In a recent column for Pastors.com. Rick Warren suggested several ways to deal with conflict. Here are the first three:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Nehemiah 5 the Israelites face conflict for the same reason we do today\u2014selfishness. So what can we learn from Nehemiah about handling conflict?<\/p>\n
1. Get angry (v. 6). <\/strong>Nehemiah didn\u2019t ignore the problem; he took it seriously. When the unity of your church is challenged, it\u2019s your job to protect the unity of your church. It\u2019s serious business.<\/p>\n In times such as this anger is completely appropriate and right. There is a right kind of anger and a wrong kind of anger. Leadership is knowing the difference. A pastor who doesn\u2019t have enough fire in his belly to get angry about disunity isn\u2019t much of a leader.<\/p>\n 2. Think before you speak (v. 7).<\/strong> If you only do step one and ignore step two, you\u2019ll get in lots of trouble. Nehemiah 5:7 says, \u201cI pondered them in my mind.\u201d Nehemiah stopped, got alone with God and thought about what he was going to do. He asked God, \u201cWhat do You want me to do?\u201d<\/p>\n You should get angry when disunity threatens your church, but you have to think before you act. You can\u2019t just act on that anger.<\/p>\n 3. Rebuke the person individually (v. 7).<\/strong> Go directly to the source. You don\u2019t deal with somebody else about it. You don\u2019t talk with five or six different people to get everybody on your side. You don\u2019t say, \u201cI\u2019ve got a prayer request\u2026\u201d and spout it out. You go directly to the person causing the disunity. Nehemiah did that: \u201cI pondered them in my mind then I accused the nobles and officials. I told them, \u2018You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!\u2019\u201d (5:7, NIV).<\/p>\n Nehemiah didn\u2019t make a polite social visit. He was angry, and he did not gloss over the fact that these guys were ripping off other people. He didn\u2019t water it down. He confronted the troublemakers. You and I are called to do that, too, when disunity threatens our church.\u201d (Read about the last two steps.)<\/p>\n Blessings! In a recent column for Pastors.com. Rick Warren suggested several ways to deal with conflict. Here are the first three: \u201cIn Nehemiah 5 the Israelites face conflict for the same reason we do today\u2014selfishness. So what can we learn from Nehemiah about handling conflict? 1. Get angry (v. 6). Nehemiah didn\u2019t ignore the problem; he … Continue reading “3 Steps to Dealing with Conflict”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Michael Duduit
MDuduit@SalemPublishing.com
www.MichaelDuduit.com
Follow on Twitter @MichaelDuduit<\/p>\n