Barnabas File

Are you part of a nice church or a great church?     A nice church is where everyone gets along because we never really discuss anything of substance.     We value community and fellowship and fear upsetting what we see as a delicate equilibrium in the congregation.     Nice churches will do well but they will never be great churches because they are unwilling to put the effort into dealing with major issues and needs. Let me be honest up front--I don’t like conflict.  On the various conflict management inventories, I usually score high on avoid and/or accommodate.  Conflict makes me tired and frustrated.  I have learned, however, that very little progress is made if we continue to avoid needed discussions and hard decisions. Speed Leas wrote a classic book titled Discover Your Conflict Management Style [i] .  He includes an inventory to identify your default style or styles of dealing with conflict. ...

Are you part of a nice church or a great church?   A nice church is where everyone gets along because we never really discuss anything of substance.   We value community and fellowship and fear upsetting what we see as a delicate equilibrium in the congregation.   Nice churches will do well but they will never be great churches because they are unwilling to put the effort into dealing with major issues and needs. Let me be honest up front--I don’t like conflict.  On the various conflict management inventories, I usually score high on avoid and/or accommodate.  Conflict makes me tired and frustrated.  I have learned, however, that very little progress is made if we continue to avoid needed discussions and hard decisions. Speed Leas wrote a classic book titled Discover Your Conflict Management Style [i] .  He includes an inventory to identify your default style or styles of dealing with conflict.  The lesson to be learned...

In the wake of the resignation of the pastor of a megachurch in our area, the local paper published an article citing the findings of a survey related to pastoral attrition: “LifeWay Research also found that 40 percent left pastoral work before age 65 because they had a change in calling, 25 percent cited a conflict in a church, 12 percent left because of personal finances and 12 percent left for family issues. The online survey conducted in 2015 asked questions of 734 former senior pastors who left in four Protestant denominations, and respondents could choose more than one reason.” In reviewing these results, most of us realize that if a person is continually dealing with conflict, financial concerns, or family issues, he or she will probably consider “a change in calling” for personal well-being and relational health!  We expect too much of our senior leaders and often fail to provide the support they need in ...

Note:   This is the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Stones River.   In memory of those who fought and died there, my blog today is an updated repeat of an earlier blog posting about a visit to the battlefield. One Saturday about five years ago, Rita and I took our eight-year-old grandson, Noah, to visit Stones River National Battlefield here in Murfreesboro. This is the site of the Battle of Stones River, an engagement that lasted from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863. The battle is characterized by historians as having the largest percentage of casualties on both sides, a total of 23,515--some 13,600 on the Union side and about 10,600 on the Confederate side. Once inside the Visitors Center, we found ourselves in front of a map showing the initial deployment of forces. This produced Noah's first question: "Which one is our side?" This led to some discussion. His mother's family grew up in the South--Mississippi and Alabama--and she was born in Tenness...