Leaning into Healthy Conflict - Ep 2
Show Resources:
Crucial Conversations by Jospeph Grenny
Show Transcript:
Kyle Brooks 0:02
Welcome to the Multiracial Ministry Mindset Podcast. In a world that feels more divided than ever, leaders in multiracial ministries face unique and imposing challenges.
Bernard Emerson 0:13
Our goal is to equip you with the principles, stories, and tools you need to lead a unified people in a divided world.
Kyle Brooks 0:21
We're not church growth gurus, and Multiracial Ministry is not a recipe for numerical growth.
Bernard Emerson 0:27
However, it is a recipe for growth in the fruit of the Spirit. When we lead multiracial ministries well, we can disciple a new generation of Christians attuned to how the Spirit of Jesus is speaking to the spirit of our age.
Kyle Brooks 0:40
So my name is Kyle Brooks, and I am a white pastor from East Oakland.
Bernard Emerson 0:46
My name is Bernard Emerson. I'm a black pastor from East Oakland.
Kyle Brooks 0:49
And together we pastor at a church called Tapestry church, a multiracial expression of God's kingdom, right here in Oakland, California. Welcome to the Multiracial Ministry Podcast.
Episode Two of season one leaning into healthy conflict.
Kyle 1:07
One of our cultural practices. Yep, for overthrowing fear. Yes, leaning into healthy conflict is a core practice in overthrowing fear. Because what causes more fear in us than the potential to confront somebody about something that is not gone right between you? So what is the cultural practice we're sharing today? What does it mean to lean into healthy conflict, Bernard?
Bernard 1:34
Lean into healthy conflict? When ideas are on the table? We disagree fearlessly? Yeah, not posturing or protecting, but looking together for the best idea for the church. We aren't afraid to look stupid. We're not afraid of others' feedback. If we have personal issues with someone on a team or someone in the church, and we're feeling angry, or if we're sad if we're feeling betrayed, or unheard, or alone, we get brave, and we go to them directly. And this keeps us from being political. We don't talk about our beef with someone with someone who isn't involved. We don't take sides.
Kyle 1:34
Yeah. So this is core core practice, as we're talking about this season, overthrowing fear. Leaning into healthy conflict, both conflict about ideas, conflict. And when you're in ministry, and you're working on a team, and if you're in multiracial ministry, I pray to the Lord Jesus, that you're working on a team. I really do need to be working on a team. But when you're on a team, there are going to be ideas that come up, there are going to be projects that you're working on together, we need to lean into conflict over ideas. We also need to lean into conflict about personal things that come up. Our working relationships, our personal relationships, because if we don't lean into those things, they fester, they simmer. And we ended up spreading that tension out through the rest of the system.
Bernard 3:05
Which is not good.
Kyle 3:06
Yeah, it is just ugly. So why is this practice leading into healthy conflict? Why is this crucial in a multi racial ministry in particular,
Bernard 3:18
I think, is crucial in a multiracial ministry, because you don't voice your opinion when something happens, or if it's something that you don't agree with. When that action actually happens, you get upset and vote with your feet. But you had the opportunity to say some or to express your feelings about that situation and you chose not to. And then when the action actually takes place, you vote with your feet. I know that's what people of color usually do. You know, you guys write letters, we just leave.
Kyle 3:18
We we write angry emails. Yeah, yeah, that's one of the best. By the way, it's like a plug for multiracial ministry, if you're white, you just get like a lot fewer emails, negative emails per capita. It's one of the things I love. But yeah, there is this opportunity, oftentimes to voice our opinions about things. And then if you're holding back your opinion because you're afraid of how people might see you, you're afraid of how it'll sound. Then it happens the way you were hoping it wouldn't. What can you expect?
Bernard 4:29
And you're actually robbing the community. You're stealing your perspective from the community that could possibly benefit from it.
Kyle 4:38
Wait, say that again. You're doing what?
Bernard 4:40
You're robbing the community of your perspective. And you're actually stealing from the community, your perspective when you hold it in or you take it with you and the community could have possibly very well benefited from that perspective.
