Month: March 2012

A Conflict Management Process

There are several key steps to action in conflict scenarios.

Create Space
After a conflict has erupted the first thing to do is to create space to deal with it well.  Negotiate a cease-fire.  In this space spend some time agreeing to how to proceed.  We call this ‘negotiating process’.  Agreement can be around the use of ground rules, covenant commitments, or a shared set of core values to honour in conflict. It may be a good time to do some teaching if the situation is not too volatile and tense.  Although if the pastor is personally involved, it cannot be the pastor who teaches this.  The second key element of creating space is reconciling hurt relationships.  It is essential to make sure relationships are put right if there were hurtful events in the initial flare up.  This reconciliation doesn’t solve the conflict, but it does create the spiritual and psychological space in which the conflict can be worked on.