146: 4 Steps To Turn Church Conflict Into Peacemaking Possibilities | with Pastor Doug Marshall

In this week’s episode, Pastor Doug Marshall shares practical insights on transforming church conflict into opportunities for growth and reconciliation. 

Discover the four essential steps that can guide your congregation toward peace and unity.

1. Discover why having a goal of “no conflict” can cause more harm than good
2. Gain tools to foster open communication and more collaboration
3. Explore the role of leadership in promoting a culture of peace.
4. Learn a simple four-step process to build bridges through a conflict

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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey, hey, welcome back to another I'm going to call this a rock star episode of the small church ministry podcast. I am so excited to talk about the topic we are talking about today with a pastor who I don't know if he would consider himself an expert in the topic, but after talking to him, I kind of consider him to be an expert in the topic. We are talking about peacemaking. We're talking about conflict conflict resolution, and I know you are going to love to hear the perspective and the wisdom of our guest today, so now that I probably made him blush a little bit. Doug, would you like to introduce yourself just Just quickly, let people know where you're from, how we got connected, and why this topic is close to your heart.

Doug Marshall: 0:57

Thanks. Laurie, yeah, I kind of react to the term Rockstar. I've never been called a rock star before. I so an expert is I always tell people I'm not an expert, I'm a promoter. And so because I still have conflict in my life, and I still grow through it, and anyhow, my name is Doug Marshall. I've been a pastor of racially small churches for about 44 years and different churches. And I'm, my tribe is the Christian church, non denominational. We joke among ourselves that we're the non denomination, denomination and and so and that's what we are. But, but our tribe has a special value of unity. That's been we grew out of a unity movement. And so unity and oneness, you know, the vision has been important to us. So that's been important to me over the years. And so I've strived, you know, to seek, how do you get unity with people who are so messed up, me included, and and small churches are especially prone for conflict, because one of my first churches I went through, in fact, I got fired from my first church. And so I'm no stranger to conflict, but I was had a guy who was mentoring me, and he's he joked that, you know, in the small churches, the brush file fires will kill you, and that you think about what the analogy is. You know, in a big church, you can have a brush fire and, you know, no big deal. But in small churches, just minimal conflicts can just really submarine you and so, and that's kind of what happened to me. So learning how to negotiate that is a big deal and and so I've been a pastor. I've God has led me into churches that needed special leadership to work through conflict, and God has led me into special training. I'm a certified Christian conciliator with the Institute of Christian conciliators. I am also a certified communication instructor. Early on, I realized if we're going to get through conflict, we need to learn to communicate. And I'm also a certified professional coach, so I'm able to coach people. So I have all these, all these certifications. I only have a master's degree in theology and philosophy, which has been good, but, you know, it's no big deal. So the certifications are what kind of give me some credibility, but the real credibility is all the mistakes I've made, and I've had so and then I'm a pastor, not Valley Christian Church in Wilsonville, Oregon. Have Been here for 17 years. And then I have a side I got, like a side hustle called conversations that grow. It's a kind of a coaching, training side ministry where I coach, and I also teach communication, and I call it conflict stewardship. And instead of calling peacemaking, I've started using the term conflict stewardship. So that's kind of who I am. That's kind of doing. I'm looking to retire soon, and we're turning the reins over to another younger guy, hopefully here in the near future of my church, but I'm looking forward to promoting peacemaking communication among the churches. So this is a great opportunity for me. Thank you for having me

Laurie Acker: 4:11

well in and let's just be real like this is an issue that every single church, every single ministry leader, every single volunteer, every single lay person, every single pastor, like all of us face this, and I would be as bold to say as most of us don't do a good job with it, like when you talk about, like becoming an expert in a field, I mean, I think most of us are experts in conflict. We're just not expert in conflict resolution. You know,

