Posts Tagged 'community'

So far we’ve looked at conflict as a point in space/time as well as a line that connects the two parties.  I’m sure you could hear me tripping out about the bonds that hold people together in conflict.

This next part is the most mentally stimulating of the competing forces thus far.  Unfortunately, it is also going to be the one that is most difficult for me to get out of my head, so bear with me as I try to get this out.

For starters, viewing conflict as a line is also about as incomplete as viewing conflict as a point in space/time.  That is because parties are constantly moving and changing.  Conflicts are not static, but rather are living and active and have substance to them.  A more complete approach would be to begin to rotate the line drawn between the two parties, spinning the line into a circle revolving around the conflict.

The neatest part to this approach is the way the competing centripital and centrifugal forces can be seen.  These forces are naturally occuring physical forces that play off of each other to determine momentum and direction.  One way to understand these forces is to imagine a roller coaster on the tracks headed toward a loop.  When the direction of the track is curved upward to begin the loop, centripital force is applied.  The corresponding centrifugal force pushes the cart down to the track and, subsequently, the contents of the cart (you and me, screaming at the top of our lungs).  These forces can also be seen in our teen filled mini-van that takes a corner too sharp or fast.  The left-hand turn of the van causes all of the weight of the teens to slide to the right, punishing the poor guy at the end of the bench.

This is important in conflict because it reveals the additional conflict of tendency vs. solution.  The solution to our conflicts lie at the heart of the matter, the place where we impact the other person.  The centripital force of the parties rotating around the conflict, however, generates the opposing centrifugal force that pushes us away from the center.  The natural tendency, then, is for us to avoid the conflict and bypass the issue.  The bond of conflict, however, keeps us rotating around the center, simultaneously holding us in place and pulling us away at the same time.  No wonder we feel so messed up when we are in conflict.

The solution to these conflicts require us to fight our way to the center, to the place where we are bonded to each other, and really come to a true resolution.  Only this frees us from the cycle of competing forces and allows us to restore peace to our lives.

Yesterday I wrote about viewing conflict as a simple point in space, which you should read before you decide to read this post, most importantly because this post will consist mostly of an expansion on that topic.

Viewing our conflicts as a point in space is easy and simple and is attractive for many reasons.  Not only does it make give us a self-centered and easily manipulated view of our conflicts, but it also allows us to ignore the fact that our conflicts involve other people.  In fact, this simple view of conflict allows us to completely avoid and simultaneously demonize the other people with which we experience conflict.  A better, and more accurate, view of conflict acknowledges the other parties as being an important part of conflicts.  At this point I would probably get a big “DUH!” followed by a “They’re the ______ that caused my problem.”  Acknowledging the other party goes beyond that, however.

When we’re engaged in conflict with another person, we should have a certain level of respect for the other person.  Joey Cope introduced the topic of “reverence” into our discussions.  Of all the reasons we could give to encourage reverence towards others in conflict, the most convincing to me is the understanding of the role the other person plays in our conflict.  Not only are they party to the creation of the conflict, they are necessary for a successful resolution to the conflict as well.  Think about that!  The person you are in conflict with is valuable to you because you cannot restore peace to the situation without their cooperation.  It is as if conflict with the person bonds us together in a relationship where our own success depends on the person we may be most angry with.  LOST fans out there will recognize the slogan “Live together, die alone.”  If we truly want a healthy resolution to our conflict, we need the other person as much as we need ourselves.  In order to resolve the force that is pushing us away from each other we must move closer together.  What a trip!

Going back to our philosophical/geometrical view of conflict, we can expand on the idea of conflict as not only a point in space/time (which it sort of is) to being a point is space/time to which both parties are attached.  The parties extend from the conflict in their opposite directions, which expands the concept of our conflict to a two-dimensional line connecting the two parties.  Both parties are bound to each other as long as the conflict remains unresolved, neither one is fully able to let go until both resolve to.  Even if one chooses to avoid the conflict or not engage the other party, there is an invisible connection that binds them still to the issue.

This view of conflict is still incomplete, however.  Tomorrow we’ll put the conflict in motion and look at the part that has me the most geeked out.

Until then, how have you seen this two party description in play?  For me, I’ve seen it in unrepentent offenders.  We’ve all had our share of people that harm us and choose to not acknowledge it.  You want to restore the relationship, but are unable to because they won’t even acknowledge that they are a party to the same conflict that you are.  What other examples or thoughts can you add?

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve recently completed a practical skills and theory course in conflict.  Lots of thoughts have been swimming around in my head since then.  We covered a lot of material from different vantage points.  Of all of this, the one thing that stood out most to me was the competing forces that exist within conflict.  I’ll write a couple posts on this, which will be paraphrasing information and material that I’m borrowing from my classmates, professors, and readings for the course.

The first force that I observed in our discussions on conflict is the power of perception.  The way we view a conflict has great impact on how the conflict affects us and on how we will handle ourselves and the conflict as we work our way through it.  Conflict can be seen as something evil that should be avoided, or can be viewed as an opportunity for growth.

Specifically, the philosophical way we view conflict is very important.  Most people will view conflict as a punctiliar event or a specific point in space/time.  Thinking geometrically, this perception would view conflict as a singular point in space.  Viewing conflict this way allows us to treat the conflict as a specific event and allows us to describe it as such.  For example, viewing conflict as a point in space gives us the ability to avoid it if we choose.  We can walk around it just like we walk around a piece of furniture or we can store it in a cabinet like a souvenir from our latest vacation.  We can look at it, use it, or avoid it all together.

