Let me explain. For the first week we were at home, nighttime went something like this:
- Get ready for bed
- Swaddle the baby
- put him in the bassinet
- Turn off the lights
- Hold your breath as you listen to make sure he's asleep
- Go to slee....Oops he's crying again
- Get up and hold the baby
- Check his diaper
- Swaddle him tighter
- Give pacifier
- Put in Bassinet
- Watch for movement or stirring
- There is none so get in bed
- Hold your breath as you listen to make sure he's asleep
- Go to slee....He's crying again!
- Get up
- Change his diaper
- Feed Him
- Burp Him
- Swaddle Him
- Put in Bassinet
- Turn off lights
- Get in bed hoping to sleep this time
- Hold your breath as you listen to make sure he's asleep
- Go to slee....sigh...there he goes again!
- Wonder why you had this child in the first place
- (Now you do this pattern 7-8 more times)
- Give up
- Take baby to the living room where he can lay on your chest and sleep while you watch Netflix
- Spend your day the next day tired, defeated, and fearful of the coming night
The similarities of dealing with unhappy people and difficult situations in the church are obvious when you look. For our purpose, difficult people, situations, and offenses will just be called "X".
Dealing with something difficult at church:
- Prepare for church
- Go into worship
- X happens
- Examine the situation to make sure you haven't done something to offend
- Take the necessary steps to resolve the situation
- Get things back to normal
- Prepare for church
- Go to wor.....X happens again
- Examine the situation to make sure you haven't offended
- Take the necessary steps to resolve the situation
- Get things back to normal
- Prepare for church
- Hold your breath while watching to make sure the situation has resolved itself
- Got to wor.....What? X is happening again? Can't I win? Where are you God?
- Examine the situation to make sure you aren't the cause
- Take the necessary steps to resolve conflict
- Get things back as close to normal as possible
- Prepare for church hoping nothing will go wrong
- Hold your breath during the welcome while watching to make sure things are done
- Relax and begin to worshi.....What? Not again! X? is this for real?
- (repeat that same pattern for many months)
- Give in to demands and feel like you have given up a piece of your soul
- Spend the entire week dreading Sunday because X may happen
I know I have generalized this a lot. The truth is X can be a person, a situation, or even an idea at times. X is those things that cause this type of strife within the body. Over the past week, I have learned something about dealing with these situations from having to deal with the crying baby. There are steps we can take to ensure the situation is resolved and we do not grow to resent anyone or anything. What are these steps? Do they apply to me? I think these steps apply to everyone clergy and layperson alike. We all have situations or people we must deal with that make us feel this way. The truths I have learned about getting a baby to bed work just as well for resolving church conflict.
THE STEPS
- Love - do everything we do out of love. If I get up at night to deal with a crying baby that is depriving me of sleep because I am angry or frustrated, I will accomplish nothing. The child will feel my emotion and continue to be upset. If I however go to comfort a child with love knowing that he is created in the image of God and of me, the child feels safe and much can be accomplished. The same goes for church conflict. If we deal with situations out of frustration, defensiveness, or anger, we are working out of selfish motives and the other parties see that. If instead we communicate our view from the love that flows from Christ to his creation, a multitude of sins may be covered.
- Selflessness - put their needs in front of our own. If the only reason I am dealing with baby is because he is messing up my needs, I act harshly, quickly, and incompletely thereby causing the cycle to continue. If instead I care for baby because he needs me to, I take my time and make sure his needs of safety, comfort, and stability are met. This makes for a sleepy, content baby. In church conflict, I can either go in selfishly arguing for what it is I want or I can go in listening for what the needs of others around me are. Caring for and meeting the needs of others goes farther in building bridges and destroying conflict that being right and having to fight for it. As scripture tells us, "Esteem others as higher than yourself."
- Patience - Sometimes it takes a baby longer to go to sleep than we would like, but hurrying him to that point just makes the process start all over. Same with church conflict. Sometimes conflict must simmer in order to resolve. Sometimes forcing an issue to be resolved just allows room for it to start the process all over again later.
- Flexibility - Sometimes we have to do something different. For 6 nights Carrie and I tried the same thing over and over to get Shiloh to sleep. Each night, it didn't work. Last night we changed things, and those changes seem to have made all the difference. Sometimes what someone needs is something different than what we are offering. In church, flexibility is the key. I am not saying we have flexibility in the message, but I am saying we have flexibility in how it is presented. Last night I was eating a bowl of Golden Crisp cereal when all of a sudden it dawned on me they used to be called Super Golden Crisp. The cereal hadn't changed, but the needs of their marketing had. We must too be flexible in meeting the needs of others in church conflict.
Now, are these steps a be all end all for conflict? No. These are just general guidelines I picked up from dealing with a fussy baby. The truth is these would be good for any conflict, inside or outside the church. This just proves sometimes you can learn a lot from a baby. After all, God did say a child would lead them.