Doug Marshall: 4:39

exactly,

Laurie Acker: 4:40

you know, there's one thing that I would love to start with and just just throw out this, this perspective that I read about in your membership guide. So you were so gracious just to send me ahead of time your membership guide to take a look at. Because membership guides. You know, when people are coming into membership, we tell them what we believe and what our church is like. And you know if we have requirements or things like that, or if we don't have requirements, but very few times have I seen anything that even hinges on this. But for those of you who are listening, there's a title in the membership guide at at Doug's church that says eight ways to experience God in your church. Eight ways to experience God in your church. And if you go through it under the relational the relational section, it says, conflict is one of the greatest opportunities to experience God. I'm saying it again, conflict is one of the greatest opportunities to experience God. And Doug, can you just talk about that statement, because I think it's very counter culture. Most of us run from conflict. We hide from conflict. We don't want to deal with it, or we approach it in a pretty aggressive, aggressive way, at least that's what I've seen in many churches. Avoidance being probably the bigger the bigger response. But if conflict is one of the greatest opportunities to experience God. Like, maybe we should be running to it and not from it, but, okay, you have the floor. Tell us about this statement, conflict is one of the greatest opportunities to experience God. Yeah, it's

Doug Marshall: 6:13

absolutely true, and it's a paradigm shift that's like, you say, it's counterintuitive. We just, and I still, I'm a still basically conflict avoider my, you know, my gut reaction. And so I have to consciously, and I've, oh, it's funny. So I'll talk about conflict in the church and and I've got my my leaders here, and they'll, they'll throw it back in my face. I say, Yeah, I got this deal. And say, Well, someone told us conflicts an opportunity, and they, you know, and I'm the guy getting the message. And so it is, and we have to start understanding look at it a different way, because typically we see conflict as something to get through so that we can get back to the task of making disciples and being disciples, when the fact of the matter is conflict is the very best way to make disciples and be disciples. And the reason for that is, when conflict arises, it reveals where we are not following Jesus. It reveals the areas in our life where the Holy Spirit isn't sanctifying us and and so conflict is that because otherwise we come to church, we put our masks, we have our Bible studies, we play our DVDs. We, you know, do all this stuff, but conflict reveals the reality. And what we do is we, you know, we have church, we go home and have conflict, and we act like the devil, and it's so that's where we have, that moment in space, in time, opportunity to deal with the issues that are not surrendered Okay, to Christ. And so that's why it's and so it's an opportunity to be a disciple. It's a decided opportunity to make disciple. It's a conflicts opportunity to raise leaderships, because leaders are grown through conflict and learning how to handle conflict in a Christ like way. I mean, the New Testament. You know, Paul says, instead speaking the truth and love were to grow up in Christ. And so that's how we do it. Now, you mentioned how we typically don't handle conflict well. And so usually, when I teach conflict resolution and others, we usually start out with, you know, we have two ways of dealing with conflict avoidance. And then, you know, we either avoid it or we start it. And some of us are conflict avoiders, some of us are conflict starters. And neither one of those is usually so some of us are good at speaking the truth, but not with love, and some of us are all about the love, but we don't want to speak the truth. And so we've got these two opposing things that are neither one get us to grow in Christ. So we need to learn to speak the truth in love, and we need to learn how to talk and negotiate and deal with our heart issues in the midst of conflict. And so so be disciples. Make disciples, grow leaders. Our best decision making comes when we learn how to work through conflict in a Christ like way, the list goes on of what can be accomplished as we learn Christ, like biblical ways of processing conflict in our lives. Did I say enough?

Laurie Acker: 9:12

You said a lot, and I was taking some notes while you were talking, because you said conflict reveals areas where we are not following Jesus. And immediately I got, like, a shame flag flying up, because I've seen this used in so many ways to shame people. Like, if there's a conflict, you are out of line, like it, there's always a finger pointing that happens. And you said, conflict reveals areas where we are not following Jesus, not where that person and I think, How can we step back? So I'm just being real, like I had an immediate like response when you said we're not following Jesus if they're conflict, because it's been used so much to shame and blame and even the phrase speaking the truth in love. I have seen people leave the church over love. Leaders who said they were speaking in the truth, in love, but the result was not love. So what do we do with this Doug, like, I'm like, I'm literally on the edge of my seat right now, going, what's he gonna say to this?

