A Final Word

Reconciliation with God is how we are released from the wilderness.

I sat on the porch, stunned. I had just gotten off a video call with the leaders of the congregation, and sitting in front of me was an NDA.

How had it come to this? What had failed so spectacularly that the leaders of a congregation I served for 8 years, felt like this was the only way out?

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Two months earlier…

I thought I was being proactive when I reached out to ask for a reconciler to come into a challenging situation with my boss. I truly wanted to resolve the issues at hand not just for the sake of the team relationship, but so that we could continue to care for a congregation in a extraordinary time.

Reconciliation. This word and process gets mentioned a lot in the midst of conflict, especially in the Christian sphere, but from my own experience, and hearing from others, it’s not something that’s often successful.

Why not? Well, let’s define and explore before we try and answer that question.

First the definition:

“To restore/resolve” is what stands out to me in the definition. It tells us that something has broken and needs to be fixed.

Second, the Bible passage that talks about true and perfect reconciliation, which can only come through Jesus Christ on our behalf.

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.^[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ¹⁸ All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling^[b] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19 ESV

The ministry of reconciliation is a gift to us from God. But this gift is also used by imperfect, broken people, and that’s why I’ve heard more failures than successes.

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For a few moments on those days, I felt safe as I conversed with the reconciler. I followed through on the assigned items and reading, even while experiencing more and more conflict in the midst of it.

The hardest part of it all was because I had said yes to the reconciling step, I couldn’t get any additional support for the continued conflict that was occurring on a daily basis. While I was reading “The Peacemaker,” I was constantly being challenged, having no idea that the other person in the conflict wasn’t taking the process seriously at all.

After some manipulation in an attempt to bully me into meeting in person, the final meeting was held via video conference. I went into it feeling hopeful based on the work I had done to get to this point. I was looking forward to finding restoration, and compromise on how we could continue as teammates with care and grace in unprecedented times. But in the end, there was no give, only take. We left the meeting without reconciliation, and I wasn’t hopeful it would happen in the future.

The actions taken by my boss and other church leaders after that meeting were far from Biblical. I believe that reconciliation is nearly impossible when an NDA is set before you. How can true restoration happen in a relationship where an individual is being asked to keep quiet in the departure? Transparency in conflict is the only way to move on and continue to nurture healthy relationships.

The Church needs to do better. Yes, it is a business, but it takes advantage of many government benefits while simultaneously serving as a ministry. Acting first as Christ-like servant leaders means taking conflict head on through the ministry of reconciliation. Christ did the work, thank God for that, but as His followers we are called to be set apart and try and do better in this broken world.

As I wrap up these thoughts, I wanted to share a quote I read recently from the book “Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems and Meditations for Staying Human.”

“Too often we are asked to participate in a form of repair that is synonymous with uniting. We are asked to become one again with our wounder or oppressor with no evidence that they’ve done anything to change…Sometimes the reconciliation we are after is, in fact, with the self.” (p. 147)

While none of these posts have been easy to write, this one has been the hardest subject to think through, based primarily on my own experience because there was no closure or conclusion. But as I had hoped, the writing has been healing. It has also brought me to a realization of how much progress I’ve made in these last few years. I am so thankful for God’s forgiveness, both for myself and the others involved.

I can more confidently say that I have moved on from this wilderness season. God’s provision along the way has been plentiful, and the many lessons I have taken from this season will serve me when I enter the wilderness again.