Conflict Management For Pastors: Lean in – Part Two

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Conflict comes with the territory of being a leader. It is inevitable. But managing conflict in a healthy manner might not come naturally. So how do we process and respond to conflict? We can’t escape it, and we shouldn’t avoid it, but we can find healthy, effective ways to lean into it.

In part one of this topic, we talked about four things leaning into conflict doesn’t mean:

1. Leaning into conflict doesn’t always require confrontation. Arguing with a contentious person is like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.
2. Leaning into conflict doesn’t mean the main goal is to win the debate. As a young man, I died on every hill, but I’ve since learned there are many hills that are not worth dying on.
3. Leaning into conflict doesn’t authorize inappropriate behavior by those involved. Conflict provides an opportunity for us to model honesty, kindness, and commitment to truth in difficult situations.
4. Leaning into conflict doesn’t mean overblowing the situation. Developing practices of identifying when we’re making a mountain our of a molehill.

This week, we’ll talk about what it does mean.

What Leaning in Means

1. Leaning into conflict means staying true to and defending the vision and values of the organization.

When behavior occurs that is inconsistent with the stated vision and values of the organization, we must confront it. Avoiding or minimizing this over time will eat away at the core values and vision of our community or organization. This includes creating a culture where those we lead can confront us when we as leaders deviate from the vision and values.

We should never base our decisions on emotions, but on values and vision. Consistently communicating core values and vision can help prevent conflict, but no strategy is completely foolproof. 

2. Leaning into conflict means facing pain when necessary.

Leaning in means choosing to have necessary conversations, even when they are difficult. Many churches are a few hard conversations away from making real progress in the mission. We must talk to the people involved, not about them, and avoid political games of getting more people on staff on our side. We do need to engage in prayer, but we can’t use prayer as an excuse to avoid hard conversations. Having the occasional hard, but vital, conversation can be the difference between tension and togetherness.

3. Leaning into conflict means confronting divisive people or groups.

Far too many leaders in churches or other organizations fail to confront obviously divisive people. We would do well to value Paul’s words to Titus:

“But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned” (Titus 3:9-11).

This could include cliques or those in our church or ministry who value tribalism over trust. I wrote in my book Christians in the Age of Outrage:

Unflinching devotion to a tribe not only pushes us to fight against issues that are not connected to the gospel and don’t advance the mission of God, but it also affects how we view others who disagree with us. They become opponents we have to beat rather than lost people made in the image of God whom we are to love and extend God’s grace to. Our true fight is not against those who are hurting in the world; it is against the sinful and demonic forces of darkness.

When we become primarily identified with any tribe outside the body of Christ, especially when we are identified to the point where others are repelled by us, we’ve traded our Kingdom-based identity for a world-based identity. It’s burning a bridge. It’s building a wall. The most damaging example of Christians at their worst is when someone claims a Kingdom-based identity but pursues some world-based end. Trying to use Christianity to achieve political, economic, or social objectives only increases the outrage directed toward us.¹

What has God called us to do? Leadership calls for a commitment to solving conflict. Confronting divisive people does not necessitate an argument or ultimatum; instead, we should attempt to understand the root of their dissatisfaction and build trust, even if we don’t yet have solutions.

4. Leaning into conflict means providing options over ultimatums.

We want to avoid the fallacy of the false dilemma where we set up an issue as being “my way” or “the wrong way.” There are often nuances involved that help resolve the issue without making it polarized. This requires empathy. Before jumping into a conflict with a predetermined remedy, we should take the time to understand the situation from the perspective of those involved. As the saying goes, “seek to understand before seeking to be understood.”

When I am in this situation, I try to sit down with someone who is the source of conflict and say something like, “I want you to know things are not working currently because of these specific reasons. We need to address this and find a solution so we can move forward.” Typically, their response amounts to something like, “This is helpful for me.”

If we jump to the “you messed up so you will be fired” conclusion, we will not find it useful in the short or long run for dealing with conflict.

In the movie We Bought a Zoo, Matt Damon plays a father who, at one point, reflects on important challenges in life with his son and tells him, “You just need 15 seconds of bold, audacious courage.” Sometimes the leader needs just that as well. A moment of our courage goes a long way to repair rifts in a community facing conflict.

5. Leaning into conflict means you see dealing with conflict as a part of your ongoing sanctification.

Spiritual growth involves more than Bible intake and prayer—it means growing in crucial areas that impact us, as well as our church or organization. There are untold numbers of churches who are stunted in their growth, both numerically and spiritually, because they refuse to deal with conflict appropriately. Becoming more effective in dealing with conflict helps us to grow as leaders and those we lead.

The best way to prevent or minimize conflict is to build rapport with others and create a culture of respect for one another. But when conflict occurs, dealing with it in a healthy manner is good for all.

Concluding thoughts

Conflict is an inevitable part of the human experience. To be a human is to experience conflict. We can even be conflicted in our own thoughts, without anyone else’s help! Learning to deal with conflict in a healthy way––neither running away from it, nor regarding it as a war to win––is a part of any woman or man’s spiritual growth.

But for those of us who have been entrusted to care for others by leading them, the need to handle conflict healthily and constructively is crucial to creating organizational cultures that not only achieve our stated goals and missions effectively but create flourishing work cultures along the way. This is an essential responsibility of any Christian leader.

1. Ed Stetzer, Christians in the Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is at Its Worst, (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2018), 14–15. ↩︎

©2022, 2025 Ed Stetzer. Used with permission.