Doug Marshall: 10:13

What was the question again, I've got so

Laurie Acker: 10:16

many so how do we how do we go into conflict where we are not following Jesus without the finger blaming the pride. Like, how do we? How do we make this a we process? I think that's really what. How is it a we, instead of us and them or them and me? Right?

Doug Marshall: 10:33

So first off, there's no shame in conflict, because conflict is going to happen. Let me first make a distinction to a disagreement and conflict. We can have a disagreement, Laurie, and not be in conflict, you know, you just see one thing. And, yeah, and my wife and I have disagreements all the time, and, and we'll bicker, and, but we're really not in conflict because we're not mad at each other. We, you know, we love each other, and we're processing each other's points of view and, and so you got to kind of give each you know, we understand that those kinds of interactions aren't necessarily conflict. Conflict is where someone gets pretty well positioned and stuck in another person the same way, and you get one or more people who are demanding something. And when I teach conflict and when, yeah, we talk about how, usually conflict starts with a legitimate desire. There's nothing wrong, but what happens is we get stuck in what we want and how we want it, and it takes two to tango. And so you always have to approach conflict as it's to resolve it, it has to be a team sport. And so when there's conflict, it takes two. It takes usually the one who starts it, but then the conflict also requires someone who is defending and reacting badly or attacking back. And so conflict always involves this double thing. And that's not to say there aren't people who are troublemakers or victimizers. That's a different story. We can get into that, and that has to be dealt with. There are divisive people or divisive people in the church that have to be addressed, but typically, almost 95% of the time, conflict involves two people, and we both have to look at our hearts. So we use something like I could use something called the bridge. And I'm not going to get into the whole thing, but the bridge is built off a Ken Sandy's Peacemaker model, four points, and the bridge is four steps we got to look at. So whenever I face a conflict, the first thing I do is align with Christ. Am I trusting him? Am I surrendered to His will, where lots of times a conflict can be resolved for me, just aligning myself with Jesus, the second peer on the bridge is assess my own part. So we always challenge ourselves and challenge others. What am I contributing? Where am I stuck? And so before I look at the other person, I got to look at my own contribution and and if I have an emotional reaction, that emotional reaction is not them, that's me. There's something in me that's not at peace. Uh, Paul says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. And he says that to the Colossians. And when there's when that emotional upsets there, the peace is not there, and it's up to me to resolve that, not the other person. So I have to deal with that before third peers appeal to the other and the fourth peer is agree to restore so the first two steps and deal with conflict are me. Am I aligned with Christ? And what you know, issue in my life has to be dealt with before I go to the other person. And so all peacemaking involves that we it involves me first and then the other person, not the other way. We like to think you're making me this way, and you're the problem when biblical peacemaking always starts with looking at ourselves.

Laurie Acker: 14:32

Yeah. So good. And you know, as you mentioned, the four things that that you teach, align with Jesus, assess my own part, appeal to the other and agree to restore in my head while you were speaking, I'm like most of the time, most of the cases I've seen, we go right to the other person. We go to the Matthew 18. If somebody's doing something wrong, go confront them, did I mean, and so I think a lot of times we skip the first two that are about ourselves. If conflict really is, and you've said conflict is one of the greatest opportunities to experience God. If conflict really is one of the greatest opportunities to experience God, why do we avoid it so much?

