WINSTON-SALEM — Congregational discussions about sensitive issues won’t succeed without a hefty dose of trust based on close relationships — a combination increasingly absent in churches, says a consultant in church conflict management.
“It’s difficult to have a significant conversation with someone you don’t know well,” said Chris Gambill, on the staff of the Center for Congregational Health in Winston-Salem. “For one thing, you don’t trust them, and you don’t know how much you can say.”
Trust usually emerges only in the context of familiar relationships, Gambill said.
Churches are sometimes companies of familiar strangers, which complicates tricky discussions, says Chris Gambill
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“But here’s the bad part: Increasingly in congregational life we have a growing deficit of what might be called social capital. In many contexts — not by intentionality, but by accident — churches are a company of familiar strangers.”
It wasn’t always so, said Gambill, the center’s congregational health services manager. In the past church members’ daily activities kept them in close contact with one another throughout the week and outside the church.
Now, he said, members go weeks or months without seeing fellow congregants anywhere except the sanctuary on Sunday morning.
“So when we have a difficult conversation at church, we don’t have a group of people who have a deep relationship they can build off of — we have a group of strangers,” said Gambill. “So before you get to the point of having a heart-to-heart, you have build up connective tissue, because that’s where it has to start.”
Gambill discussed ways churches can engage difficult conversations in a workshop Nov. 4 during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina’s “Fellowship on the Move,” a regional educational and worship event hosted in various locations around the state several times each year.
His was one of eight offered on topics that included parenting, ministry to refugees, reaching 20-somethings and being Baptist.
Approaching hard topics, Gambill said, requires churches to:
- Practice genuine listening. “The beginning point is not how well you can tell but how well you can listen. … If it’s all about telling, then we don’t want to listen — we just want to get our point across.”
- Speak the truth in love. “Part of our culture is all about speaking the truth and whatever happens to everyone else, that’s just tough. That may be American, but it’s not biblical. Our words matter.”
- Build up the body. “Will [what I say] make us stronger, more empowered, more enlightened? Or will I walk out beat up because we wrestled, not with angels, but with each other.”
- Bring an attitude of curiosity. “That’s the most important thing I can bring to the conversation. Instead of the goal being to educate her, I should approach the topic curiously: ‘I wonder how it came to be that she thinks this way? I wonder what she knows that I don’t know that causes her to be in that very different place? What are the life stories that brought her to this place?’ If I can have that little bit of curiosity, I might even think to ask her. That’s the missing piece in a lot of conversations.”
- Not confuse people with their ideas. “We’re not the same as our ideas. Some of us have even been known to change our opinions.”
Creating safe spaces — emotionally, psychologically and spiritually — for conversation is essential, Gambill said.
“At the outset, ground rules ought to be set,” he said. “At least on paper there are lines we won’t cross. That gives the facilitator some authority to remind a speaker that group has tacitly agreed to a set of rules. It’s much easier to preempt bad behavior than to stop it once it’s started, and the best way to preempt it is to name it.”
A genuine conversation will include everyone, Gambill said, and that means developing a process that encourages introverts to express opinions. “Otherwise, you’ll hear only from the extroverts and those with an agenda. The thoughtful introvert who wants to learn — you’ll never hear from them.”
In addition, providing relevant information before a difficult conversation is often overlooked, he said. Churches need expert, first-hand information to guide a discussion. “If you don’t provide it, then you’re saying, ‘Come with what you’ve got and we’ll work with it.’ What have we got? Typically, a lot of opinions. … If you don’t put out any new information, how can you expect to get a different outcome?”
Finally, said Gambill, pay attention to both facts and feelings. “We get hung up on facts and are surprised when feelings cause problems,” he said. “Our emotions will always trump our cognitive systems. That’s the way it is. … We can’t think about it until we express our emotions.”
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.