Minister’s Corner: Managing conflict

By: DR. BRIAN DORE’
Member of the Ville Platte
Ministerial Alliance

It is a fact of life that if you live or work or associate in any way with people, you will experience conflict. The only way to escape it completely is to live in the desert all alone. Since that isn’t a realistic option for most of us, we would be better off learning to handle the conflict that comes up from day to day. This is especially true for conflict in the church. Nothing can damage the testimony of a church or place a stumbling block before non-believers more than to see a church that is in conflict and unwilling to forgive.
Proverbs 20:3 (KJV) states, “It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.” Notice it doesn’t say you should ignore strife. It says you should “cease” it. If there is friction in a relationship, you must deal with it. Ignoring it will not make the problem go away. You must work to resolve it. However, you are much better off if you can avoid the conflict altogether before it becomes a problem.
If you are having conflict with someone, it is because they are doing something you don’t want them to do, or you are doing something they don’t want you to do. How do you resolve this? Well, it is not uncommon to see people who want to go on and on and on about the problem, but they don’t want to work towards finding a solution. In order to resolve the conflict, one of you will have to change your behavior, or the other will have to change the way they feel about the behavior. If you want to resolve the conflict in your life, you must be willing to stop dwelling on the problem and begin focusing on a solution. Strive for a solution to the conflict. You don’t have to keep reminding the other person what they did wrong. Once they have taken steps to make peace, you must be willing to let it go.