22 ACResolution Magazine
of reality against expectations results in powerful cognitive dissonance, which is the disorientation and confusion felt when
strongly held beliefs are upended abruptly by reality. Strident
discord seems so out of place that at first members deny
what they are experiencing, but there comes a point where
it crosses over from the clash of contrary expectations to the
stark reality of hot words and cold-blooded attacks. Various
groups form as the conflict spreads through the congregation,
to the confusion of those who are not in one of the groups. The
participants in these fights also have more powerful weapons
than their secular cousins: scripture, selected parts of which
are thrown at each other with increasing abandon and with
little to no regard to meaning or context.
What do congregations fight over? Just about anything,
if you go by what they say the fight is about. However, as
is often true in secular fights, what we are told the clash is
about is the “identified problem” in much the same sense as
it is used in mental health: the “identified patient” is the family
member who the others insist is the problem, but the actual
patient is the dysfunctional family itself. A comprehensive list
of identified issues I have been presented with would be too
long to include here, but tends to include a full spectrum ranging from the color of new paint and the pattern of carpet to
abuse and even a lawsuit for breach of contract that was in
response to criminal charges against the minister for theft
of church records (I was flown halfway across the country to
settle that one!).
When boiled down to their essence, and though there are
always other elements, these fights are about power, respect,
betrayal, and hurt feelings. Surprisingly, these fights are rarely
about issues of faith.
TRANSITIONS –
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
Every church goes through a transition when the minister
leaves and a new one arrives, but the conflict-generating
power of ministerial transitions is the least addressed and
the most misunderstood problem in all of the conflict man-
agement literature. A transition is the time and process
of changing leaders, from announcement of the coming
vacancy through the first several months that the new min-
ister is on scene and emotions have settled. This can last
from a year to several years—one particularly difficult tran-
sition I worked with lasted for eight years. Transitions are a
time of congregational drifting with the currents, no mat-
ter how carefully the transition was planned, while sudden,
unplanned transitions are simply chaotic and often result
in much more severe conflict. The most common cause
of unplanned transitions is the forced exit of the minister,
which will almost always create significant conflict within
the congregation that will include the addition of multiple
issues as old grievances are resurrected.
Understanding and intervening in transitional conflicts
requires an integrated approach that covers the entire system
from bottom to top. Fortunately, a few pioneers have blazed a
trail. Organizational development consultant William Bridges,
whom I worked with in the mid-1990s and who died two
weeks before I began writing this article, gave us a vocabulary
for understanding and talking about organizational change
that was entirely absent before. He helped us understand
how people actually experience change and what they need
to get through it, whether the change is personal or organizational. Bridges was among the first to show that while
change is situational, transition is psychological, and needs to
be better understood, especially in America where change is
both endemic and rapid. He delineated the process by which
organizations and the individuals within them experience
transitional change, and further segmented it into three major
stages: first as an ending, second as an indeterminate period
of confusion and distress he termed the neutral zone and
completing the cycle with a new beginning.
Each stage has several tasks to do before moving to the
next, accompanied by simple rituals marking endings and
beginnings of each. He noted that Western culture offers few
rituals to mark safe passage through these stages, leaving
the people drifting on an uncharted sea where the shortest
course from where they are to the desired landfall crashes
them onto the jagged reefs of organizational confusion and
decline. Transitions being inherently uncomfortable, there is
a strong tendency to hurry through the neutral zone without
understanding that its insecurities are a normal and necessary part of the transitional process, and that it offers a time
for opportunities to be found and losses mourned. Bridges
asked individuals to intentionally spend time in the neutral
zone, sorting through the remains of the old as a way of psychologically accommodating the space between old and new,
and successfully mourning their losses. The process must
Every church goes through a transition
when the minister leaves and a new one
arrives, but the conflict-generating power of
ministerial transitions is the least addressed
and the most misunderstood problem in all
of the conflict management literature.
