In July, I attended a second course with Bridge Builders (the last being in May 2009 at the beginning of my sabbatical last year). This course was whole devoted to learning how to mediate a conflict between two people when they have fallen out.
I have been in situations where there has been conflict, and I have hoped to help, but haven’t quite known how to do that effectively. I have also been in conflict situations, and know the devastating effect that has on those people in conflict and those affected by the conflict, maybe because they are friends or part of the church where the leaders have fallen out.
There has to be a better way on handling conflict, and helping others in conflict, to avoid conflict escalating and damaging factions and schisms forming.
Underlying this, is a conviction I have that of all people, Christians ought to be the ones who are able to find a way through conflict. After all, the heart of the good news we believe in is the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation, of new starts, and healed relationships. Unfortunately, it often seems that churches are riddled with damaging conflicts, unresolved and festering, ending with people slinking off or erupting in mudslinging.
In most conflicts, people fall out over something. Something happens, something is decided, something is said. The ‘something’ is the trigger for a souring of relations. Sometimes, these ‘somethings’ build up over time, layer upon layer, and it isn’t at all obvious what the ‘something’ is, that caused the conflict.
A lot of mediation focuses on identifying these ‘somethings’ – the issues that are causing conflict – and then helping the individuals to find solutions that are mutually acceptable. To find a better way on handing this ‘something’.
For example, two flatmates may fall out over the washing up. Mediation focuses on identifying this as a core issue of conflict, and finding a mutually acceptable way of moving forward with the washing up.
As essential and helpful as this is, it doesn’t necessarily help with restoring the relationship. The two friends may have agreed a way of doing the washing up in the flat, but the bad feeling still exists between them.
A core component of the mediation we were learning to do, was to move between the problem solving element of the conflict and the relationship element: helping the individuals ‘heal’ the relationship. At the heart of mediation, I believe, is forgiveness and reconciliation – the restoring of love and compassion for the other person.
In the example I have used, it is not only finding a way of doing the washing up in a way that is mutually acceptable, it is also restoring the friendship between two people who are living together.
Of course many conflicts are with issues that are far deeper, and more ingrained than a dispute about washing up, but the principle remains the same, that with some skilled facilitation, the relationship and the conflict can be transformed.
Wouldn’t it be great to see the church as the place where conflict can be handled constructively, and we become a place where forgiveness and reconciliation is what we can offer to world around that knows so little of this?
© Photograph is copyright Gary Barber and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Pingback: Curious in Ibiza: the op!!!