High Conflict vs Healthy Conflict

On Sunday our minister worked a book called High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley into his sermon. If you’ve never read Ripley’s book, check it out of your library. I honestly think that everyone should read this book at least once a year.

The premise is simple. We have, as a society and a nation, developed a permanent state of high conflict. High conflict isn’t about working things out. It isn’t about compromise. It is about winning at all costs.

Think about politics. The verbage is war-like. We must prevail. We must preserve our way of like. We must conquer our foe.

A friend of mine came up to me after the service. “Is there something going on that I don’t know about? Have I missed some kind of conflict?”

It’s funny because she is one of the least contentious people that I know. Not only is she not contentious, she’s highly conscientious. So naturally she worries that she’s said something or done something or at the very least missed something.

I suspect, and this is just my suspicion, that our pastor is hoping to help us avoid high conflict. You see, he’s the pastor of not one but two congregations occupying the same facility. Ideally, we will do more than work side-by-side and work on things together.

But part of that will ideally involve listening to how the other group does things. Neither group can assume that everything they do is the RIGHT way to do things or the ONLY way or . . . heaven forbid . . . GOD’S way.

And I’ll admit that I’ve had to check my natural tendencies. I live in Man Land. I am the only female with two very headstrong men – my husband and our college-aged son. To ever get my way, and this includes even simple things like what kind of bread we get, I have to dig in my heals, put down my head, and brace myself. It is going to be a struggle because one or the other of them has a strong opinion on everything.

But this also means that I have to be careful not to approach absolutely every situation like this. 90% of the time, I’m pretty good about it. But there were things I was in charge of in our old building that are no longer exclusively my turf. While I could just dig in, I find that is better to hear how they do things. Ask, listen, listen some more, and then think about it. Will this work? Is our way really better?

And if I spend my time giving it some thought, I’m likely to avoid conflict. They’ll see that I’m listening. And that will make them more likely to listen in turn. If we can work things out and avoid healthy conflict, not to mention high conflict, that was a sermon well worth taking the time to listen to.

–SueBE