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2009-01-06 issue:

Church learning to transform conflict

Marion Mennonite Church members shred hand-written grudges in service.

by Heather Grennan Gary for Gospel Evangel. Reprinted with permission

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Three years ago, Marion Mennonite Church in Shipshewana, Ind., held a special healing service as a way to mark an important turning point in the life of their congregation. The church was emerging from a long episode of conflict that had seemed to afflict every relationship—between members of the congregation, between members and the former pastor and between the congregation and Indiana-Michigan Conference.

After two years of working to resolve the rifts, the congregation was ready to participate in this special service, in which people wrote down grudges they wanted to let go of, carried the slips of paper to the front and deposited them into a shredder.

Sherm Kauffman, who was serving as executive conference minister, issued a formal apology to the congregation on behalf of Indiana-Michigan Conference for hurt feelings, and he and the congregation shared Communion.  

“The healing service put a period on the end of that experience of conflict,” says Dan Byler, an elder at Marion. “It was as if we were saying, ‘We’re done with that; let’s not forget what we learned, but let’s move on.’ ”

But reaching that point in the healing process took years of dedication, faith and hard work. When Byler started his term as elder at Marion Mennonite in January 2004, he knew that he and the entire congregation were in for some turbulence. Their pastor of about six years had just resigned. Average attendance had dropped from 175 to below 100 within a year. Sharing time during Sunday services was used to air grievances. Morale was so low that few people were willing to take on leadership positions. Dan and fellow brand-new elder Kathy Yoder comprised the entire board of elders when they began their terms at the pastorless church. They knew they had their work more than cut out for them.

While the original rift was over pastoral leadership issues, the conflict soon snowballed into people on both sides of the issue feeling like they were not being heard, respected or trusted. The congregation was split between those who supported the pastor and those who didn’t, with a sizable number of people who were somewhere in the middle.

The congregation’s connection to the conference was strained as well, in part because of two different, unrelated past situations and in part due to the strong feelings around this more recent conflict.

“There were many Sundays I would have much rather stayed home,” says Byler.

After the pastor left, the Marion congregation faced the huge yet delicate task of dealing with the conflict and bad feelings and moving toward healing and reconciliation. Dan Miller joined the congregation about five months later to serve as a transitional pastor. The first step he took was to offer sessions on conflict resolution and reconciliation to anyone in the congregation. About 30 people participated, representing between half and two-thirds of the congregation’s households.

“Not only did people have the chance to be heard and to work through their feelings of frustration and anger with each other, but we all learned conflict resolution skills, which have been useful since then,” says Byler.

The transitional period was a crucial time for the congregation to slowly and gradually experience change. By the time new pastors were installed, Byler says, the congregation felt ready to move on and felt excitement about the future.

“For so long, so much of our time was spent thinking about us and taking care of us,” he says. “After the healing service, we started to look outside again, to focus on our mission of reaching out and helping others. Moving forward was a really positive thing.”

But one surprise that came after successfully working through such a major conflict is that struggles continue. The most recent disagreement was about rearranging the sanctuary. Instead of the traditional pulpit-in-front and pews-in-rows layout, they decided to try moving the stage area to the side and arranging the pews around it in a half-circle.

“We had strong opinions on each side and needed to process them,” says Byler.
They held congregational conversations and set up other venues for people to share their opinions. Byler says they slowed down their decision-making process and listened to everyone who wanted to share his or her perspective, and because of that the congregation was able to come up with an acceptable solution. By the time they finally voted, “the vast majority chose to stay with the new layout,” says Byler. “We ended up with something that worked, even if some people preferred the other layout.”

“Even after going through everything that we did a few years ago and after working things out, we still have to do it again and again,” says Byler. “Conflict is not just a one-time thing; it’s something we all need to keep working through.”