Conflict: Our Story
Ahhhhh, conflict on a ministry team,
the unexpected team-building exercise nobody signed up for, but everyone has to survive;
because even people who agree on eternal salvation can disagree about continuing to print a bulletin or going entirely digital;
when two or more are gathered in His name... there's a good chance someone’s feelings are going to get hurt in an elders’ meeting;
where the fruits of the Spirit are tested by the church ladies and the sound system.
I can’t help but laugh at the above one-liners that ChatGPT spat out for me about church staff conflict. However, when I was experiencing my own church staff conflict a few years ago, I wasn’t laughing. These types of conflict are difficult, draining, and often the reason ministers leave church families and sometimes leave ministry entirely. Conflict can leave bruises, regrets, and more questions than answers.
Because of the intense fallout and impressive failures that we’ve all experienced, my former colleague Jerry and I teamed up to share our experiences and lessons learned. We worked together from 2010–2013, but our families became good friends in 2006. Jerry was the preaching minister, and I was the children’s minister. You can relax, there were no moral failures or appalling corruption, just plain-ol’ interpersonal conflict. We hope that we can help others outsmart a great deal of conflict because we know that when conflict is handled properly, it can produce some amazing results.
With this article, we offer our perspectives, regrets, and takeaways, so that others may learn to behave with more skill and wisdom. In this first part, we’ll talk about how we got to that point of conflict, and the actions we took to try to resolve things. Then, in part two, we’ll discuss what we wish we had done differently, and the lessons we both learned.
I. How did we get to this point?
Jerry
Our system was set up for failure in multiple ways. Our actual polity did not operate in line with the titles and descriptions of our roles, although my awareness of this was limited. The way we processed and communicated decisions was haphazard, and recent history haunted our functioning. One of my first challenges as senior minister was to help define a position for a staff member who had recently transitioned to new assignments, many of which he didn’t seem willing or able to manage. Despite bringing in a consultant to help, things did not end well. The way he departed caused much pain for all of us which created doubt, uncertainty, and a desire to avoid such pain again.
Personally, I had an immature understanding of how to navigate conflict and how anxiety worked in a system. And of course, I had my own issues that handcuffed my functioning, chiefly a need for approval from others and to be perfect.
When Amanda came on board, I and perhaps some others had fixed understandings of what her role would look like. We were navigating some burnout and uneasiness with another staff member and hoped that part of Amanda’s work might provide some relief. I don’t remember ever clearly sharing with Amanda how I was envisioning this role, and what we hoped to accomplish. After all, we had a job description that made sense to me. We were trying to align staff to avoid the very problems we had experienced before, with the assumption that a great flow chart would solve our problems. I doubt there was much agreement or understanding on what our problems really were. I think anxiety over our standing with the elders was also impacting our perspectives. Amanda came into a role with multiple expectations from me, the elders, and the youth minister with whom she worked most closely. We eventually got to a place of frustration, misunderstanding, and conflict.
Amanda
Year 1 – I took the children’s minister job. The current youth minister and I worked really well together as ministry partners: philosophy, events, practices. We went to great lengths for months with a committee to make decisions about how we were going to move forward. What we didn’t do well was communicate the changes to the rest of the leadership team or the church at large.
Year 2– I became pregnant at age 42, the very hardest thing I ever, ever, ever had to face, ever. My husband was hanging on to his job by a thread; we expected him to be fired. We owned two houses. Multiple staff changes occurred, including hiring a new youth minister.
Year 3– I thought we were rolling along pretty well until I had my performance review, conducted by another staff member, not Jerry. I seriously considered quitting at that point. A few minutes after the review, I went back and very clearly shared my thoughts on that. I was defensive and angry; my experience of that performance review was quite negative. So, although I’m sure there were more irritations on Jerry’s part before that, this performance review opened my eyes to the intense disapproval. At that point, it was clear that our approaches/expectations were really off about what should happen in children’s ministry. For example, instead of scheduling tons of children’s activities, I was trying to simplify a family’s life and shift the spiritual teaching to the parents. I reached out to an elder to get some clarity on our philosophy for children’s ministry. That’s when the elders did some restructuring, and no one had a direct supervisor. I didn’t ask for that, nor did I expect/want that. The elders made that call. When Jon, from Hope Network Ministries, came to work with us, I found out that Jerry and others assumed I had asked for this change; of course, I can understand why that didn’t go down well.
After that, I felt dismissed, mostly invisible. Later, Jerry told me that he was instructed to back off, but I just felt the rejection. I was horrified and embarrassed that elders were brought in because my work was being questioned. I was baffled, trying to understand why we weren’t functioning better together as a staff, and I’m just now really understanding Jerry’s frustrations with other staff members and some of the internal issues. I fully expected that we would be in conflict at multiple points when working together, but couldn’t find a way to achieve a resolution. I expected criticism from church members, but not the internal staff conflict.
Lack of alignment, ineffective communication, and unfulfilled expectations were really big culprits here, leading to this conflict between Jerry and me. Broader issues with the elders and other staff members were hidden contributors as well.
What actions did we take to try to resolve things?
Jerry
I didn’t have the capacity or maturity at that time to gather our staff together and help us all to listen well to each other, collaborate on a new beginning, or be aware of how other parts of our system might be affecting our functioning. I felt frustrated about the tension and misunderstanding, but didn’t consider how much of the problem came from my behavior. I remember Amanda approaching me and wanting to talk through things, particularly as it related to our relationship. I was uncomfortable, wanted to avoid a direct and difficult conversation, and held back on being honest and vulnerable. I was not brave.
Amanda
In my mind, I tried multiple times to talk with Jerry. Overall, I remember going into hyperdrive, working harder, trying to be positive, helpful, cooperative, and likable, both during staff meetings and when we were together…. I guess I thought that eventually, we would all get over it and be friends again. After a while, I had plenty to keep me busy, so I just accepted that collaboration wasn’t going to happen, and I put my energy into other places.
In 2013, Jon Mullican from Hope Network Ministries came to work with our staff. That was a huge breakthrough for me. He was the first and only one who asked me any questions about this situation. I remember that he asked me if I thought Jerry was sexist, haha. I didn’t think so, and I didn’t experience him that way. Full disclosure: I just thought that Jerry didn’t approve of how I was doing my job and that he didn’t like me. People who work together don’t have to be friends, but we were really good friends before, so that was hard. Jon helped us have the conversations we needed to have and provided the structure for us to resolve things. I felt that we did that effectively. By that time, Jerry had already announced that he was taking another job.
Jerry
Jon helped us have some difficult conversations. We listened to each other. He helped me see my immature behavior. I was able to hear how things looked from Amanda’s perspective. Resolution and healing did occur, and that intervention changed my understanding. There were still some things I needed to own up to and apologize for, like my lack of being forthright with Amanda, and I held some of that back. But going forward, I vowed to develop greater skills for being with people and prayed for more courage.
Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow!
