How JUSTPEACE Began
by Mary K. Logan
I spend most of each day addressing conflict. The phone continuously rings with people calling for help with conflicts in the church: simple disputes over the care of a cemetery, a sermon, closing of a church, music, sale of property; complex disputes, such as sexual misconduct, embezzlement, arson, internal power struggles in a church, a difficult pastoral appointment, accidents involving serious injury or death, discontinuance of a probationary member, adulterous relationships. The list goes on, with common themes of money, power, control, and fear of losing control.
Some church conflicts are very destructive, in large part because we are not well equipped to address them constructively. Two experiences of conflict in the church tear at my soul: (1) when individuals feel estranged from God because of the human failures in the institution of church; and (2) when conflict rips apart a good community. Serious conflicts do both. What happens when these conflicts are ignored (avoided) is that people who are hurt experience escalating pain and frustration, which eventually leads to isolation, confrontation, and litigation.
Five Events Opened My Eyes
Between 1996 and 1998, I began to see a new possibility for helping people in the church learn how to resolve conflicts in more constructive ways.
- A highly publicized situation in which a large, prominent local church was ripped apart when its powerful pastor was accused of serious misconduct with many women. Thousands of hours of church time and immense sums of money were spent in this battle within the church, with insurance carriers, and in lawsuits. The case eventually settled as a result of a series of mediations.
- The first ever educational conference that the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) hosted for the annual conference chancellors. During Communion worship service, Tom Porter explored the theme of what it means to be a Christian lawyer. His sermon inspired many follow-up conversations between the two of us about how to prepare United Methodists to engage conflict in a different way and how we might bring mediation into the church.
- In my own little church, the congregation was poised to split over a contemporary worship service. I couldn't believe the way everyone was behaving. We brought in an outside expert who helped us talk with one another about our feelings — and listen to one another! A year later, the church was able to stabilize and make healthy decisions.
- A conflict between my then 11-year-old daughter and another girl in her school. With the blessing of the other girl's mother, we went to their house for the girls to talk with each other. They talked about their feelings and apologized to each other, finding their own way to reconcile. Surely so can we in the church!
- I received a phone call from a woman about my age who had been victimized by her youth pastor as a teenager. This old conflict led her to feel painfully alone and estranged from God and the church. Finally she received healing through counseling. This year, the annual conference's Board of Ordained Ministry contributed to the counseling cost. The money wasn't much, but it was an authentic, positive step of compassion, regret, support, and Christian love taken by the church as an institution to help her resolve old wounds.
Throughout this time and woven into these events, Tom Porter and I continued to talk about finding a way to help the church deal with conflict more constructively. As our conversations became more serious, we began to envision a place where United Methodists could learn to engage conflict in a different way. Our only real stumbling block was money.
When the General Council on Finance and Administration learned it would be repaid the money it loaned to help settle the Pacific Homes litigation, GCFA's General Secretary, Sandra Lackore, suggested that some of this amount would be perfect as seed money for starting a conflict transformation center. What a wonderful legacy: creating something positive out of the worst conflict the church has faced in many years; using money borne out of conflict to help people learn how to deal with conflict differently! Through God's inspiration of Tom Porter, Sandra Lackore's genius with finances, the GCFA Board's willingness to use some of this money, the pain of too many real conflicts, and some midwifery skills, was the birthing of JUSTPEACE.
JUSTPEACE could have been birthed at another time, such as 1972, when Jim Lauie and John Adams of the General Board of Church and Society asked General Conference to create a conflict resolution center. But there is something to be said about the time being ripe for change. Many have worked in their own quiet ways to bring peace in the midst of strife since then. JUSTPEACE happened to be at the right place, at the right time! Its future is up to you and your church friends and neighbors throughout the connection.
Mary K. Logan is chief legal counsel for The United Methodist General Council on Finance and Administration.
As the Water Flows and the Grass Is Green
