How Healthy Teams Engage In Conflict

Last week, we began looking at what makes a healthy church team by starting with the foundation: trust. When people trust one another, they can admit weakness, ask for help, acknowledge mistakes, and stop spending so much energy protecting themselves.

• A strong foundation of trust makes the next element of a healthy team possible: healthy conflict. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni identifies fear of conflict as another major dysfunction of a team.
• When people do not feel safe enough to disagree openly, important concerns stay beneath the surface. Meetings may remain polite, but the real conversations happen later in hallways, texts, and side conversations.

Many believe Christian unity requires us to avoid disagreement at all costs, but this is not the case. Scripture repeatedly calls us to tell one another the truth, listen carefully, address problems directly, and pursue genuine peace rather than the illusion of it.

• Healthy Christian teams should be places where people can disagree without turning against one another. Here are some ideas about where to start.

Six ways to engage in healthy conflict in church

1. speak the truth in love

• Paul tells us to speak the truth in love to one another (Ephesians 4:15). Because we belong to one another, we owe one another the truth. If I see something differently but stay quiet simply because I am afraid of tension, that may not be kindness at all. Love sometimes requires saying difficult things.

2. make peace instead of avoiding conflict

• Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). Notice that he does not say, “Blessed are the conflict avoiders.” There is a big difference between keeping things calm on the surface and actually making peace. Sometimes the path to genuine peace goes through a difficult conversation rather than around it.

3. go to people, not around them

• Jesus gives remarkably practical instructions for conflict: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you” (Matthew 18:15a). In other words, go to the person. When we do not do this, we often end up complaining to someone else. We send a text. We gather allies. We replay the conversation with everyone except the person we actually need to talk to. Conflict does not disappear when we avoid it. It usually just moves somewhere less healthy.

4. enter disagreement with humility

• Philippians 2 tells us to reject selfish ambition and “in humility value others above yourselves.” Healthy Christian conflict begins with this humble posture that is not afraid to say, “I could be wrong.” That changes the way we enter a disagreement. One of the most revealing questions we can ask ourselves during conflict is this: Am I fighting for my idea to win, or am I fighting do discover what is best for the mission?

5. listen as hard as you speak

• James writes, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19b). Encouraging healthy conflict is not permission to become combative. Healthy conflict is possible when I listen at least twice as much as I talk and remain committed to loving my brother or sister in Christ well.

6. make healthy disagreement normal

• Leaders set the tone for how the entire team experiences conflict. If every disagreement makes the leader defensive, everyone will begin modeling that behavior. If difficult conversations are quickly shut down, the team will learn it is not worth even bringing up important issues. Healthy leaders invite other perspectives and allow for spirited conversation. And when a team handles a difficult disagreement well, they name it and celebrate it!

The goal is not conflict for conflict’s sake. The goal is better decisions, stronger relationships, and a team that can address real problems instead of dancing around them.

• A trusting team does not need everyone to think alike. It needs people who love one another enough to tell the truth, humble themselves enough to listen, and care more about Christ’s mission than about winning an argument.