Embrace Conflict in Your Small Group!

Because ignoring a problem is the worst thing you can do.

If you lead a small group, sooner or later you will have to deal with conflict in it. Unfortunately, conflict is a surefire consequence of people really sharing life together. Why? Because you cannot bring together a room full of people from different cultural, social, economic, religious, and family backgrounds and expect them to always agree on every issue.

The truth is conflict can be healthy if it is dealt with the right way. In my experience, the biggest mistake small-group leaders make when dealing with conflict is ignoring it and hoping it will go away. It won't go away just because you want it to, and if you try to ignore it, it will often create division within the group as people begin to take sides. Simply put, when conflict happens in your small group, it needs to be dealt with in your small group.

How do you deal with it? If the conflict is not too severe, which is usually the case, it can be dealt with during the group by just asking that cooler heads prevail. Talk out the issues that started it in the first place. If that happens, then it is not a big deal and you move on. However, if the conflict escalates, it may need to be dealt with privately, away from the group, before it can be resolved in the group.

Here is the model we use when teaching small-group leaders how to deal with conflict in their groups.

Step In

The first thing the leader needs to do is step in and stop the conflict before it gets out of control. This is critical to the healing process because it keeps the conflict from getting personal. Once the conflict has already happened, and it cannot be resolved in the group, you have two options.

Once the problem has been solved, the next step is to discuss it in the group. Do not just hope the problem will go away on its own. If it happened in the group, discuss it in the group. Openly discussing the process of resolution with the group can be a great teaching tool that may keep the same kind of conflict from happening again.

Tough Love

Leading is not always easy, and sometimes you have to step in with some tough love. If one of the parties is not the least bit interested in finding a resolution to the conflict, they may have to be asked to leave the group, regardless of who started the conflict. The conflict must be resolved, and the group must be a part of that resolution, or the future long-term health of the group will be affected.

Of course, nobody ever wants to have to remove someone from the group, but you cannot sacrifice the rest of the group because one person is not willing to resolve the issues at hand. But if you find yourself in this situation and you are unwilling to deal with the problem person because it is too hard, you will look up one day and find yourself leading a group with no one left but the problem person because, one by one, everyone slowly disappeared.

Conflict does not have to occur at the group for it to have the same effect as if it happened during the actual meeting. If people from the group are in the midst of conflict, it affects the group regardless of when or where it occurred. The same path to healing works whether it happens during the group or outside the group.

Practical Tips

Here are some things a leader needs to know when going into conflict resolution:

What will keep conflict from destroying your group is an open and honest discussion about what happened. Whether resolution happened and both parties returned, or whether one or both parties left because of it, take time to talk it out with the group so they feel like they have been a part of the solution. Believe it or not, conflict often ends up drawing a group closer together.

You may be hoping I am wrong and this kind of stuff will not ever happen in your group. But I'll say it again: if you lead a group long enough, sooner or later you will experience conflict.

"But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food" (Acts 6:1, nlt). The only difference between people of the Bible and people today is language and culture. People are people regardless of when or where they lived. And if the early Christians were dealing with conflict, there is a pretty good chance that we will, too.

John Atkinson serves on the management staff at Bay Area Fellowship in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he oversees all of the church's Discipleship/Care ministries. John is the author of Go Big with Small Groups.

—John Atkinson; copyright © 2008 by the author and www.SmallGroups.com.