Viewing conflict as a point in space also allows us to use a very self-centered approach to describing our conflict.  This over-simplified approach to our conflict enables us to consider our perception as the only one that matters.  Since a point is space is easy to name and observe, we can easily place blame on others and be confident in our recollection of events and happenings. Our perception becomes the only one that matters.

While there are certain aspects to conflicts that are specific in space/time, viewing conflict in this way ignores the relational aspect of conflict.  If our desire is to resolve only the specific space/time aspects of a conflict, this is the highest level of philosophical complexity that is required.  For example, if I am injured and my car is damaged in a car crash I may choose to ignore any future relationship with the other person and seek to settle my conflict through litigation.  Myself and the other person will have our perceptions of the space/time event presented to a judge/jury and will have a decision made on our behalf.  A majority of our conflicts, however, will be better served by being resolved with a greater consideration given to the relational value in conflict.

Tomorrow I’ll talk more about that, but I’ll leave you with a true story from today that reveals some of the problems of viewing conflict as a point in time.  One of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when the remote controls go missing in our house.  When a remote disappeared today, I instructed the boys to do nothing else until they found the missing remote.  None of them seemed to have it last, so they were all in it together.  When I came back into the room, I found two children involved in a conflict.  Specifically, one child, red faced, had the other child by the wrist and was staring him down while saying, “Boy… you better get control of yourself and I’m NOT kidding.”  Having been a parent for a combination of 39 years, I knew that they would each have a different account of what had happened that led to this particular situation.

What problems do you see with viewing this conflict as a specific, point in space kind of conflict?

Those who know me will attest that I’ve been on a rather strange kick about church over the last year or so.  Specifically, I’ve become disenchanted with what we call “church” and have become frustrated with how little resemblance there is between what we see in the New Testament about church and what most of our churches look like.  I’m also experiencing an identity crisis of sort because of successes with church growth.  Does that sound weird?  My problem is that it is relatively easy to grow a church.  What is not easy is growing disciples.  My successes, while good at growing churches, have not had the same results with disciples.

For the last few months I’ve been on an introspective journey about what church should look like.  I don’t know the answers, but I do know that our tendency to focus on the external features of “church” is pervasive and difficult to overcome.  It is the natural tendency for us to resort back to what we know, and what we know is not very healthy for growing spiritually deep congregations.  It seems attempts to focus on the deeply spiritual things about church and discipleship don’t make a lot of sense to people that are immersed in a consumerist mentality, so speaking those types of words make me feel like I’m speaking a totally different language.

I got a haircut today, which I do about every 3-5 months.  I’ve used the same hair-cutter-person (what do you call a person that cuts a guys hair that isn’t a barber?  Beautician doesn’t sound right, and I definitely don’t want to say “my beautician”) since we’ve moved here, partly because I’m a creature of habit and partly from “intentional consumerism”, which some of you will remember from an evangelism strategy course you may have taken.  She is a married mother of two young children and is active in the church she grew up in.  She runs the food pantry there and has been over to tour and work at our food and clothing distribution ministry a couple times.

Understand, I’ve never tried to recruit her for our church.  I think Christians are found in lots of churches, not just ours, so to know she was plugged in somewhere was great.  Quite abruptly in the midst of our conversation, however, she said, “I’m bored with church.”  She said she’s considering trying another congregation.  She loves knowing everyone at her church and knows that the food pantry would probably close if she left, but “church” doesn’t seem real to her and she is bored.  She felt guilty for saying and feeling it, but also felt good to talk to someone about it.

I still didn’t recruit her or tell her to come check us out.  She knows she is welcome if she wants to visit.  Our church has warts, too, and I honestly don’t know how well our warts and her warts line up.  The thing that struck me, though, is how pervasive issues with church health are, no matter the denomination.

I was simultaneously sad and thrilled at our discussion.  Sad in that I knew what it meant to be disillusioned with church.  Thrilled, though, that the Spirit was moving in her and pointing her toward something bigger and more real than she’s experienced in the body of Christ.

Maybe if we all get bored we can get together and do something about it.

This questions has caused me more trouble than I care to admit. I never felt a strong pull toward what “I am supposed to be”. I’ve joked recently with people my age and older that we still don’t know what we want to be when we grow up. I imagine we’ll figure out one day.

For the last several months, and maybe from the beginning of this blog, my blog has been asking the same question. The focus for my blog has meandered from family to ministry to leadership. It’s tried to balance between personal anecdotes and lessons or devotionals for a more general public. The poor little blog is even torn between whether to be spiritual or technological in nature. Talk about an identity crisis.

After giving it much thought, my blog is not suffering from an identity crisis. My blog is suffering from being too much like its creator: me. As many of us experience, my life is a balancing act between competing agendas. I am simultaneously an individual consumed with my own wants and desires as well as a parent/husband/church leader whose primary responsibility is for the care for others. I am pulled between things I want to do and things I need to do. I walk daily in the gray area between the spiritual and the physical. Throw in a little bit of ADD, infrequent bouts of fatigue and depression, and an ability to be amused and entertained by things that others consider silly and you’ve got the makings for one random life.

As such, I have decided what this blog is supposed to be. As narcissistic as it may sound, this blog is about me. It is about my challenges and my triumphs. It is about my successes and failures. It is about my attempt to do the best I can to make it through this world that we live in without messing things up too badly. That walk includes lessons God is teaching me and will include other characters that share the stage of life with me.  Sometimes those lessons will have a broad focus and sometimes narrow.  The characters may be friends, family, or strangers.  One thing this blog will not be is fake.  You’ll get the real Brad, and hopefully you’ll find him a little charming.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me!