Churches in conflict cause much pain for pastors. Few members of the congregation may even think about how their pastor is reacting to the conflict. In many cases, the conflict may be between the pastor and the church board or perhaps between the pastor and just one or two members of the congregation. In either case, the following book will assist your pastor in dealing with these situations.

Gary Preston. Pastors in Pain: How to Grow in Times of Conflict. BakerBooks. 1999.

I learned one important thing from this book that applies to anyone experiencing relationship conflict – keep the communication channels open. This applies to your coworkers, spouse, child, relative, or friend.

Preston opens the book sharing the experience of being fired as a pastor. Talk about conflict! He talks about the shock of being without a job and finding a church where he and his family could recover without being called on to do anything or even pointed out in the congregation.

The author spends several chapters on what NOT to do when there is church conflict. Among those things are sharing personal letters written by a congregational member in your sermon – that’s a good way to lose a member! He also mentions how you must not strike back at the person causing conflict.

Reading this book really showed me the downside of being in a public position like a pastor. Everyone is judging you by how you appear to be responding to the conflict. If the conflict is private, some in the congregation may not understand why you aren’t your old self.

Pastors in pain must continue to meet their family’s needs too. I can visualize a pastor’s children learning of the conflict through youth groups or Sunday school classes they may share with the person causing their father the problems.

Recommendation

Copyrighted by Diana Pederson, 2005-2009