Middle Tennessee clergy turn to ICM to learn how to diffuse conflict

The Institute for Conflict Management has joined forces with three respected community leaders to develop a hands-on conflict management program for Middle Tennessee faith leaders.

 

Charles McGowan, president of Operation Andrew; Phil Leftwich, executive presbyter of the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee; and Howard Gentry, former Nashville vice mayor and member of First Baptist Church Capitol Hill, have all been part of a coordinating group to develop the Reconciler’s Summit, to address the growing need for peacemakers in the faith community.

 

As the Institute for Conflict Management promotes collaborative decision-making and conflict management throughout a variety of fields – such as law, healthcare, education and business – it is the perfect organization to host a conflict management seminar for people from a diverse range of faith backgrounds.

 

Expected to attend are 36 participants from various churches, non-profits and other faith-based organizations.

 

The Reconciler’s Summit serves as the inaugural conference of the Institute for Conflict Management’s Transformation program, an outreach designed to bring conflict management training and consultation to faith-based organizations in Tennessee and across the Mid-South region.

 

The summit participants will serve as the foundation for building a cadre of faith leaders, trained in proven mediation techniques, who can be used as volunteers to help other congregations suffering the ill effects of conflict.

 

“I see this as a first step, not a one-time proposition, but a first step in a fresh new direction,” said Leftwich, the executive presbyter over 91 Presbyterian churches in Middle Tennessee. “If Lipscomb and the various denominations can work together in a fresh new way to help new pastors regionally, then we may be able to help them nationally. This could be a center to address what is a major issue in church life.”

 

“The church of today is not what it was 10 years ago,” he said.

 

“I’ve been in ministry 40 years, and I can’t remember a time when we have not had to deal with internal church conflict, but the lack of civility in the past two decades is really quite different than what I experienced back in the 1960s and 1970s. Back in those days we were civil and we honored the final decisions. We didn’t walk out of a meeting bearing grudges. We didn’t try to get rid of the pastor. We have somehow lost those skill sets over time.”

 

And it’s affecting how well pastors can do their jobs today. In the Presbyterian Church USA, half of all pastors leave the parish ministry within five years of graduating from seminary, Leftwich said. Other studies have shown that pastors spend up to 50 percent of their work time dealing with conflict.

 

“We get calls every week about churches in trouble,” said Larry Bridgesmith, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management.

 

McGowan, of Operation Andrew, a Nashville organization devoted to breaking down racial, cultural and denominational walls for the purposes of evangelism, has expressed concern that as congregations become more independent in today’s society they lose access to valuable resources, such as conflict management tools.

 

“I’m a lawyer who has seen lots of conflict in my time, but I have never found conflict more difficult to navigate than in a church setting. If there is any place we should be demonstrating a different way of resolving conflict, it should be in our churches,” said Bridgesmith, who is also an elder at Woodmont Hills Church of Christ.