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1 SERIES: Great Church Fights SERMON: Understanding Conflict: A Prerequisite to Peacemaking SCRIPTURE: James 4:1-10 SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus DATE: September 16, 2007 A father heard a commotion in his yard and looked outside to see his daughter and several playmates in a heated quarrel. When he reprimanded her, his daughter responded, "We're just playing church!" Actually, that's not too hard a scenario to believe when you think about all the conflict that plagues the average church. I consider myself extremely blessed by the fact that the two churches I have pastored over the past 32+ years have both been comparative models of unity, peace, and harmony. I've never experienced a church split and, to my knowledge, only twice have I experienced the loss of more than one family over a single issue. The first incident was when two families quit this church in 1981 when we called Carlton Harris as our summer intern. Carlton, an honor student at Dallas Theological Seminary, was black and his wife was a Mennonite girl from Whitewater. That’s all it took for several families to find another home. Interestingly, that turned out to be a significant turning point in the life of our church, as God’s blessing began to be poured out in a remarkable way, I think because the Elders did what was right even in the face of strong opposition. The second time was when three families left our church in St. Louis in 1990 because they did not feel the staff and elders were sufficiently supportive of home schooling. These families had strong isolationist tendencies and wanted a separate youth program for their kids so that their kids wouldn’t become contaminated by the regular youth group. It was painful to see them go, but I think there were probably other churches better suited for them. What I am most grateful for is that such incidents have been so few and so far between. Yet the two

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