Doug Marshall: 15:19

I don't know. I think the answer is pretty we know why? You know because it's pride. It's ego. We want to be in control. We want other people to change. It's our immaturity, and I think we all. Have that. I still have that. And and so it's like, you know, Jesus talks about how men fear to come into the light, and, you know, we just want to deal with our part. It's all and it's so hard to admit I'm wrong and you're right. And so I think it's just basic sin, human sin nature where we want to be the boss, where we want to be in control, where we where we want to look good, you know, and and so all those factors are there, and that's why conflict reveals that, and that's precisely where I need to become more Christ like here's here's the cool thing about conflict, be an opportunity. The greatest opportunity conflict is for me to grow, whether you change or not. So no matter what conflict I face, I'll just, I'll tell a story of myself. So just the other day, my wife called, and she had an issue and involved me, and I got mad. I was just like, you know, ironically, I was on a prayer walk, and so here I'm on a prayer walk. She calls me, and I'm having this emotional duh and so and and she texted me, so it wasn't a phone call, it was a text. And immediately my emotions flood, and I'm going painter, and I'm thinking of all the things I want to say to her. I start, I text her back, and now I'm going to phone call her, and I'm just, you know, this is natural stuff, and I'm doing this and I teach this stuff, and I'm going, okay, Doug, your emotions are out of control. So you know, I'm like, something's got to change here. First thing I did is not text her back and not call her Okay, so, and I said, All right, just walk. And I walked, and by the end of the prayer walk, motions came down. I thought, you know, this is not a big deal. And walked in the house, she was there. There was not a single issue, you know, I just needed to let her be her invent. And we didn't need to have a big conflict resolution, because the peace of Christ came into me, and I was okay. I didn't need to do it. And it wasn't avoidance. I wasn't avoiding it, like if there was a thing I needed to address, I could have addressed it, but at least I could have addressed it with a peaceful heart, in a way that she could have heard my message, but I didn't even feel I needed to talk about it. She was just upset and needed vent. And so that's good. So that's what I'm talking about. The greatest opportunity is for me to experience the peace even if other people don't experience it. However you mentioned this earlier, peacemaking is oftentimes viewed, as you mentioned this before we actually got on line here, that people view peacemaking as being a doormat, and but that's not the case. There are times I work through my part and I do have to go to the other person, I have to appeal to them, because I do, whether it's a mutual problem, they're a part of it, but I first deal with my side. So the greatest opportunities deal with my side. But then peacemaking, biblical peacemaking, or conflict, I call it conflict stewardship, because you have this opportunity that needs to be stewarded, needs to be used wisely, to go to the other person, and that's where the real miracle happens, when people see us working out our conflicts in that way. Guess what? They see Jesus? Yeah, and that's exactly what Jesus talked about in John 17, God, may they be one as we are one, so that they may believe. And one of the greatest reasons people don't believe is because they don't see that. And so for me, it's like, man, we got to learn how to work through this. And but the maturity issue is the issue, and it's, it's, it's pastors. I know your your constituency here is a lot of volunteers, yeah, but it's all, it's everybody but us pastors, we are. We need to get on the front line here and start stepping up the plate and dealing with our own insecurities when it comes

Laurie Acker: 19:16

to conflicts. Yeah, well, I know we mentioned like, one of the reasons people avoid conflict is, you know, pride. We want our own way, but I think another reason we avoid it is we've never seen it modeled healthy. We don't have the tools we haven't been taught, right? Because when we've grown up, and most of us have grown up in families and in churches and in workplaces where conflict is not handled well, like our only, our only perspective is that this is going to go bad, like I can either be quiet and it won't be so bad, or I can be loud and it's going to be worse. And so I think part of what you're doing with your conversations, with your coaching business, with your website, with this conversation right now, is giving us some skills that, hey, there really could be a different outcome,

Doug Marshall: 20:06

right? And yeah, and you need to half the battle is just self awareness. And because we we tend in our sin nature, we tend not to be self aware because we don't want to know it. We live in denial. And so becoming aware is of what my conflict styles are, you know, that I am an avoider, or I am a attacker or, you know, and so. So some of us value relationships so much that we are willing to put up a lot of garbage without dealing with it in a healthy Christ like way. And the result is we become victims. And, you know, the other person becomes a victimizer, and it just becomes really unhealthy. And the

Laurie Acker: 20:51

other result is we're not experiencing the fullness of God, like when you say that, like if, if we're not learning this, we're examining, like, our own experience of

