As human beings, conflict is unavoidable and Christians are not immune to it. What matters is how you handle it. Brian teaches us that conflict resolution is about hearing and being heard, and offers practicle techniques to confront and resolve conflict in a Christ-like way.

GCAEC 1st Annual Elders' Retreat

<p>As human beings, conflict is unavoidable and Christians are not immune to it. What matters is how you handle it. Brian teaches us that conflict resolution is about hearing and being heard, and offers practicle techniques to confront and resolve conflict in a Christ-like way.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Georgia-Cumberland Adventist Elders Consortium (GCAEC)

Brian Cummings

Conflict Resolution

So I'll open with a scripture verse, James 119.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

And this is a scripture that should come into mind whenever we're in a potential conflict with another person, because this is an advice that the Bible has for us on conflict.

Yeah, I did a search in the Bible for conflict and there's very few, I can't find any verses that say make sure the other party leaves the discussion believing what your point of view.

So a little bit about me in terms of the introduction.

Actually if I was a little higher I was gonna stand.

Do you notice the resemblance between me and the silhouette I choose to represent me?

I think he's a bit better looking, I don't know.

So I'll skip past this part, since Chuck did a fabulous job with the introduction.

And we'll go right into defining conflict.

So it is a serious disagreement or argument, and can typically be a protracted 1.

So a conflict can be a moment in time between 2 people, can be more of a disagreement.

A conflict that has gone poorly can drive a wedge between you and another person for a very long time.

I have relatives who haven't spoken to each other in years.

And it's like severing a limb from the body of Christ.

We're not here to experience long-term protracted conflict.

So I'm going to take a moment, and I'm going to separate the concepts of conflict resolution versus mediation.

So conflict resolution is between me and another party.

There is a conflict and I'm working to resolve it or maybe the 2 of us are working to resolve it versus mediation in which case some elders may get involved and I'm not It's going to be outside of the scope of this particular breakout session.

But mediation would be me as an elder, or me as an individual mediating 2 other parties.

Some people conflate those terms, that as a conflict, being in conflict resolution, I'm the third party.

I'm talking about I'm 1 of the 2 parties in the conflict.

So I'm kind of a Clint Eastwood fan and spaghetti Westerns.

So let's talk about for a moment, I'm going to give you a few minutes, we're going to look for you to shout out answers, the good, the bad, and the ugly of conflict.

It's not always a necessarily a bad thing.

So I want to hear some some things about conflict that might be good.

What kind of things do you think of when you think of conflict that might be good?

I was going to say the relationship between the 2 individuals that have successfully gone through the conflict can be much stronger as a result of it.

If you successfully resolve, you can have a stronger relationship at the end.

You get to see something outside the box.

Just because you're in conflict just means that you're in a box and they're in a different box.

You can bring clarity to something that was fine.

Sometimes it's necessary in order to bring about change.

It is necessary to bring about change, yes.

And just for the other person or also for both parties, that's right.

Exactly, differing opinions are not always bad.

Like last night, Pastor Maddox, we heard talking about the different bodies of Christ.

Learning more deeply about the other person.

Learning more deeply about the other person, correct.

How can if the conflict is not resolved, it means those who could be friends may not be friends ever again?

But absolutely, I have a very close relative of mine who stopped attending church as a result of a disagreement.

And thankfully I think they still have a relationship, but they don't have a community that they attend to.

It affects every aspect of your life, that's right.

I wasn't sure if there was gonna be an ugly, maybe there any bad and ugly were very close, but I couldn't resist, they were so close, I wanted to use the Clint Eastwood reference.

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Conflict Resolution

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