Can you imagine a technology company that is innovative in creating new technologies, but inefficient and ineffective in implementing existing technology into their eco system and processes?

Major disconnect.

We might not be buzzing in the newest start up, but we are all apart of structures that are meant to achieve something. Each of us belong to a family. Some are plugged into a church, some are connected in school, some are engaged in the workplace. We are all part of a community.

When we are active in these activities and with these institutions, it involves dialoguing with people, trusting others, and allowing people to depend on us. We are people and they are people and all the people will mess up and fail. Conflict is coming.

Conflict is inevitable, and as a people pleaser, I tend to avoid conflict at nearly all cost, which is not healthy for anyone involved. Conflict can lead to pain and further fragmentation. Conflict can also lead to growth and increased collaboration.

Recently, on a podcast, I heard a woman talk about the idea of healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict, just like there can be healthy peace and unhealthy peace.

The reason I tend to avoid conflict is because I perceive it to be predominately unhealthy, and so I settle into an unhealthy peace. Unhealthy peace can be just as demoralizing and paralyzing as unhealthy conflict in a family or organization or business.

Assuming all conflict is unhealthy will lead us to believe the lie that all peace is healthy. Both are breeding grounds for resentment and bitterness and are spike strips in the roadway towards unity and progress.

Prayer is important, and while God is able to make our hearts, our families, our institutions, and our communities healthy and whole, He typically uses us to move towards that. Engaging in unhealthy conflict and unhealthy peace seem to come quite naturally to us and do not require hard work. Engaging in healthy conflict and healthy peace requires the hard work of communication. Having the patience to listen, the humility to hear, the compassion to empathize, the clarity to explain, the discipline to persevere, and the courage to hope.

We want God’s very best for our families, for our churches, for our organizations, for our communities, for our nation, for our world. We want all of these to be healthy and whole. For those of us who put our faith in Jesus Christ, we believe true health and true wholeness come when we are rooted and grounded in Christ.

I pray we are not like the tech company that doesn’t use technology correctly. I hope we don’t have a major disconnect. Christians can get as nasty with unhealthy conflict and as fake with unhealthy peace as anyone. This ought not be. We should be able to enjoy healthy peace because we engage in healthy conflict. And at times that involves believers go separate ways, like Paul and Barnabas. It is possible to maintain unity in the body of Christ while departing one from another. Also, it is possible to lose the sense of unity in the body of Christ while remaining together if it results in an unhealthy peace.

I believe communion is a wonderful reminder of our capacity to engage in healthy conflict as believers. We will have differences of opinions and personalities and priorities, but when I take communion, I love to look around at my brothers and my sisters who are so very different from me but have the same Spirit dwelling in them. It is a sweet reminder that whatever negativity I may have felt in the past or present (or even in the future) is not stronger or more influential that the reality that this is my brother and this is my sister.

If that is the case, then conflict doesn’t need to be avoided and tensions don’t need to be glossed over. Healthy conflict can result in resolution and restoration and are possible in Christ. Paul gives us the blueprint in his challenge to the Ephesians in chapter 4 of his letter to them when he writes, “…walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Let us go and do likewise.