Doug Marshall: 21:01

God. Yeah, and so peacemaking, or conflict conflict stewardship, as I call it, there's definitely a place for setting boundaries, and there's even a place for discipline. There's a place to dissolve a relationship when another party isn't willing to make peace. And that's the other reality when you realize not every you know we this isn't, it's not a silver bullet that you know, we all get together and play nice, sometimes the other party doesn't want peace and and so learning. But there's a Christ like way to deal with that. I don't have to fight fire with fire. Jesus dealt with people who did not want peace and and so the Bible teaches us that it's a difficult way. But, you know, we have to follow Christ even when other people are continuing to, you know be sinful in their behavior or destructive or hurtful. And so there's a piece to that too,

Laurie Acker: 21:58

yeah, and, and I like even the way that you know you earlier talked about this, like the first step is our ourselves aligning with grace and assessing our own part this, this edge of church discipline or jumping into confrontation that is down the road. And I just want to say that loud and clear that is down the road. Because even when we're dealing with people who seem prideful or belligerent, there's a reason for that. Like, that's not just, oh my gosh, you're in sin. Like, think of their experiences, their their life stories, what they have seen, how they've been treated by the church like, I think that edge of having a relationship, right? If it, if it can be two way of building that relationship, that's how we experience Christ through conflict. It's not jumping ahead. That's never gonna be perfect,

Doug Marshall: 22:47

yeah, and that's actually the point of Matthew 18, which is so often misused. We first go to the person private and we try to negotiate this thing and work it out. And the thing we don't always understand about Matthew 18, when I go to my brother or sister, you know, it's assumed that they're wrong, but I might be wrong. I might go to them and find out, Oh, wait, they have a point of view too, yeah. And then they other people don't understand that when you bring two or three other along, that's not max and Guido, you're, you know, but you know we're gonna, you know, we can do this the easy way, the hard way. And it's not max and Guido to beat them into submission, that those are third party to observe the conversation and be helpful. They're mediators, really what they are, and they are there to testify, whether you know one side is truly an offender, or whether you got two people here who are messed up, and so the third parties, they're not there to take sides. They're there to help two people resolve the issue. Does that make sense?

Laurie Acker: 23:46

I love what you're saying about Matthew 18 right now, because I've had so many issues with the misuse of it. And I think the biggest key that's hitting me from what you're saying, is the approaching a person talking to them first alone. The assumption is not that they're wrong, the assumption is that we have a problem. It could be me, it could be you, it could be me, both of us. But I think that's where we go wrong, like foundationally wrong, is saying, Hey, this is about You're wrong. I'm gonna go approach you. And really how much of it is my part? What can I own? Okay, keep going,

Doug Marshall: 24:23

yeah. And so you have, you have that whole shift in how we deal with now we talk about church discipline. Can you think of how many efforts at church discipline just go haywire and bad.

Laurie Acker: 24:34

Every single one I've ever seen or heard of has been bad. It's left with people leaving the church and leaving Christ in a manner, yes, and

Doug Marshall: 24:43

the reason for that is we don't take the earlier steps that are absolutely necessary for everybody. Everybody needs to first align with Christ, and then we need to look at our own part. And then oftentimes, Laurie, we need coaching to do this. Sometimes we have a hard time doing this. So we need to actually invite people in to help coaches. And that's where I come in, or peacemakers ministries, or other groups that do this. We can come in and and help coach people to do that, and because oftentimes we don't have the capacity. We're so into the problem, we can't see it. So we oftentimes need to have the awareness and maturity to invite people into the solution, to coach us, not to tell us what to do, not as an authority. Be that as people, as brothers and sisters, who are outside the system to give us some guidance. Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 25:38

yeah. One thing I want to go back to is when you talked about an emotional reaction. Because when we're talking about conflict, the biggest picture that comes to my head is a church meeting, you know, any meeting, I don't care if it's a volunteer meeting, a council meeting, like conflict, like, I'll sit in a meeting and just watch everyone's reactions, and somebody's shutting down, and somebody's angry, and somebody's angry and not talking, and then somebody's angry and talking like, I don't know if I've ever been through a meeting without seeing emotional reactions that really don't go anywhere good. I shouldn't say I've never been to a meeting, but it's it's a pretty common thing. So when you talk about if you have an emotional reaction, it's you. If I have an emotional reaction, it's about me, not about them. Can you give us, like, a scenario? Like, let's say a meeting's going bad. Like, how would you say, Hey, if you're upset, that's your problem, dude. Like, like, how do we take this and put this into the practicality of awareness, of teaching, of, let's say you're the only one in the room that knows, align, assess, appeal, agree. What can this look like, practically in a church?

