Dealing With Confrontation Between Services

If you’re a leader in a church, you’re going to have to learn to deal with confrontation. One of the hardest times to deal with difficult people is between services. I was talking with a number of pastors recently, most of whom have stopped greeting between services because of this area. As a pastor, it’s hard to have a confrontation on the patio and then go preach 5 minutes later.

In the past I have allowed these people to make me angry right before I go on stage, and it’s caused me to say negative things that didn’t need to be said. About a year ago I made a commitment not to allow this. The 1300 adults I’m speaking to don’t need to be spoken to in anger just because 1 person didn’t like our music this morning. So…

Yesterday after 1st service a guy walks up to me and says, “I’m a 1st time visitor, and I have an admonishment from the Lord for you.” He then proceeds to tell me that we’re not honoring the Lord, that we’re using carnal methods to try to “attract” people to Christ, and we need to repent. (I’ll write another post on using “secular” music in church later)

Believe me, at that moment I wanted to jump all over this arguement and share my thoughts with this guy.  Instead, I simply thanked this guy for visiting, told him I felt he was out of line to make this judgement on our church w/o knowing our hearts, and told him that I would not involve myself in this discussion. I then walked away.

Here’s the end deal: I went backstage and was angry. I was thinking about bringing this up in my message and challenging our body. In short, I was ready to go negative. Thankfully, the Lord challenged my heart, and I simply prayed that He would help me to get over the confrontation and focus on feeding His people. It took a lot of prayer, and I really made a commitment before I went on stage not to bring this up.

What happened? God spoke and lives were changed. I grew. I’m thankful God is teaching me these kinds of lessons, and that He gave me the power to overcome my temptation.

Another protection we’re putting around me is that from now on there will always be another pastor on the patio with me. That way he can step in and take this kind of conversation away from me. This will allow me to do what I love; to greet the awesome people of Palm Valley and celebrate what God’s doing in our lives together!