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Somewhere along the way in my training and my work with congregations, I picked up this operational definition of conflict:  “Conflict is two or more ideas in the same place at the same time.”  I continue to remind myself and the congregations that I work with about that definition.  It helps me and others to see that if we do not have two or more ideas to work with, then we are without life, without direction, without energy.  If a congregation has lived with only one idea for an extended time, then it is committed to the status quo, to what already is.  And it is fairly easy for people to be able to see that a long-term commitment to the status quo in an environment of great change is an untenable position with very little prospect for either faithfulness or survival.

Leading Change in the Congregation, by Gilbert R. Rendle, page 165