106: Episode 106 – Chris Crain on Church Conflict & Church Bullies

This week on the podcast, we have a much anticipated returning guest. One of the earliest episodes of the Church Leadership Podcast (Episode 4), and still one of the most listened episodes, was with Dr. Chris Crain, the Executive Director of the Birmingham Metro Baptist Association. Mark and Andy get to have another great conversation with Chris about how to deal with conflict in the local church. Take a few minutes and listen. We guarantee you’ll be challenged, encouraged, and helped by this conversation.

You can find the resource for dealing with difficult people that Chris mentioned in this episode here: Antagonists in the Church by Stephen Ministries.

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Snippets from this week’s conversation with Chris…

“About twenty-five to thirty-six percent of churches go through major conflict over a period of four years.”

“So, you bring all of those converging elements, and you have a recipe for potential conflict.”

“They are forced to resign, and it’s not an ethical issue, it’s not a biblical issue. It’s frankly, they’ve made the wrong person angry by a decision that, probably, had to be made. And so, they become the scapegoat.”

“The only way to address a church bully is just like a bully on the playground: Somebody has to stand up and do the right thing.”

“You basically have to deal with it and have good conflict hygiene in your church. You just can’t let that stain or that bacteria lie around, you have to address it and get it scrubbed out.”

“Conflict is going to happen. It is inevitable.”

“When conflict begins, and we see it happening, we need to be introspective.”

“We are called to reconcile what the world would call intractable.”

“Often, when we talk through the issues in a conflict, we listen to ourselves speak. God begins to show us, through His Holy Spirit, some ways that we can more appropriately respond.”