Kyle 4:57
Yeah, yeah. Now This is a really hard cultural practice in a multiracial context. Right? Because like we talked about in the intro episode, episode zero, where how multiracial includes multicultural, that means that if you are in a multiracial context, you are going to have different cultural ways with respect to conflict. You're gonna have different cultural ways with respect to how we talk in groups. How we talk to authority figures, on staff teams. And those ways are, they're absolutely going to impact how we see each other because whereas somebody might not be sharing something with the team out of respect, I might think they're doing it out of timidity. Right? Like, maybe because I'm, you know, the executive pastor or something. They're not sharing their point of view, because I already shared my point of view and they feel it would be disrespectful. So they're actually not leaning into conflict, out of love and respect. But in my point of view, because of my cultural come from, it can look like they're not leaning into conflict because of fear. So they're, I think that there's a really important distinction that we need to make there, that not all leaning out of conflict is driven by fear. At the same time. Yeah, some of it. A lot of it is.
Bernard 6:29
And it's important that within that community within that space, you got to work at making it comfortable for people to voice their opinions. You have to work at making it comfortable for people to voice their opinion,
Kyle 6:45
Oh man. I mean, it is got to be an ever present. Yeah. In your meetings in your in your gatherings, people can disagree. And that is not just okay, that is celebrated.
Bernard 7:01
And they can disagree. Watch this. And still be loved. And still be valued,
Kyle 7:06
And still be exercising their own cultural value of respect. Right? In harmony. It is not breaking the harmony, right, in our circle, to disagree with me, or to disagree with you. It is not disrespected. In fact, it's respectful to me if you disagree with me, in a team conversation about what is the best idea for our church, because it respects the fact that I don't need the ego stroke of you agreeing with everything I say. So those are things that we need to build into our teams just a regular cultural practice as a way of relating to each other.
Bernard 7:48
And at the end, you say for our church. In the end, who benefits from it? The body, the community.
Kyle 7:57
It's not for me, it's not for you. It's not for any individual whose idea it was, that was a really good idea, a really bad idea, right? It's for the community. Right? And so we want to come up with the best idea for the whole community. And in a multiracial setting, how could I possibly know what is the best idea for this whole community? ?
Bernard 8:19
You can't possibly know.
Kyle 8:20
No, no, no, no, I cannot.
Bernard 8:23
And as I cannot possibly know.
Kyle 8:26
Right. But we, especially along with others, who represent various backgrounds in the community, we can know together or we can have a pretty good idea together. So that, in a multiracial ministry context, leaning into healthy conflict, about ideas, about projects, about tasks, about the way that a certain event should be run, or if there should be servers behind the table or fish should be served yourself. Or about all those little details that are cultural in nature, are really important that we just lean into our different backgrounds together. Yeah, some of the some of what we feel is going to be conflict, actually isn't even conflict. It's just a different point of view. It's just a different aesthetic preference.
Bernard 9:14
So we talked about fear and overthrowing fear. So do you think that it's a fear of being respectful or a fear of my idea might not be taken seriously? Or fear of just being afraid to be who I am in this space and voice my opinion.
Kyle 9:40
Man, man, you're naming and cure naming things, if I'm not mistaken, that are probably more frequently in multiracial contexts going to be fears that are held by people of color. And specifically and again, as we talked about, multiracial, it means we're dealing with power dynamics. And so it attunes us to very practical things like this. Where if I perceive myself to be on the underside of a power dynamic, whether that's because of my racial background, or just because of my relationship to you on this staff team or whatever, then these types of fears become very, very present, I'm not gonna be taken seriously. Or if I show this part of my identity, and it's, and it's poo pooed, or it's or it's like, tossed aside, then then part of me is tossed aside, like, those things can be very painful for people.
Bernard 10:37
So how do we get people to get past that and lean into healthy conflict?
Kyle 10:46
I don't think this is a one size fits all, but there are a couple things that come to my mind. One is we need to discipline people in the Gospel.
Bernard 10:57
There it is.
