Church Team Conflict Resolution and Healthy Ministry Leadership
Stephen Bond reflects on conflict resolution as a necessary part of healthy ministry teamwork. Drawing from Scripture, leadership examples, and experiences at Summit Christian Church, he explains why compromise, forgiveness, and organizational health matter for church leadership teams.
- Healthy ministry teams should not fear honest conflict.
- Compromise requires humility, listening, and shared solutions.
- Forgiveness helps protect unity and organizational health.
By Stephen Bond
Steve Bond and his wife, Pam, launched Summit Christian Church in March 1998. The church met in the Sparks YMCA for 3½ years before moving to a new permanent facility on a 36-acre site. Summit’s vision is to “Love God, Love People, and Serve Others.”
Over the past 10 years the church has grown to more than 2,000 people in weekend worship attendance. Approximately 1,000 adults are also involved in life groups. One of the keys to this growth has been a high level of teamwork among Summit’s staff and elders.
This is the third of four articles by Bond sharing principles of teamwork from his ministry experience.
October 19: Chemistry
October 26: Communication
November 9: Decision Making
Part 3: Conflict Resolution
One of the most helpful books I’ve read on team building is Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Although Lencioni writes from a business perspective, his insights have broad application to ministry teams. In particular, Lencioni challenged me to view conflict as a crucial component of a healthy team.
He suggests that a major dysfunction teams experience is the fear of conflict. Lencioni says, “Teams that lack trust are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas. Instead, they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.”1
In past ministries I prized harmony almost to a fault. For many years this caused me to loathe conflict. I would run whenever it surfaced. I wrongly equated team conflict with team dysfunction. I have since come to realize that healthy teams will occasionally have conflict. This is because each of us has his own ideas, thoughts, and dreams. It’s ludicrous to think a group of responsible, energized adults could tackle a challenge with no differences in opinions about how to proceed.
This is especially true with ministry teams. People called to vocational ministry are generally highly motivated with strong ideas. Thus, the only way not to have occasional conflict is to suppress it by “pretending” we’re simply one big happy family. I’ve done that in past ministries with very unsatisfactory results.
The most effective teams embrace authenticity. They recognize the genuine differences between teammates. These teams don’t run from conflict. Instead, they do the hard work of resolving conflict by garnering deeper understanding and working toward mutually agreed upon strategies and solutions.
Compromise
Scripture exhorts us to “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2). Bearing with one another in love requires effort and mutual respect in the journey toward compromise. Yet the results are far more durable than the fictitious solutions developed by teams that are unwilling to be honest and open with each other.
Stephen Covey offers a helpful roadmap for reaching mutually agreeable compromises. He refers to this as “blending voices”—searching for the third alternative.2 Covey says,
“The Third Alternative isn’t my way, it isn’t your way—it’s our way. It’s not a compromise halfway between your way and my way; it’s better than a compromise . . . The Third Alternative is a better alternative than any that have been proposed. It is the product of sheer creative effort. It emerges from the overlapping vulnerabilities of two or more people—from their openness, their willingness to really listen, their desire to search.”3
Awhile back our leadership team was discussing the goals for an upcoming stewardship focus at Summit. We planned to ask the congregation—in particular the most active givers—to give “over and above” toward several strategic ministry projects we felt justified our call for additional sacrifice. The initial list contained a variety of items, including $30,000 to install plasma screen monitors in our lobby areas.
I vividly remember the animated discussion about the merits of asking our congregation to give sacrificially above their tithe to pay for this. The crux was some felt the plasmas were a luxury, not a necessity. It was a healthy, open discussion with several people voicing strongly held opinions.
In the end, we collectively decided not to include the plasmas on the list. Looking back, I see it was a wise move. Had our team not been open and honest, we probably would have proceeded with the plasmas and, more than likely, we would have reaped negative fallout from the congregation.
Executive-level decisions at Summit are made by our management team, which includes me (senior pastor), Roger (executive pastor), Susan (finance director), Kurt (worship pastor), and Chris (elder). Recently we were discussing options to fund three compensation increases, which we all agreed were well merited.
One member of the management team energetically voiced his opinion that the monies needed to be allocated from one of our reserve accounts. Another member pushed back. It was the kind of dicey moment that, years ago, I would have run from. This time, however, I was thankful the team was open and honest. The end result was a “third way” that satisfied the concerns of everyone on the team.
Forgiveness
Given that Christ followers are sinners saved by God’s grace, it comes as no great surprise we sometimes do bonehead things that require forgiveness. This is an essential dimension of conflict resolution. H.B. London puts it beautifully: “Forgiveness stands at the center of the Christian faith.”4
Because God has lavished his forgiveness on us, we need to be quick to seek forgiveness for ourselves when we’ve blown it. And we need to be just as quick to offer forgiveness to others when they’ve blown it. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
I have had only one major conflict with Summit’s elder team since the church’s inception. When it happened, it felt like a ton of bricks dropped through the ceiling. The situation started when I asked the elders to consider something, but was not clear about what I was asking. I assumed they would “read my mind” about what I really wanted. Looking back, what I did now seems absurd. Sadly, this kind of silliness is far too often at the root of the interpersonal conflicts we all experience.
In any case, a few weeks passed before the conflict was resolved. Frankly, I was dismal. I had never been at odds before with my “band of brothers,” and it felt terrible. Finally, I “came to my senses” and recognized the foolishness of what I had done. At that point, I requested a special meeting to ask the elders for their forgiveness.
That was a sweet moment, indeed! Paul says to “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). Surely part of making every effort to maintain unity includes admitting when we’ve done something wrong and asking forgiveness.
Health
Unresolved conflict injects negative energy into the veins of an organization. This negative energy will course through the organization much farther and faster than you might imagine. This is one of the hidden costs of not dealing with issues honestly and openly.
Unresolved conflict lowers an anchor off the stern of an organization, adversely affecting its momentum. But healthy, effective teams learn to minimize these distractions by embracing and resolving conflict. This is another key facet in the teamwork diamond.
Occasionally people ask me why Summit has grown so rapidly. Often I respond by saying we have avoided (for the most part) the anchor-dragging negativity that comes in the wake of unresolved conflict. Healthy living things grow. By God’s grace, we have stayed healthy by not allowing festering unresolved conflict to linger unaddressed beneath the surface.
1Patrick M. Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002), 188.
2Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (New York: Free Press, 2004), 186.
3Ibid., 187, 188.
4H.B. London & Neil B. Wiseman, They Call Me Pastor (Ventura: Regal Books, 2000) 82.
Steve Bond serves as senior pastor with Summit Christian Church, Sparks, Nevada.
