Community under Construction
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The community that speaks a language has learnt it.
Community - a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common:
Community is not something encountered; it is something constructed or built.
It’s built life by life, and the building of it, is often very hard work—particularly because so much of the work involves people who are difficult to work with.
Even under the best of conditions, with staff and volunteers you genuinely enjoy great chemistry with, yet, there’s no way to be in community with others without friction.
Friction - the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another:
It just comes from rubbing shoulders with people.
And nowhere are more shoulders rubbed than in the context of ministry.
So how do you get along with others and have them get along with you?
How do you not only build community but keep the peace?
(Look at your neighbor and say)
Do the 18:15 Thing
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
By far the most important lesson you’ll have ever learned about relational health is to practice Matthew 18:15.
Not just talk about it, not just know about it, but lets do it.
The verse is simple and basic: if you have a problem with someone, go to them and them alone to work it out.
Sounds simple.
It’s not.
The temptation is to go to six of our friends, telling them our problem and painting the other person as a jerk and ourselves as the victim.
Or as John Ortberg once wrote, his tendency is to go to someone else and say,
“Let me tell you what’s going on here.
I just want to lay it out objectively and get some feedback from a neutral third party.
Don’t you share my concerns about this person, who is my brother in Christ and a deeply disturbed psychopath?”[42]
When you do that, you’ll feel better for a little while because you’ve gotten it off your chest, but all you have done is practiced and then cemented your anger, resentment, or sense of offense and hurt.
Ever thought of it that way?
You’ve just practiced your feelings of conflict with this person, drilled them deeper, and put them in concrete.
And not only that, you’ve added to the overall breakdown in community by getting others to be in conflict with the person, to feel what you feel, to be offended like you’re offended, to be hurt like you’re hurt.
Why? Because you’ve just vomited it all over them.
It’s a smoke screen for gossip and slander and wider dissension.
Jesus said go to that person and that person alone.
It’s the only way to contain the conflict and bring it to resolution.
That’s why I’ve made Matthew 18:15 a verb.
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
I talk of needing to “do” Matthew 18:15 or to ask someone if they’ve “done” Matthew 18:15.
It also can and should become a leadership value.
Someone will go to a person and start talking about a third party—some way they got their feelings hurt or were offended, a decision they disagreed with, or some area where they were disappointed—and if the person they’ve been talking to has been around for very long, they’ll stop them and say,
“Hold on—I don’t need to hear this.
Have you gone to this person?”
Nine times out of ten the answer is no.
Then they’ll say, “That’s step one. And step two is for me not to hear about it.”
Be Quick
Have you noticed how big things get when they’re given time to grow?
All I have to do is take something home with me, and by the time I see the person in a day or two, it has already gone through a few imaginary conversations in the shower and been magnetized so that every negative thing in my memory—real or imagined—gets attached.
When the time comes to actually do Matthew 18:15, my rpm’s are way higher than the situation deserves.
So learned to be as quick and “on the spot” with things as you can be.
I’ll be offended or bothered by something, and instead of waiting three days, I’ll ask the person for a moment immediately after the meeting where the words were spoken.
I’ll say, “Listen, I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, but when you said that, it sounded very condescending.”
They’ll say, “Really? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything like that.” Then it’s done.
So be as immediate and deliberate as you can.
There’s a reason the Bible says to never let the sun go down on your anger.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
When the sun goes down, your emotions ramp up.
Watch the Ladder
What she meant was that a team leader was griping about something to her team of volunteers, and it was totally inappropriate.
If the team leader had an issue with something, they should have taken it up with their leader or a member of the staff.
And if a staff person has a problem, they should take it up with their supervisor.
You take things up the ladder, not down.
There are other ways to watch the ladder.
You don’t go sideways either.
Going sideways means if you are a staff member, going to another staff person, or if you are a volunteer, going to another volunteer.
You must always go up with your concerns; otherwise you are not resolving issues, you are spreading them.