Doug Marshall: 26:45

Well, there's a lot of pieces to that puzzle. You know, there's a lot there and and so I not only teach conflict, stewardship, I teach communication, and we always one of the key pieces of communication is emotional they call it emotional intelligence or and I don't care for the word. I think it's more than emotional intelligence. We again, it's part of our sanctification in Christ, becoming aware of where my desires are at odds with God's desires. Because I have a mo when I have an emotional reaction, it's because something I want or don't want is happening. That's why it's, you know, that's why I'm emotionally reacting. So I have to immediately recognize that and address that. And so at the root of any conflict like that, there's a fundamental issue between what I call control and trust, and so when I'm being threatened, if I go into control mode, I'm going to behave in a way that exacerbates the conflict. I'm going to defend or attack. So say I'm leading the mean as a pastor, someone challenges me, I get emotional, and then I start being defensive, or attack back, and the meeting is going to go south real quick. But if I have the presence of the Holy Spirit enough to go, Okay, this person's challenging me, I'm feeling this emotional reaction, and so I immediately go into my my I'm not in control. God is I'm going to surrender to him, take deep breath, physically and spiritually. All right, God, I think you're still in control. Somehow. I still think you're God. I don't have to manage this. I can let you deal with this. So Father, take control and then help me the best I can to answer this person. So that's diffuses the emotion and mean, which allows me to do something amazing listen. And so once my emotions are under you know, then instead of attacking the other person, they say something that's triggered me, I'll go, I'll start. Instead of talking back to them, I'll use my listening skills. Okay, can you tell me more about that? Or I'm hearing some frustration there. I want to hear more why you're frustrated. And all sudden, we are on a level of conversation that resolves the issue and doesn't escalate. It does that? Give you an example.

Laurie Acker: 29:04

I love it. I think this is perfect. And you just kind of went through the step of a line with Jesus, you know. And again, God is still on the throne, or at least, we certainly hope he's still on the throne, and then assessing your own part, like you're kind of saying this emotion is mine, and now you're asking questions and listening and and to me, this is putting yourself in a place where you're appealing to the other, not that it's only one sided, but like, to me, you're walking through all the steps exactly and giving a beautiful and you're

Doug Marshall: 29:33

building trust. You're building trust because in listening, the other person is going, Oh, he's he's willing to listen to me. And they go, okay, and they open up, and we can get down to the root of the issue. So that often, you know, that's and almost always that has a positive effect. And almost always I go, Oh, I hadn't thought of that. I guess I wasn't, you know, I didn't have all the facts. And it's good to know, and then we can come up with a better solution.

Laurie Acker: 30:00

Yeah, you know, when I think about churches, I think about how we all have very different, unique cultures. You know that every church really is, it's its own, I don't know its own expression. It's its own experience of God like it's also different. But when I think in the area of conflict, churches I have been in myself, or churches that I hear from with our ministry, we are from 1000s of churches, like constantly hearing stories and getting asked questions and interrelating with conference. And stuff. There's a few, almost like, types of church cultures around conflict. And I would love to just hear you like, just give us like, if we're in this kind of church, what's our next step? Right? And and I think these church cultures not only revolve around the pastor who's in the pulpit at the time, in the leadership, but also can be pretty historical, like this has been the culture. We're kind of almost adopting this culture. We're walking into a culture that's existed. Somebody might be trying to change the culture, but the different types of cultures in my head that are popping to mind is there's a culture of we avoid conflict at all costs. It's the it's the cause of division. If you have issues, you're just going to be quiet. You can tell the leadership maybe, if they do something they do, but we're just, we're just going to shove it down, shove it under the rug. We're going to avoid conflict. Another type of culture which, which you already referred to a little bit, is very, almost aggressive, like we're going to just attack conflict. We're going to get in the weeds. We're going to, you know, and it's, it's not handled in a way where people feel safe. And I think that's a history a lot of us bring into conflict is we haven't seen it done safely, and then there's a culture of conflict that's a little more around this healthy peacemaking, trust, building, better communication. So we've got avoiders, we've got aggressive, you know, kind of things, and then we've got, you know, this healthier. How do we move to healthier if we're finding ourselves in a church culture, historically and currently, that's either the avoidant or the aggressive, where really nobody feels safe,

