On Friday Bob Wall, former fire chief of Portland, Oregon, and a member of the New Wine, New Wineskins advisory council spoke to us about conflict resolution. If you missed that talk you can listen to it here. He wanted to shake our thinking on conflict so he titled his discussion “Conflict FX Us”. Read that out loud and you’ll get what he was after.
Conflict FX us all.
Have you ever listened to Johnny Cash’s song “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”? Well, that’s how Bob started our discussion. If you pay attention to the lyrics the song is all about conflict.
It’s the story of young “Billy Joe” and his trip to town. Before he leaves his mother warns him, “Don’t take your guns to town son, Leave your guns at home Bill, Don’t take your guns to town”. But Billy Joe ignores his mother’s advice. He says he won’t shoot without cause and leaves, guns at his side and ready for a fight, with the words of his mother repeating in his ear. He rides into town with a smile on his lips and begins to drink at the local bar. As he does so a dusty cowpike begans to laugh at him. Filled with rage Billy Joe goes to draw his gun — and is immediately shot down by the stranger.
You see, when you go in looking for a fight, you’re gonna find one and it might not end well. Conflict FX us all, Bob Wall reminds us.
When you go in looking for a fight,
you’re gonna find one and it might not end well.
Bob had us consider three case studies: The recent terrorist on Charlie Hebdo, the conflict in James 4, and our own conflicts. “It’s easy to think about other conflict, but it’s harder to think about our own,” said Bob “but conflict FX us all.” We’re not going to avoid conflict. It will happen in our lives. The key, as Bob says, is “digging conflict for gold”. Are we willing to engage our conflicts with intentionality, care, openness, and hoping for good? Conflict FX us all so we better!
One way Bob helped us work through conflict was asking four key questions about conflict:
What happened?
Why did it happen?
Who was effected?
How were they/you effected?
When we encounter conflict we need to ask these questions to understand what we’re fighting about. If we don’t understand how and why conflict is effecting us, then very little good can come out of conflict!
Do the Scriptures have anything to say about conflict? Bob pointed us toJames 4:1–12 to answer that (hint: the answer is yes.) Go read that passage real quick. Seriously, go read and then come back. I’ll wait until you’re done.
You read it? Good.
Everybody’s got desires within them. When these desires come into contact with other there can be a lot of conflict. We want something so we take it. We fight and quarrel for what we want.
What causes conflict? Our wrong motives and desires: a lack of humbleness, jealousy, judgmental-ness, pleasure-seeking…
It’s all about our relationship with God.
When we make ourselves out to be gods, instead of submitting to Christ as Lord, we seek out things for ourselves. We make our own laws, instead of respecting the law of love God gave us.
We bite and tear each other apart because we think too much of ourselves
and too little of Christ and his desires for us.
We need our hearts changed and to consider how “Conflict FX us” all. James calls us to the carpet: our desires are killing us, and we’re not being true to who we are. As brothers and sisters, children of God, we have to consider how our conflict affects us all, and how we might respond.
What are some good responses to conflict? Bob gave us several practical things to do in a conflict:
— Stop fighting and start talking/listening. When we “take our guns to town” we’re expecting a fight. When we find ourselves conflict we have to be able to lay down our guns and start talking.
— Determine the cause of the conflict. If we can’t identify what our conflict is about there’s no possibility working towards reconciliation.
— Look for common interests. We all probably have a lot more in common than we think. When we can identify common interests we can work towards those together.
— Use a third party. Sometimes conflict brings us to a standstill. No one is willing to lay down their guns and we’re not going anywhere. When this happens it’s time to bring in a mutually trusted third party.
— Work toward agreement. Maybe we can’t resolve our conflict entirely, but we can work towards an agreement as far as possible. Perhaps the agreement is to come back to the issue at hand later.
— Ask God to lead both parties to lasting peace. Conflict needs to be surrounded by prayer. The ultimate goal of conflict should be lasting peace. We have to pray for that.
It’s only when we realize that “Conflict FX us” all
that we can start the hard work of conflict resolution.
I’ll end this post the way Bob ended his session: having you listen to “Desperado” (this version covered by Linda Ronstadt). Make sure to read the lyrics. You might find it helpful the next time a conflict arises.