As the following real-life examples illustrate, churches often pay a high price — relationally, spiritually, legally and financially — when they are unprepared to deal with conflict.
First Church started small but grew steadily as members invited friends to hear their pastor’s outstanding preaching. After several years, however, disagreements and frictions multiplied within the leadership team, which eventually divided into two antagonistic factions. Their leaders had no training in conflict resolution, and their bylaws made no provision for seeking outside assistance.
Tensions escalated and eventually spilled over in a contentious congregational meeting that ended in a 60/40 vote. The losing side left to start a new church, and ongoing gossip trashed both churches’ reputations in the community. Many relational wounds never healed, and First Church continued to bleed members for five years. The church eventually closed, and the building was purchased by a local hospital that converted the entire property into a parking lot.
Second Church belonged to a denomination that had a detailed Book of Church Order (BCO). Since it was written by attorneys, it included detailed disciplinary guidelines that resembled a civil court’s rules of procedure. As a result, the disciplinary process was far more confrontational and adversarial than it was conciliatory and redemptive. The BCO contained an appendix that set forth a conciliation process churches were encouraged to use before instituting formal discipline, but most elders ignored it.
Instead of living out the gospel by pursuing grace-based correction, repentance and restoration, elders typically prosecuted complaints against pastors through formal charges and adversarial proceedings. In case after case, gifted pastors who might have been redeemed were chewed up though this judicial process. Many lost their pulpits and their credentials, and their preaching gifts were lost to the church. Others who were technically exonerated were so embittered by this legalistic process that they, too, left their churches and the denomination.
Joe was slowly crumbling under a steady barrage of conflict and criticism. When he interviewed to serve as pastor, the people at his new church seemed friendly and united. But Joe soon discovered that many of them were prone to conflict. If they weren’t at odds in their marriages or with others in the church, they were complaining about the worship music, unmet needs, Joe’s preaching or the lack of a vision for growth.
The elders did little to help the situation. Lacking peacemaking training, they seldom stepped in to help with member conflicts and failed to confront gossip and slander. Instead of using monthly meetings to encourage Joe, the elders often came with a list of areas where he needed to improve. He spent hours each week trying to grow, responding to complaints and resolving conflict, but nothing seemed to change. Joe might have lasted longer, but when he saw how bitter his wife and children had become toward the church, he finally handed in his resignation.
Bob’s church had the opposite problem. His elders supported him so unquestioningly that they could not admit any wrongdoing on Bob’s part. They stifled questions and concerns about his leadership and minimized his mistakes. They sent a clear message that any disagreement with Bob damaged the unity of the church.
When a woman accused Bob of inappropriate conduct during counseling, the elders assumed she had imagined it. When another woman made a similar complaint, the three elders who were closest to Bob volunteered to investigate. After a few conversations with Bob and the woman, they accepted his version of events and asked her to leave the church.
It was not until Bob was caught in a motel room with a third counselee that the elders finally came face to face with their failure to protect the flock. The subsequent lawsuits for assault, negligent hiring and retention and breach of fiduciary responsibility nearly destroyed the church and did nothing to heal the women Bob had seduced.
Since Dan was the pastor’s son, the church was delighted when he joined the staff as the new youth pastor. Because he had been in the church all his life, they waived the normal interview process, which might have exposed his long struggle with pornography.
The church’s youth worker supervision policies were weak to begin with, and since Dan was the only one who was expected to enforce them, he could easily ignore them himself. So no one saw red flags when he regularly drove some of the teens home by himself week after week. He groomed 15-year-old Alicia so slowly and subtly that no one saw any danger there either. After all, he was the pastor’s son.
So one night he made his move. Dropping all of the other teens off first, Dan had Alicia alone in his car. The grooming had weakened her defenses, so she was unable to stop him as he assaulted her.
When she walked through the door of her home visibly shaken, her parents pressed her for an explanation. The ensuing lawsuit did nothing to heal her trauma, but it succeeded in discrediting the elders, dividing the congregation and destroying the church’s reputation.
When Bill and Lindsey came to Pastor Sean for counseling, he soon realized that Bill was emotionally and sometimes physically abusive toward Lindsey. She was clearly afraid to stand up to Bill, and as time went by, Sean became increasingly concerned about her safety. When he hinted to Bill that he might need to report their situation to the elders or possibly the police, Bill threatened to sue Sean for every dollar he had if he shared confidential information with anyone else.
Their church had no confidentiality or reporting policies for counseling situations, so Bill backed off out of fear of being sued. The couple soon stopped coming to counseling, and two months later Bill beat Lindsey so badly that she ended up in the emergency room. The police finally got involved, but Pastor Sean felt enormous guilt for not doing more to protect her.
Steve and Alice sought marriage counseling from Pastor Tom. During one meeting, Alice admitted that she sometimes lost her temper and struck their children in anger. Steve eventually gave up on counseling and sought a divorce. During the custody battle, his attorney served Pastor Tom with a subpoena to compel him to testify in court that Alice had admitted to being abusive toward their children.
When Tom consulted with an attorney, he learned that the church had no bylaws or policies that enabled him to resist the subpoena by claiming the “clergy penitent privilege.” When his congregation later learned that Tom had testified in court about information he received during pastoral counseling, some of his members told him they were no longer comfortable coming to him for counseling.
When Mark decided to build a new house, it was only natural to hire Seth, a respected contractor in his church. As soon as excavation began, Seth discovered that the property sat on an old trash dump, which required him to do extra digging and back filling to create stable foundation footings. Seth asked for an additional $4,000 to cover these costs, but Mark refused to pay, arguing that the constructive bid was a firm contract. After a heated argument, Seth told his crew to pack up and leave the job site. Two days later, his attorney threatened Mark with a lawsuit if he did not pay all Seth’s costs .
Word of their quarrel spread quickly, and before long members of the church were taking up sides and fanning the flames with judgmental opinions. Mark asked the elders to confront Seth for threatening to sue him in violation of 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. They declined to intervene, however, pointing out that the conflict involved legal issues and that they had no training in mediation. Mark was so disgusted with their timidity that he and his family left the church, taking four other families with them.
RW360’s leadership training and risk management resources are designed to help churches protect their flocks from these kinds of crises and can save churches hundreds of hours of pastoral care and thousands of dollars in legal fees. As Proverbs 27:12 teaches, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.”