We have heard of family feuds and recently many of watched the Hatfield and McCoy series the History Chanel produced. Feuds are messy and people always get hurt. The sad truth is that in many of our churches we have ministry feuds where people take sides and fight to win at all cost. One ministry area lines up against another and fight to protect their turn. Ministry feuds are fueled in two ways…
- BLAME // we want our way and when another ministry area gets in the way we blame them for our lack of progress. If “THEY” would just get out of our way then our ministry would be thriving. It even makes us feel good when we have someone to blame even if they work in the office down the hall.
- GRUDGES // we hold past struggles and problems over the other ministry forever. We never let anyone forget how the other ministry held us back. We our past memories of hurt as we negotiate to get what we want.
If you are in a feud I really don’t care how your ministry feud started. There is simply no place for it in ministry and there is no way Jesus could or would ever endorse such an all too common behavior on church staffs. Feuds can only be stopped by brave leaders who will embrace humility and communicate. Embrace humility admitting you do not have all the answers and you are willing to fight for a healthy staff culture. Communicate by sitting down and working out a strategy that helps every ministry thrive in your church setting.
We have one mission and we are on one team. Let’s start leading like it.