PEOPLE IN PRINT
July 1, 1983
Making Conflict Constructive
Control in Conflict by John Wallace, Broadman, $4.95
Reviewed by Randy Hines, youth and family pastor, Old North Baptist Church, Canfield, Ohio
No one in the congregation ever sits back and says, "I think we ought to have a nasty church fight." No, harmony is the ideal expressed throughout the New Testament, but still the battles arise. Imperfect members (and pastors) make conflict inevitable.
On staff at only my second church, I have entered both situations with the senior pastor leaving under unpleasant circumstances. (Forget that phrase; it was severe conflict!)
Control in Conflict encourages Christians to handle their differences constructively and productively. It is an autobiographical approach that has worked for John Wallace, pastor of Parkway Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, for thirty-four years. Maintaining peace, Wallace says, is "a learned discipline to which all Christians are called."
Don't think that Wallace's pastorates have been free of strife, however. He admits to having had three major conflicts while serving churches in Kentucky, Texas, and Oklahoma. "And by major I mean long, hard fights in which the whole church was in a crisis over a period of one to two and a half years," Wallace adds.
Successful conflict management is possible, Wallace writes, only after altering opinions about controversy. "First, we must begin with a new attitude of willingness to manage our differences constructively." Other attitude changes include accepting discord as inescapable and seeing benefits in conflict. Wallace gives equal time to the negative side of controversy. He lists hazards of deception, disruption, and discouragement.
Agreeing that disagreements are seldom simple, Wallace has chapters ...
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