What happened next

After the scolding, I took a few days to reflect on the underlying causes and the environment of our conflict.  And I developed a few actions steps.  So I did what I decided to do: I made a greater effort to listen to both of my colleagues, I apologized to Z____ for making a significant decision without him, I called the pastor of the mother church and asked for his advice and mediation, and I bathed it all in prayer.

By listening to my younger teammate, I was able to gain additional perspective on what was happening and I learned that this was not primarily a problem of what I had done or said.  I still needed to apologize for the thing that I had done, but I knew we needed external support.  I spoke with the pastor of our mother church.  We had launched a church plant with the agreement that our leadership team of three was under the spiritual authority of the elders of the mother church.  So going to the mother church was a clear call to help us move forward.

I explained to the pastor what had happened, and he also heard from the other two members of the team.  I asked him to lead us in a meeting of reconciliation: an opportunity for each of us to lay our grievances before each other, to listen to those grievances, and to decide how to move forward in our relationship.  The pastor agreed, and he scheduled a meeting for the three of us, plus him and one other leader from the mother church.  I knew this wouldn’t be an easy conversation, but it was an opportunity for us to honor one another and also an essential step in the life of our small church plant.

At this point, no one in the church outside of our spouses new that there was a conflict in our team.  But the three of us could not continue to lead the church unless we found healing in our relationship.  Beyond relational healing, the conflict revealed that we also had some significant differences of opinion about how to be a church.  We obviously needed to work through these differences and re-establish a shared vision for the church.  It was not a given that we could do so, but in any case the first priority was a restored relationship.

On the day before our meeting, I received a call from the mother church pastor.  He said that Z____ had cancelled the meeting.  I asked him when we would reschedule.  He said, “David, I’m not sure we will reschedule.”  I said, “But, we must!”  I believed it was absolutely necessary that we at least have a meeting to attempt reconciliation.  But the pastor said that it probably wasn’t realistic.

I knew  this meant that we had lost a teammate. Indeed, it was so.  Z____ never returned to our team or worshiped with our church again.  We never had a meeting for reconciliation.  Our church leadership was now a team of two, and we worked closely together for several more years.  The church continued to grow.  I think I became a little more quick to listen and a little more quick to offer and to seek forgiveness.

Reflecting upon what happened

Last week, I shared a story about a conflict between myself and my teammate. One day after the worship service, he commanded me to sit down and began a litany of complaints against my leadership over the past few years of working together. I argued a little, but mostly I listened.  I was stunned to see him step out of character, and out of the cultural norms I had learned from Japanese culture.

Over the following days, I reflected upon what had happened:  How long had I been causing offense to my colleague? Why hadn’t I noticed signals of tension in our relationship?  What was at the core of this conflict?  What should I do now?

How long was I causing offense?
By listening to my colleague that day, I learned that my words and behaviors had caused him consternation for at least a year.  He brought up things I had said or decisions I had made months before the current conflict over how seats were to be arranged during our worship service.  As I considered this, I realized that the tensions had escalated after a third person joined our leadership team.  It was not just about him and me.

Why didn’t I notice signals of tension in our relationship?
I felt so dense.  I had no idea that he was growing more and more frustrated with me. As he spoke about some of the specific issues, I began to see how some of my actions had made him to feel this way.  I thought I had been working hard to show him respect and appreciation, but I realized I had been taking him for granted.  I expected him to speak up when there were problems between us, but he was following cultural norms by not pointing out my mistakes or bringing up complaints to my leadership – until this fateful day when he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

What is at the core of the conflict?
As I thought about why my colleague was so upset, and how my own behaviors contributed to the problem, I gained a stronger framework from which to view the situation.  I determined that the primary conflict wasn’t between him and me, but between him and the third member of our leadership team.  There were a host of assumptions, communication patterns, and a culture clash at the root of this to which I had been oblivious.  Of the three of us, I was the only non-Japanese.  But this time it wasn’t primarily about the brash American who couldn’t fit in.

What should I do now?
In the knowledge that I was not in control of the outcome and I was not in control of how others would act, I identified several action steps:
-make a greater effort to listen to both of my colleagues
-apologize for some specific wrongs I had done
-call in help from outside our team.
-forgive my teammate for ways that he had wronged me, whether or not he ask for me to.
-ask & expect Christ to use my actions and the actions of each member of His body of this glory.

And that is what I did.  If you want to know the rest of the story, please post a comment!