Community is often built not simply on talking things through but on talking in the right direction.
Believe the Best
Another thing we have learned is to believe the best about those you are in community with, as opposed to assuming the worst.
This is not an original perspective, by any means, but we should learned to practice it with greater intentionality than I could have possibly imagined.
Why? Because our tendency is the opposite: to instantly question someone’s motives, to doubt their intentions, or to be oversuspicious about their loyalty.
Tied to this is being highly loyal to your fellow staff and leaders.
You will hear others attempt to tear them down—it comes with the territory.
That’s when you not only insist that person practice Matthew 18:15, but you also refuse to give whatever it was they tried to plant in your spirit any room to take root.
The heart of believing the best is simply suspending judgment in favor of that person.
Stephen Covey writes of being on a subway in New York.
A man got on with two kids, who promptly began to run wild all over the train. They were yelling, throwing things, pulling people’s newspapers down—I mean, they were acting horrible.
Covey asked the man if he wouldn’t mind controlling his kids a little bit. The man lifted his gaze as if in a fog and said, “Yeah, you’re right. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”[43]
Suddenly everything changed in Covey’s spirit.
And it should have. But this grace should have been offered on the front end.
Watch Out for Absalom
One last concern, but this one is not for everyone—just for the King David types.
David was an incredible, godly, yet flawed leader.
He is deeply admire by many, we marvel at his life, and learn significantly from his failures.
Most people, if asked to highlight his mistakes, would mention his sexual sin with Bathsheba.
Fair enough.
Just don’t leave off Absalom at the gate.
Remember that story?
Here it is just in case:
When anyone showed up with a case to bring to the king for a decision, Absalom would call him over and say, “Where do you hail from?”
And the answer would come, “Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel.”
Then Absalom would say, “Look, you’ve got a strong case; but the king isn’t going to listen to you.” Then he’d say, “Why doesn’t someone make me a judge for this country? Anybody with a case could bring it to me and I’d settle things fair and square.”
Whenever someone would treat him with special honor, he’d shrug it off and treat him like an equal, making him feel important.
Absalom did this to everyone who came to do business with the king and stole the hearts of everyone in Israel.
And Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate: and it was so, that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him, and said, Of what city art thou? And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
There you have it.
Absalom at the gate, winning the hearts of the people with a hyper-community, hypersensitive approach coupled with an “I understand and I don’t know why David doesn’t” mantra.
It was simply subversive.
David was a cause-driven man.
He had built the kingdom, fought the enemies, passionately worshiped and stood steadfastly by God.
But he wasn’t the counselor.
He wasn’t the touchy-feely, in-their-home-eating-pie guy. He was the warrior kind, which made him vulnerable to the Absalom types.
Most leaders are.
Which means many of us need to watch out for the Absaloms of the world—or, more to the point, the Absaloms of our world.
Solution?
Don’t let them get a foothold.
Really, I don’t know how else to convey this.
If you have an Absalom in your midst, don’t give them a platform.
Instead, marginalize them.
Do not let them sit at the city gate with access to the people, where all they will do is spread dissent.
Where Will Satan Attack?
Right about now you may be wondering why I’m spending so much time on basic goodwill and healthy interaction.
It’s because tearing this down is the primary way Satan attempts to attack churches and their leaders.
He will do all he can to stir up dissension, conflict, and discord.
He will attempt to drive staff teams apart and create animosity among volunteers.
Why?
Because he knows that unity is the primary apologetic for a lost and watching world.
Jesus said it would be this unity and this unity alone that would arrest the world’s attention and confirm that he was from the Father.
We often marvel at the growth of the early church, the explosion of faith in Christ in such numbers and speed that in only a blink of history, the Roman Empire had officially turned from paganism to Christianity.
The secret?
As Tertullian noted, the awed pagan reaction to the Christian communal life was, “See how they love one another.”[44]
That’s why it matters.