growth time or a period of decline?
If you’re in a pastoral-size church (100-250), or a family-size church (99 or fewer), it may help to look into the history of disagreements that have been perhaps left unattended. But don’t assume you can work those out. They may be symptomatic and only crop up at certain times in the lifecycle of the church. Knowing them may help put the current conflict into perspective. There could be residual grief or hurt that needs addressing.
6) Where are family dynamics arising either from your own family system or those of systems in the church?
Edwin Friedman reminds us that as the Pastor or Rabbi or leader of any community of faith, you are unavoidably part of three different systems that intersect and impact each other like different parts of a baby mobile or wind chime. Pull one part, and all the other parts shift and move as well. You are part of your own family system (original and family of choice), part of the full system of the church, and a potential leader in each smaller family within the congregation. And all the “emotional forces interlock.”
All of these systems will attempt to triangle you and get you to bring homeostasis to their own system and its family rules and values. Part of your job is to stay differentiated so you can lead while staying connected. I like to sum Friedman’s point up as offering “connection and direction.” The temptation is to lead out ahead and become disconnected from your family or your congregation. Or in the opposite direction to become stuck and enmeshed with one or more of the systems, losing your own sense of clarity and differentiation. One of the ways to stay self-differentiated is to use the questions I have offered above to help you gain perspective and clarity.
If these ideas about family systems are new to you, and you would like to understand more, I highly recommend Friedman‘s book Generation to Generation, and I urge you to find other ministers, coaches, or mentors who understand family systems and can be talking partners with you.
7) How is this conflict affecting my mental, spiritual, and physical well-being? How can I recruit the care and support I need during this stressful time. How does my vocation or call for ministry keep me grounded and give me strength to navigate the challenges?
Processing the Questions
If you take 30 minutes and write down some answers to each of these questions in any others occurring to you, you will begin to get a bigger picture what’s going on and what’s at stake.
Some conflicts need a pastoral response alongside organizational or financial clarity. People in your congregation need to feel heard (one of Friedman’s big points). But that does not mean acting on everything they say. It means listening. Yet other conflicts are mainly hidden in shifts to the lifecycle of the church, and all the drama and discomfort is really a symptom rather than the cause of conflict itself. This conflict arising from decline is one of the hardest to spot, and it requires taking several steps back to see the larger trends of the church.
In each case, your work includes making a spiritual and pastoral response rather than getting activated by the ins and outs of the disagreements. Even if you find yourself a lightning rod, as I did, ground yourself in good questions like the ones above, trusted conversation partners who can hear you without cynicism, and clarity about your purpose(s) in leading the congregation.
Additional Resources:
#PandemicPastoring Report which addresses what happened to conflict, which often went underground during the years 2020-22 and the aftermath when it resurfaced:
A case study of a pastor in conflict in a rural church:
Using ritual for responding and navigating conflict:
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