Doug Marshall: 32:08

sure. Well, one tool I use, you're this has been studied. This is what you're bringing up. Is not a new thing, and the world knows about it, and sociologists and psychologists have studied it. Years ago, a guy by name of Thomas kilmann came up with, it's kind of a conflict mode thing, and he talks about five different ways people deal with conflict, and groups deal with conflict, and it's all I'm not going to go into detail, but the two most negative ways is he calls it competitive, or competition and avoidance. And that describes those two when we're a computer, it's a win, lose situation all the time, my way or your way avoiders is a no win. I'm not going to let you get your way, even if I don't get my way. And so you've got these two and it's very unhealthy. But as you move toward a more relational value the relationship, you move to more healthier types of ways of dealing with conflict. And so on the other corner, you have accommodating. We learn to accommodate, which isn't quite avoidance, but you, and it's not always great, because a lot of us will accommodate and and again, but we're not being truthful with what we really want. But accommodation is better than avoidance and and then there's compromise, where I get some of what I want and you get some of your what you want. And so that's that's a step in the right direction. But ultimately, there's this thing called collaboration. And so what I go, I actually show them the chart, and and I say, yeah, these, these are ways people do with conflict. And I say, All right, look at this. Where do you guys think you are in dealing with conflict, and I'll have them, and they almost inevitably go, yeah, we're competing or avoiding or like this. And they say, Well, where do you think you need to be if you want to resolve this issue? And they scratch their heads, and they kind of look at sheep say, Well, I guess we kind of need to get over here to collaboration. All right, what needs to happen to get you to collaboration? And that's when we get start dealing with the spiritual issues and and, you know, this is good for pastors, because pastors usually are competitive. We're leaders. We want we got a vision for how things need to happen, and, and, and so that's just how they're wired. And so those of us who are pastors that way, we need to learn some alternative ways of bringing people around and, like I say, small church, it's, you know, it's almost a necessity if you want to grow and be healthy, you know, because you could be a big fish in a little pond if you want, but it looks pretty ugly. You know what I'm saying. So, you know, you know what I'm talking about, right? And so, yeah, so I guess you have to get those, those, you know, ways of dealing with conflict out there, and get people to see them and go, all right, you know, again, it's self awareness. How do you normally deal with it? And sometimes it's childhood issues, you know, I don't we're not therapy. We don't do counseling. You know, we can look at, you know, how did you know, how did you deal with conflict? How did your parents deal with conflict, and realize, yeah, I was the lost child in my, you know, family of origin, I just hid, or the other person, I was the troublemaker, and so I usually brought it on. And so it's helpful to understand our roles. Yeah, and then yeah, do something different. Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 35:36

