As church leaders, we sometimes have to help people in our congregations who've fallen out with each other, where relationships are broken. Unfortunately, that can happen, all too easily, from small disagreements to completely fractured relationships.
We need to help people work out how they can stay united in Christ or be reconciled in him. And I've got a few pointers for us as to how we might go about that.
Categories of disagreement
But first of all, we need to know what kind of category of issue we are dealing with. Because disagreements come in different sorts.
So for example, some are caused by sin.
Someone has done something wrong. they have hurt someone sinned against them. that could be quite small. A cross word. It could be something much more significant, deliberate lying or unfaithfulness. some disagreements of course, are because of perceived wrongdoing, but that's contested. People disagree as to whether it was or it wasn't.
Some fallouts are because of differences of opinion. You might disagree over music in your church or how to handle a pastoral issue or a leadership decision. some of those are wisdom issues or is it best to do this or to do that? And we disagree strongly. Others actually are issues of preference.
I like this, prefer this. You prefer that. Now, in all of these things can still become quite heated, but it's important to see there's not necessarily any sin involved there. Other fallouts are because we rub, each other up the wrong way. We have different personalities, different senses of humor, maybe different cultures that could clash in certain ways.
And we don't get on. These different categories, different reasons for disagreement, need different responses because where there's sin, what we'd want to see is ownership of sin, confession, and forgiveness. But where there's difference of opinion over the best course of action we want to see respectful listening and honoring of each other.
Where, we rub, each other up the wrong way we'd want to see bearing with each other and patience. Now of course, sometimes it'll be a mixture of all of those thrown in together. We'll need to try and tease them apart, separated out, and we'll need to help the people we're working with, those who've fallen out, help them understand that there are different sorts of disagreements and different reasons.
Sometimes, for example, I ask people explicitly, do you think they've sinned against you? Or do you think this is just a difference of opinion? Not that it's insignificant, but it's that rather than sin, trying to help them know what category we are in.
Caution against assigning motives
Secondly, I think we need to caution people against assigning motives. People often fall out, particularly because how they've understood someone's actions or words, why they did it. They might say that person did that because, they always think they know best or they want to be in charge. That they might assign pretty nasty motives.
They did to spite me. They did that to turn that person against me. Of course they might be right, and our hearts are capable of some pretty horrible motives, but we are not very good at reading them in each other, and we need to caution people against it. We need to help people see they shouldn't jump to the worst possible reading of someone's actions.
Why else might that person have said or done what they did? Could it have been unintentional? Could it have been clumsy? Could it have been a misunderstanding? What? What does the other person say the reason is? And will I listen to that? We need to apply Jesus's golden rule to do to others as they would have, as we'd have them do to us. That means not jumping to the worst motives.
Take responsibility
Thirdly, we need to help people take responsibility for their side of whatever's happened. Most situations are two sided. An argument often escalates between people, or they do that and they, someone responds with this and so on. Help people take responsibility for their side, what they've done, rather than just hearing what they think the other person ought to do.
We help people own their own involvement and contribution, even if they think it's primarily the other person's fault. So sometimes I use percentages. I say, let's, divide it up. Do you think it's 50 50 between them and you? Do you think it's, do you think it's more them than you? Or, 20, 20, 80, what is it?
And some people might say, it's just 10% me, it's 90% them. But then you talk to the other side and, they say, no, it's, 90% them. It's only 10% me. And there's this, gap in the middle. No one's, taking responsibility for. fair enough. But the point is, you are saying it's 10% you, how should you respond to that 10%?
Because that's what God would call you to do. And if both sides can do that and respond in that way, they're taking responsibility for what they perceive their side to be. That can be a helpful dynamic. We also need to help people bow to God as the final arbiter, the final judge.
It's like back to that percentage thing, you've got that gap. No one's taking responsibility for this. And many issues remain contested in that way. They reach a point where more discussion won't really help. People disagree over what happened.
God is the final judge. The Apostle Paul says that each of us will have to give an account to God. And there are some areas where we say, that person will have to answer to God for how they've acted, I don't have to do anything about that. Can I leave it with God knowing he sees everything clearly in a way I don't. He knows all the intricacies of the situations, all the different factors, all the motives of people's hearts, and I can't truly judge those things, but he can. We need to help people see God like that and say I entrust it to him.
Division is not inevitable
Lastly, we need to help people see that ongoing differences don't need to fracture our unity in Christ. What Jesus has done to unite us can be bigger than what separates us. Because there'll be some outstanding areas. There'll be debate over exactly who said what and why and what it meant, and so on.
There'll be ongoing annoyances and and frustrations between us. We won't resolve everything, and yet we can still say Jesus died to reconcile us to each other, to unite us together in him, to make us part of his body together. We don't have to have everything agreed between us to remain united. We can help people say to themselves and to each other,
Jesus and his death bind us together and that's bigger than what separates us.
Look, I know from sad experience how, painful and messy and exhausting these sorts of relational breakdowns can be, and sometimes they can have a horrible effect on the church, but Jesus has worked to reconcile us to each other. We need to help people maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
Pray would be able to do that more and more, and I hope these thoughts are of some help.
