Church Conflict: From Contention to Collaboration - Softcover

Everist, Norma Cook

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687038014 ISBN 13: 9780687038015

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

You love your work. You love the people-most of the time. They respect you, most of the time. You work together with colleagues, staff, and laity, with energy and enthusiasm, most of the time. But then something goes wrong: a word spoken in anger, a misunderstanding, and things turn sour. What do you do? How do you deal with conflict, whether it be long or short-term, low or high intensity? Conflict is a part of the human predicament, yet it need not define or control your ministry. This book is designed to help the reader ask certain key questions about the nature and scope of the conflict they are experiencing and, based on the answers to those questions, move beyond conflict. The author lays out the variety of responses to conflict, running the gamut from avoidance to accommodation to compromise to collaboration. Written with the real needs of congregations in mind, this book will serve as a reliable guide to all who wish to move through conflict into a more effective and authentic fulfillment of their calling.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Norma Cook Everist is Professor of Church and Ministry at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, and a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A widely known theologian, lecturer, and workshop leader, she has published over a dozen books, including The Church as Learning Community; Church Conflict: From Contention to Collaboration; and (with Craig L. Nessan) Transforming Leadership.

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Church Conflict

From Contention to Collaboration

By Norma Cook Everist

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2004 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-687-03801-5

Contents

Introduction, 
PART ONE: THE NATURE OF CONFLICT, 
1 / Images of Conflict, 
2 / Types of Conflict, 
3 / Patterns of Conflict, 
4 / Personal History of Conflict, 
5 / Roles in Conflict, 
PART TWO: RESPONSES TO CONFLICT, 
6 / Avoidance, 
7 / Confrontation, 
8 / Competition, 
9 / Control, 
10 / Accommodation, 
11 / Compromise, 
12 / Collaboration, 

CHAPTER 1

Images of Conflict

Conflict! Is it a mess? An adventure? A maze you cannot find your way through? In the face of conflict do you feel a surge of energy? A knot in the stomach? Exhausted?

Each of us has our own image of conflict that can be expressed in a word, a phrase, or shown as an object. Our purpose is to uncover and to explore those unnamed yet very present images so that we can better understand ourselves and our reactions to conflict. In beginning to identify our different images of conflict—perhaps yours is an invigorating sport while mine is a bottomless pit—we can see why we have such different feelings about it and different ways of addressing it. That is at least a beginning of moving from contention toward collaboration.

How did our ideas about conflict come into being? Partly through our own personality; partly through our family of origin, including birth order; and certainly by our experiences with conflict and the roles we play in conflict at various stages of our lives. We will take time to reflect on our own personal experiences with conflict in chapter 4, but it is not too soon to begin to take note of past experiences of conflict as they flash into our minds. The culture and times in which we live also form us and shape our views of conflict. For example, some Asian cultures emphasize addressing one another with respectful formality, even when parties disagree, to help the other "save face," whereas newscasters in the United States seek viewers' attention through a lead sentence such as "They came out swinging," even when a public meeting was calm and respectful.

Our religious beliefs about conflict determine how we approach conflict. Do we believe in evolution of the human species according to the survival of the fittest? If so, the contentiousness of competition is perfectly natural, even necessary, for human survival. Do we believe in a God who punishes people who are not "nice"? If so, we may avoid church conflict. Do we believe in a God who is capricious? If so, we can never know if this God will be angry or merciful. What do we believe about God? How do our beliefs about God shape our approach to conflict and to collaboration? And what do we believe about the church? That it is a place of "nice" people? Then conflict itself might be seen as "unchristian." It is a place of redeemed sinful human beings? Then conflict will be a constant—and God's forgiving grace more constant still.

Conflict: An Image, an Action, a Word

What does conflict mean to you? How does it feel? A group of adults gathered to explore their own understanding of conflict. Listen to the images they shared:

Alan: Conflict to me seems like a cancer. It's not always visible, not always painful in the moment, but it is there systemically, and it can grow.

Bill (holding up a drawing made by a three-year-old child): I see conflict as a mass of emotions, each line being a potential response. I don't know which one to take, where it will lead, or if it can be untangled.

Rose also brought a picture along to the group. Holding up The Ultimate Kitchen Guide, she showed a photo of a shiny aluminum pot filled to overflowing with utensils: a spatula, whip, mixer, small bowl, measuring cups, spoons, and a timer. Conflict reminds me of this picture: chaos, a lot of things, but being unable to put them to good use. Craziness!

Ray: I see a dog and a cat fighting. It's hair-raising!

John: For me, conflict has a sharper edge, like a gritty stone in one's shoe.

Marie: My image is similar, like sand caught in your sneaker. Sometimes it's so fine it sticks to you and you can't get rid of it.

Annika: I thought of my congregation just a few days ago. A heated discussion about an issue over which the congregation is deeply divided went on for four and a half hours. My image is of the black hole that our sanctuary became.

Beth: I don't see a black hole at all. I picture a Picasso painting with heads severed from the rest of the body. Or maybe one could see it as Shiva, the Hindu God in whom one sees both destruction and creation. I also think of comic images of Batman's power of encounter with evil: "Wham! Bang!"

The group laughed, pondering the cultural range of those images and then continued.

Francis: I just came from a congregation dealing with conflict through having to answer to authority. Conflict in that situation had more the flavor of a legal battle in a courtroom.

Steve took his turn and stood up, then folded his arms tightly across his chest as if keeping himself in and others out. He just stood there without a word.

Jessie picked up the conversation as Steve sat down: Sometimes it can get pretty rough in a congregation. However, I see conflict in a more neutral light. Conflict is not clearly good or bad. I picture a coin with "avoidance" on one side and "confrontation" on the other. You can flip the coin to either side.

Eileen: I wish I could think of conflict as neutral. I keep feeling afraid. I hear shouting and think about feeling helpless and not being able to think or do anything.

The group sat quietly for a few moments, realizing that for some people, past experience clouds any positive image of conflict. Conflict has been associated with abuse. And then a caring woman picked up the conversation.

Katie empathized with the pain of conflict: I think of a knotted rope, like knots in one's stomach—or like a challenge to untangle.

Darin: Conflict can be very trying. My congregation is in a very unpleasant time. I'm trying to see this time as an opportunity, but it's difficult. I'm trying to connect with other people so I don't feel out there by myself. I see some brightness and some darkness and they seem to be competing forces. There are rays of hope and light. I try to walk in the light.

Hannah added one final image: I picture a group of islands with people on each one. The islands are close enough for bridges to be built between them but they have not been built, so each person is alone and wondering why they are alone.

Living Together with Different Images

Images—some would say metaphors—of conflict provide us with insight about ourselves and one another, how we welcome or avoid conflict, and how each of us engages the conflict process. If we are not aware of our images of conflict, we will not understand how we use it in relationships. Our misunderstandings will multiply. What is conflict for you?

How can we engage in conflict if people don't have the same view? We simply won't all have the same view! The goal is not to understand conflict the same way, but to understand just how differently we perceive conflict. Even though some people may resist working on the conflict and the journey ahead may be difficult, exploring the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0687038014
• ISBN 13: 9780687038015
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 172
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland