How Are You Wired?

It’s 10:20 p.m. and a piercing winter wind refuses to relinquish its iron grip on an early spring night. Kevin sits alone in his office. Normally this senior pastor of a growing church would have raced home from work, wolfed down his dinner, and gotten ready for a weekly small-group study at his house. That study was a high point of the week for Kevin and his wife, Karen. Not tonight.

Tonight Karen got a call saying Kevin was staying late and to go on without him. The lights from his office shine out onto a dark, empty parking lot as he sits at his computer and struggles with the words on the screen. Kevin isn’t wrestling with the right phrases for Sunday’s sermon; he’s working on his resumé. In fact, he’s seriously thinking about getting out of pastoral ministry altogether.

For 12 years at his former church, Kevin experienced a fruitful, fulfilling ministry. He’d built a small, close-knit staff; worked well with his elders; and been able to focus on preaching and teaching his flock. Now, after only 18 months at his present church, Kevin had become so frustrated—so deeply angry with Rick, the senior music minister—he dreaded even coming into the office. That wasn’t the worst.  His internal tension level had risen so high because of the conflict that it often overflowed at home. He snapped at his kids and even pushed back from his wife. The emotional burden of these unresolved issues weighed on Kevin like a 75-pound pack. That weight became a constant feeling of failure—a nagging heaviness that he had let down his family, his God, and especially the people in his flock.

As Kevin typed his resumé, struggling to paint a positive picture of his gifts and strengths, he thought about adding words like hypocrite, loser, failure and quitter. How could he talk about reconciliation and forgiveness on Sunday, and yet have so many unresolved issues with Rick? It wasn’t from a lack of prayer or face-to-face effort to make things right. He’d never tried harder in his life to get on the same page with another person. But these two committed Christians were polar opposites. On every issue—from the look of the bulletin to the style of music on Sunday—they had different points of view. And every time Kevin tried to bridge the gap and make things better, he seemed to make them worse.

What If Things Really Could Change?

If you’ve ever worked or volunteered at any level in a church, ministry or other organization, you can probably identify to some degree with Kevin’s feelings of isolation, frustration and disappointment. In far too many ministry teams, what’s common is discord and division, rather than the unity of the Spirit. Instead of exercising our spiritual gifts and callings, many times we feel pressured and stressed, frustrated instead of fulfilled. But what if the solution to these common conflicts was closer than you ever dreamed?

What Will Tip the Balance?

In 1 Corinthians 12:18, the apostle Paul concludes his discussion of how God’s people are like members of a body by stating, “But now God has placed the parts, each one of them, in the body just as he wanted.” We believe that’s absolutely true today. The people you’re working with isn’t the result of a random coincidence. These “polar” people are part of God’s story for your life. That’s an amazing thing to think about in itself. It’s also why investing time in building a healthy, functional, effective, empowering team is essential, not optional.

Four Inescapable Areas of Conflict

The process of building close-knit ministry teams involves four inescapable areas of conflict every team must face. Learning how each person on your ministry team is wired and how they respond to each area is the first step in valuing and appreciating the diversity of strengths God has placed on your team.

Problem Solving

The first area involves discovering who on the team is “Aggressive” and who is “Reflective” when it comes to solving problems and accepting challenges. Some people naturally have an aggressive problem-solving bent, while others tend to approach problems and challenges with a more calculating bent.

Processing Information

The next unavoidable area your ministry team will face involves processing information - namely, how your team members view the information they receive from another source. Some members of the team are “Optimists,” who tend to be trusting of information. Others are “Realists,” who look at information with a more skeptical eye and want to validate before trusting. I am sure you see no conflict hidden in this area.

Managing Change

Change can have a great impact on your team. Change is a constant for ministry teams and is the third inevitable area of conflict all ministry teams must face. Sometimes change appears abruptly; other times it approaches with fair warning. How your team members react to change is critical to the success of the team. Do they take change in stride, adjusting on the fly to different circumstances, or do they need to plan for change and how it will impact all areas of ministry?

Facing Risk

Every team has rules, procedures and constraints its members must deal with. The last unavoidable area involves how your team members will respond to established rules and their associations to risk taking. Some members are “structured” and operate by the book. They naturally follow established rules and procedures and see rules as protection. Others will consistently challenge the status quo. They are “pioneers” and question established procedures and rules; they tend to push the envelope.

Putting it All Together

There’s a reason your ministry team operates the way it does. It relates to the strengths and limitations of each team member. For many teams, these strengths and limitations are never examined. The result can be a constant state of conflict, misdirection or simply ineffectiveness. Without such an examination, the source of these issues remains a mystery, and finding a solution that works is difficult, if not impossible.

God has a plan for your differences; His plan is to unite not divide.

Rodney Cox

President and Founder

Ministry Insights International