Sarah and Hagar and Church confilcts
A responder to this blog asks if there is any connection between Sarah and Hagar’s battles and Church conflicts. I would say, ‘You bet there is.’
I know the respondent and feel very close to that person because we both suffered in the same situation at the same time – that makes some pretty strong emotional bonds.
In the basement of my house there is a very large box: - the contents would fill two filing cabinet drawers, if I ever took them out. They are my prayer journals, started when I first became solo pastor, and continuing through to almost the last church I pastored; that church broke my heart and my will, and drove me into an unpaid sabbatical, selling real-estate. Those journals are full of written prayer-conversations about the quarrels and tensions in the churches I pastored.
Two things happen when the church quarrels: shame and fear. Shame because people have the unbiblical notion that the church shouldn’t experience conflict. Fear because trying to make peace between conflicting parties is like picking up an un-exploded bomb. After it has gone off in your face and you are all burnt and bleeding, ‘wise’ pastors visit you and tell you it was all your own fault, you mishandled the bomb.
I can write this with some authority, 5 years of working with the local committee of our denomination that handled pastor-congregation conflict gave me a ring-side seat into other pastor’s problems. I learnt there, that the pastors who seemed successful and who led stable congregations for many years had sometimes suppressed conflicts in ways that exploded after they had left the church. I began to feel less embarrassed about the conflicts in my own congregations as I heard about other people’s. Occasionally I drove home saying to myself, “Now there’s a mishandled bomb, I would never have handled it that way. Those car conversations were cheap therapy but they also salvaged a lot of my self-respect. .
The written-prayer journals helped a lot. I was able to channel all my hurt and indignation into prayers knowing that The Listener kept confidences. I was thankful that I had an example in the book of Psalms and could express myself anyhow I needed to, without fear of offending God. Because the churches that I pastored were, almost always, declining churches with a history of church fights, often situated in deteriorating neighborhoods with massive social problems I had enough material to fill all those prayer journals.
I began to teach that conflicts, even bitter quarrels, are opportunities. The Church should consider itself a safe environment where conflict can be examined without anger and policies that promote peace can be powerfully practiced. I never had any takers! But I have noticed that happy, confident, children come from homes that do just this; explore the conflict in a safe environment and develop peaceful procedures for living together.
One reason I stay in my present denomination despite the changes that caused so much conflict amongst us, is that I think we’ve a pretty good history of examining conflicting and devising peaceable policies. But the machinery to do this is so time consuming that it does not happen in individual congregations. Local psycho-therapists seem more adapt dealing with inner personal conflict that inter-personal conflict, the only one who visited my congregation suggested that all their problems stemmed from being in ‘survival mode’ and left the church in an undignified hurry when my religious-minded congregation mobbed her with yells of outrage.
Are we missing an opportunity to be redemptive to the world beyond the church walls? At a time when large corporations are becoming more powerful than political bodies, do we have anything to offer the members of those corporations when conflict threatens their jobs and their health? When we meet with other people who worship the same God we do, but do so without the New Testament, do we have any way to respect these God fearing people without conflict? If I were in a church that agreed with me, I would not teach people how to ask someone about going to heaven when they die but about how to live in the Kingdom of Heaven while they are on earth.
Acts chapter 21 verse 17-28 Was the bomb miss-handled? Was there perhaps a conspiracy? Where would Paul have been if he’d left Jerusalem a little earlier?
I know the respondent and feel very close to that person because we both suffered in the same situation at the same time – that makes some pretty strong emotional bonds.
In the basement of my house there is a very large box: - the contents would fill two filing cabinet drawers, if I ever took them out. They are my prayer journals, started when I first became solo pastor, and continuing through to almost the last church I pastored; that church broke my heart and my will, and drove me into an unpaid sabbatical, selling real-estate. Those journals are full of written prayer-conversations about the quarrels and tensions in the churches I pastored.
Two things happen when the church quarrels: shame and fear. Shame because people have the unbiblical notion that the church shouldn’t experience conflict. Fear because trying to make peace between conflicting parties is like picking up an un-exploded bomb. After it has gone off in your face and you are all burnt and bleeding, ‘wise’ pastors visit you and tell you it was all your own fault, you mishandled the bomb.
I can write this with some authority, 5 years of working with the local committee of our denomination that handled pastor-congregation conflict gave me a ring-side seat into other pastor’s problems. I learnt there, that the pastors who seemed successful and who led stable congregations for many years had sometimes suppressed conflicts in ways that exploded after they had left the church. I began to feel less embarrassed about the conflicts in my own congregations as I heard about other people’s. Occasionally I drove home saying to myself, “Now there’s a mishandled bomb, I would never have handled it that way. Those car conversations were cheap therapy but they also salvaged a lot of my self-respect. .
The written-prayer journals helped a lot. I was able to channel all my hurt and indignation into prayers knowing that The Listener kept confidences. I was thankful that I had an example in the book of Psalms and could express myself anyhow I needed to, without fear of offending God. Because the churches that I pastored were, almost always, declining churches with a history of church fights, often situated in deteriorating neighborhoods with massive social problems I had enough material to fill all those prayer journals.
I began to teach that conflicts, even bitter quarrels, are opportunities. The Church should consider itself a safe environment where conflict can be examined without anger and policies that promote peace can be powerfully practiced. I never had any takers! But I have noticed that happy, confident, children come from homes that do just this; explore the conflict in a safe environment and develop peaceful procedures for living together.
One reason I stay in my present denomination despite the changes that caused so much conflict amongst us, is that I think we’ve a pretty good history of examining conflicting and devising peaceable policies. But the machinery to do this is so time consuming that it does not happen in individual congregations. Local psycho-therapists seem more adapt dealing with inner personal conflict that inter-personal conflict, the only one who visited my congregation suggested that all their problems stemmed from being in ‘survival mode’ and left the church in an undignified hurry when my religious-minded congregation mobbed her with yells of outrage.
Are we missing an opportunity to be redemptive to the world beyond the church walls? At a time when large corporations are becoming more powerful than political bodies, do we have anything to offer the members of those corporations when conflict threatens their jobs and their health? When we meet with other people who worship the same God we do, but do so without the New Testament, do we have any way to respect these God fearing people without conflict? If I were in a church that agreed with me, I would not teach people how to ask someone about going to heaven when they die but about how to live in the Kingdom of Heaven while they are on earth.
Acts chapter 21 verse 17-28 Was the bomb miss-handled? Was there perhaps a conspiracy? Where would Paul have been if he’d left Jerusalem a little earlier?
posted by Jessie Coates at 11:14 AM
1 Comments:
OK, the shame and fear I understand. And I feel like I can deal with those on most days. The hardest part for me remains the anger. I can relate to Haggar fleeing. There are times when that seems like the best option. There are times when that is REALLY tempting. What do you do when you just want to run away? When is it right to just run away?
Alternatively, I need a model for my anger. Because equally tempting is the desire for revenge, the desire to defend myself and prove myself right, the desire to yell in order to try to get through.
PS. I'm going to start a prayer journal.
PSS. Things feel as if they may be turning a corner.
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