Podcast

038 – How a Pastor Can Address Conflict with a Church Member

Posted on August 11, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

The ministry would be great if you didn’t have to deal with crabby and uncooperative people, people who want to have conflict with you. Nobody loves conflict, but it’s real in ministry, and if you’ve ever had to deal with it, stay tuned to this episode, and we’re going to talk about that very subject. The pastor can address conflict with a church member in a healthy way. Here is how!

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:21
I remember there was a guy when I was working at a church that really, his family was a really good family. They were part of the church, active at the church. His wife in particular really worked hard to contribute to the efforts and volunteer sense, but this guy, Frank, had an edge to him. And he was apparently the self appointed guy to make sure Dick Hardy didn’t go off the rails someplace. And he would always have this thing about whatever I did, that he was just, to me, he would go into an attack mode, and it would drive me nuts. And I’m thinking, you know, why do I have to deal with this guy? But the reality was he was there, he felt like this to me, and felt like a sandpaper kind of guy. So I ended up having to figure out how am I going to deal with Frank? Because he was there. I was there. I was in a paid staff role. He’s a volunteer.

Jonathan Hardy 1:22
But you’re both not going anywhere.

Dick Hardy 1:24
We’re not going anyplace. And I had to figure out a way to talk with him. I remember one time, I just said, okay, I called him up, “Frank. We’ve got to talk. Can I pop over,” because he wasn’t feeling well, at the time and some illness was going his direction. And so we ended up with me going over there and talking through our stuff. And it wasn’t like it was just boom, everything was all hunky dory, but it was a process. And I’m just telling you, as a pastor, you’ve got to address these things. They won’t go away by themselves. The Frank and Dick issue wasn’t going to go away. We had to start working through it. So today we want to talk with you about how do you deal with this, when you’re dealing with a person that you’ve got conflict with. You wish it would just go away, but it doesn’t go away. So we’re gonna rattle off here a few things that we think will be helpful to you as you address conflict in the church. So Jonathan, why don’t you get us started.

Tip #1: Be Humble

Jonathan Hardy 2:25
Yeah, so I think the first step to do as you’re trying to, you know, address the conflict that you have, is you have to be humble. I mean, bottom line, there’s just no other better way to put it really is to be humble. Recognize that you might not have it all figured out. Now, I know that’s hard. I know. It’s hard. That’s hard to swallow. You know, we’re all that way. We think through our lens. We look at life through our lens. But you know what, although we’re, you know, you’re God’s man or woman, for the church or for your leadership role or for whatever that doesn’t make you infallible, and all of us have made mistakes. I mean, no one is perfect. And so I think just being humble to say, okay, I look at this situation where there’s conflict, is there anything from my perspective, I need to like, think through now I know this takes some time. And it, you know, when the emotions are high and all that, then it’s, you know, you got to get to the point where your emotions are under control. So you can say, okay, you know, do I need to do something different, act different, do I need to be open to seeing this situation through a different lens than the one I’m currently looking through. So I’d start off by being humble.

Tip #2: Be Introspective

Dick Hardy 3:34
Well, I think this dovetails right off with that. The second one is to be introspective. Now, by that I mean, look at yourself. In this process of being humble. You’ve got to drill in here, you know, it’s possible you could have made an error. Now, it isn’t always the case, but I have the propensity to make mistakes Jonathan does, you do, so you’ve got to look inside. Consider the other person’s view of you. Now you can sit and say, well, they’re wrong. Well, if you’re going to be introspective, you’ve got to look inside. And then you’ve got to consider how are you playing out to someone else. And by the way, in this introspection I have found over the years to have my spouse or a very close friend, speak into my life is frequently very, very helpful.

Tip #3: Be Prayerful

Dick Hardy 4:23
So be humble, be introspective. Number three: be prayerful, always in prayer. Now we don’t have this listed third because it’s the third most important, but it’s a critical point for you in resolving conflict. You’ve got to be prayerful. If you go in your own strength, it’s not going to work. You’ve got to go with the strength of the Lord. Lift yourself and the church member to the Lord, because you’re both involved here. He loves you both equally. And so you’ve got to ask for the Lord’s help. Ask for his wisdom in navigating the situation.

