Episode 27 - Ten Steps To Resolve Any Disagreement In Ministry

Last week’s podcast was on the topic of boldness. This week, we are talking about how to resolve an ongoing disagreement or conflict that is negatively impacting your ministry. We share ten steps to resolve any disagreement in ministry, and as usual, the podcast contains a lot of information, but here are the ten steps for later reference.

Ten steps to resolve any disagreement in Ministry

1. When there is a disagreement, initiate communication with the other leader immediately 
2. Both parties need to seek first to understand – come with a humble teachable spirit.
3. Clarify your differences – Speaking and writing out your opinions and thoughts helps to clarify them in your mind. Dawson Trotman said “thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips.”
4. Leave personality out of it. We can’t change our personalities. While we need to be aware of, and work with, our personalities, we cannot change them.
5. Find the common ground. Focus on what you have in common, and start there. Ministry leaders should have a great deal in common, and that tends to frame the debate in a more positive light.
6. Follow leadership hierarchy. As they say, “rank has its privileges.” In baseball, they say a tie goes to the runner, but in leadership, a tie tips toward the leader.
7. Together, submit your interaction to the Lord and allow the disagreement to grow your relationship.
8. If you cannot find a solution, seek a third party. Perhaps one or both of you is too close to enjoy objectivity and focus. Find a third party you both respect.
9. Always speak well of each other in public - Do not allow yourself to confide in a sympathetic third party within the church. If the conflict is public in any way, there will always be those who seek to take sides. This only divides. Always, always speak well of the other person.
10. Come to a resolution quickly, but still allow appropriate time for that to happen. Don’t rush it, the situation may need time to resolve, but don’t drag it out either. No resolution is still a resolution.

Next week's podcast is all about why you need, and actually want to encourage, conflict in your ministry leadership, and how you can leverage it to build the Kingdom of God.

Tell us about the last time you successfully resolved a disagreement in your 200church...