yeah. I think it's just a beautiful thing, just even to let, like, let's start putting this, this perspective out, that conflict can actually be a beautiful way for us to experience God. And I just want to tell anybody who's listening, I think a great starting point if you're in an unhealthy culture, whether it's church wide or the ministry team you're in charge of, or your Sunday school teachers or whatever, honestly, is sharing this podcast. And I'm not saying that like to self promote the podcast. I'm saying share this podcast, listen to it together and say, What did you like? What didn't you like, what's been your experience, what hasn't been because this kind of conversation can totally, like, soak into your own heart, but it also can open up the conversation for you to really start kind of imagining a different way, a different a better future for your ministry team, for your church and even for your own heart. Doug, I love that you talked about, like, I can experience God in a conflict, even if they're not like, I can experience that piece of God. I can experience learning. I can experience growth, just by, just by, you know, just really aligning with Jesus, assessing my own part. Those two, the two first steps that you mentioned, wow. This is like, I want to, I want to put you on a, like, an old, like, old time, Dear Abby, kind of, you know, newspaper, we can have a dear Doug. This is my situation, because they're so, oh my gosh, Doug, thank you so much for being here and just like opening up this conversation, I love the four steps that you talked through, aligning with Jesus, assessing my own part. This comes first, you know, appealing to the other, agreeing to restore. I love when you talked about kind of that withholding judgment, you know, Matthew 18 isn't about it's their fault, or you hold them in line. No, it's relational. You gave so much, so much wisdom throughout this. Is there anything that we missed? Anything you wish I would have asked, or anything you're like, Oh, I didn't say that.

Doug Marshall: 37:43

Well, you did. The scripture in Matthew seven. Jesus says, you know, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, where you have to plank in your own first take this, you know, plank out of your own eye. That is a key scripture and and that's that, again, that brings us back to dealing with ourselves first. And so, but again, I think it's, it's a whole thing. It's deal with myself first, but biblical peacemaking does challenge us to speak the truth in love. And so there comes a point where we do need to learn how to appeal to the other person. And I like that phrase appeal. We're not pointing the finger. We're inviting them into a process. Hey, I've got a problem. I think we can work through. Can you help me? And I think it's and so there comes a point we need to bring them in and try to work together and then agree to restore and forgiveness is a huge part. And so when we teach, and I guess we really didn't talk about that when we agree to restore there's this forgiveness piece. I can forgive you without you changing, but reconciliation requires two people, so forgiveness takes one, reconciliation takes two, and when two people just forgive each other because whatever's going on, then they're in a position to rebuild trust and rebuild the relationship, and when people see that man, that's one of the biggest evidences of the gospel and Jesus Christ that we have. So

Laurie Acker: 39:04

yeah, so true, yeah. Well, and the rebuilding trust, it's such a it's such an issue when we come to forgiveness, because a lot of people have been taught again, mistaught, forgive, forget. You know, we can forgive and have boundaries. We can have forgive and rebuild trust. It's not just a command, like you don't have to just trust somebody as soon as you forgive them. And so, yeah, this, this topic is so huge. I'm so grateful for your spending this time with us. Doug, I'm so excited to introduce you to our community. We are learners. We are growers. For people who would like to connect with you more, check out your book. Learn about your ministry. You know, just just absorb more from from what you've learned throughout so many years in ministry. How can people connect with you?

Doug Marshall: 39:55

Well, I do have a website called conversations that grow. It's kind of my, like I said, my side business. And you just www conversations that grow.com, and all my contact info is there, and, you know, different aspects of my ministry and my coaching, and it's, it's a work in progress, I'll tell you that. But, and I do have the book is more of a textbook on my communication. I teach communication. It's pretty involved. And so it's a more of a textbook, but it's, it goes into the nuts and bolts of communication. And so, and then I am available. I have a seminar I do on basic peacemaking conflicts. Do. Ship. But I just love to go out and do you can take a Saturday morning and come and do it for your church or your group, if you're interested, and I'd love to share with people that way. So anyhow, does that help?

Laurie Acker: 40:44

That's awesome. Pastor Doug Marshall, conversations with God. We will be sure to drop your links in the show notes as well. So thanks for being with us today. Hey, you all, wherever you're listening from today, do me a favor, as long as you're not driving please, if you find value in this podcast, if you're a listener and you've never left us review, would you please do me a favor? There's an easy link in the show notes if you're not sure how to leave a review, but please give us five stars. Leave a review on why you love this podcast. Small churches all over the world are looking for the encouragement the the community that we have here so important, and your review will actually help them find us. A lot of people ask, why do we have to leave reviews? Because it just helps people find us. So again, if this podcast has meant something positive in your life. Please do me a favor, click that the easy link in the show notes, leave us a review, and until next week, be a light.