Tip #4: Live Out Matthew 18

Jonathan Hardy 4:53
Yeah. Then a fourth recommendation for you really is to do Matthew 18. Follow the principles there of how to address the conflict. And I want to just point out here in our day and age, it is very easy to send a Facebook message, post publicly a Facebook post, to send an email, send a text message, and that is the wrong, that is not the biblical way to follow up when you have conflict. In fact, I would say when you’re posting on Facebook, that’s an unbiblical way because you’re not going one to one.

Dick Hardy 5:26
Completely counterproductive.

Jonathan Hardy 5:27
Yeah, you’re opening this up to a bunch of people and that is wrong. Now as a pastor, you have to get face to face and it may feel old school to some people but you know, you got to at least on the phone, talking, you know, in person as best as you can because the conflict is best going to be resolved when you hear their tone of voice, when you’re sitting you’re seeing that. There’s that feel that you don’t get through that. So make sure you follow the process. There’s a reason this is in the Bible, it’s because this is what works. And so follow the process. Matthew 18, we don’t need to go on the details, you probably already know it. But make sure to incorporate that as you’re addressing conflict.

Tip #5: Relearn Trust

Dick Hardy 6:14
And the fifth one, final one we want to talk about here is to relearn trust. Now, this can be a tricky one, because if you do the things we talked about, you’ve met with the person, you’ve prayed, you resolve the conflict or you’ve started working the the edges off of this thing. You can think that okay, it’s just back to hunky dory, and we’re all good. Well, you want to be all good. But going forward, I would suggest that you appropriately keep your guard up while you’re learning to trust this person again. Be willing to trust but be careful. Some may say, well, you’re not truly forgiving that person. And I would say no, that’s not true. You have forgiven that person, but you’re being wise as you begin to open yourself up again, as you begin to get vulnerable with this person again, you’re being very, very careful. And I believe that’s a right thing for you to do that will really in the long haul, strengthen the new and growing, renewed friendship and relationship you have with this person. Be honoring of the other person all the way through. But while you’re relearning trust, if you’ll process it this way, you’ll find it’d be a good step going forward.

Recap:

Jonathan Hardy 7:27
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me give you a quick recap on this. The five different steps you could say to help address conflict that you might have with a church member. The first was to be humble. Second, be introspective. Third, be prayerful. Fourth is to do and follow Matthew 18. And then fifth is to relearn trust. Now, I don’t know what kind of conflict, you know, there’s all kinds of conflict that you might have out there. Some conflict feels like betrayal. And one of the things I encourage you to do, if you haven’t yet is to listen to Episode 28 and 29 or watch episodes 28 and 29, so that you can see how to respond when you feel betrayed in ministry. We talked about that in those two episodes. It’s kind of a two part little dialogue. And so I would encourage you to check that out. And make sure you do all that you can to continue to help as a leader, addressing the conflict and the things that come up. And as well, just becoming a better leader in general is something that we’re constantly talking to people about, because we believe that growing pastors are led by growing leaders. Growing churches are led by growing leaders. And so that means you and I all have to be growing all the time. And one of the ways you could do that is by taking the Five Day Leadership Challenge that Dick and I put together, that is basically a five day, 15 minutes-a-day investment in your life. We send out a daily video for five days in a row. And so it’s sequential, builds upon each other, and it’s a way for you to help grow as a personal leader of the ministry that you are a part of. So be sure to check that out. Just go to leaders.church/challenge. You can get signed up and start today. Leaders.church/challenge.

Jonathan Hardy 9:04
And then, as well, please rate and review. We’d love to hear your feedback. In fact, we have a review we wanted to read today from Patty Jean Jr. 1954. This person said, “great content. This is outstanding content for any pastor or church leader.” Well, hey, thank you, Patty Jean, for that comment. We appreciate that. And we’d love to share your review. So be sure to review, write that review. And we look forward to being able to share it here hopefully, someday on the podcast. And then please subscribe, whether you’re watching this on YouTube, whether you’re listening on a podcast platform, hit that subscribe button, and we just thank you so much for being a part of the Church Tips Podcast. We’ll look forward to seeing you next time.

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Podcast

038 – How a Pastor Can Address Conflict with a Church Member

What’s in this Episode?