Kyle 10:59
I mean, this is the biggest one, I think we need to disciple people in the Gospel that you are not what other people think you are. You are who God thinks you are right. You are who your father in heaven thinks you are. And if somebody tosses aside your cultural perspective on something, well, that says a lot about them. It says nothing about you. You know, so to disciple people in the Gospel, I think is a big one. But I also think that that's not enough, because that puts the burden on the person on the underside of the power dynamic, to create a system and organization that does conflict well. I think the people at the top of the power structure, whatever that looks like. You're the lead pastor, but I'm the white pastor. And so there's a different power dynamic there in our church, for example. And we both carry different power from those points of view. We have to work really hard to not diminish people when they come with their ideas and their cultural come froms, right? We need to work really hard to elicit ideas from people that might think of themselves as people who don't deserve to have an opinion on something. We need to work really hard to celebrate, like, actively celebrate when people disagree with us. As opposed to like they're afraid that we're going to come down on them. Best case scenario, we're not going to come down on them. We need to show them it's actually the other way round, we're actually going to celebrate when they disagree with us. When they bring up a perspective that might rub us the wrong way. I think that the burden needs to be disproportionately on whoever is on the top side of that power dynamic in a multiracial setting.
Bernard 12:52
Yeah. And you said some key when you said, it's got to be celebrated. I think that's very important and creating that space celebrating others' ideas.
Kyle 13:06
Yeah, say more about that.
Bernard 13:08
There would there's nothing more powerful than somebody who was afraid to lean into that conflict when they and then when they do when they finally decide to lean into that conflict, that idea, that position is celebrated. And it empowers them to want to do more, or say more or lean into more healthy conflict.
Kyle 13:32
Yeah, yeah. And in some ways, that is part of the discipling work of getting the gospel more deeply baked into people's lives, because they are experiencing the gospel through you. When we as leaders value and celebrate people's cultural perspectives, they experience themselves being valued and celebrated. And, and we can extrapolate that, to God, we can say like, actually, this is how God treats you. Right? So that is, I think, part of the discipleship process. Now we've been talking mainly so far, conflict around ideas, conflict around workshopping projects and events, stuff like that. Let's talk about the real stuff. Let's talk about the interpersonal conflict that, not infrequently, comes up in multiracial settings. The time when somebody puts their foot in their mouth. The time when somebody felt like they got a look from somebody that meant something or didn't get a look from somebody that meant something or different types of miscommunications that can happen very frequently, in multiracial settings. How do we lean into healthy conflict when those circumstances rise?
Bernard 15:03
Yeah, well, first of all, in a multi racial setting, sooner or later, somebody is going to say something offensive. They may not mean it. Yeah. Or they may mean it. Sooner or later, when you're dealing in a multiracial setting, we communicate differently. And sooner or later, somebody is going to say something that you find offensive. That's right. And like, and we practice this at our church, we practice these rules. And number one is, keep short accounts. First of all, when somebody offends you, you always think the best.
Kyle 15:52
Assume the best.
Bernard 15:55
Then you go to him, you get a straight Hey, you said this the other day, maybe you didn't mean it like this? Or maybe you did? Could you explain what you meant?
Kyle 16:02
Yeah. In fact, I remember we used to say it like this, we used to say, assume nothing, but the best. The assume nothing part is like that we make so many assumptions. Not just about what people have done. Like we've seen what they've done, or we've heard what they've done. The assumptions we make are about why they did it. And that's what we're actually in our feelings about. We're not in our feelings about the words that were said necessary. I mean, sometimes if it's blatant enough, we could be. But we are in our feelings most of the time about why we think people are doing what they're doing. Or why they did what they did. So if we commit to assume nothing but the best, then we can genuinely go to a person and say, Hey, this is what was said. I don't know why, but it's hard for me not to assume these motivations or things and I just need you to set me straight because I can't see into your heart. I can't see into your mind. I need you to tell me what was there. And I don't want to live with this story that I've been living with. Right? So you tell me, I want to assume that you're going to engage me in a loving, loving, respectful manner.
Bernard 17:14
And number two, we keep short accounts.
Kyle 17:18
Say more about what that means.
Bernard 17:20
Hey, once I come to you and say, Hey, you explained it to me, like, man, forget about it or not forget about it, but let it go. So we can move on and continue loving each other.
Kyle 17:30
You know, like, back in the day, people had these things called checkbooks. You know, before everything was automated, and it's pretty bad financial practice, you know, back in the day, right, to not balance your checkbook every month, when the statement came, right? You should be balancing it every month. Because if you don't balance it every month, and things pile up, or there's something wrong, it can be really hard to go back and find the root cause of why those numbers aren't adding up. That's not keeping short accounts. Balancing the checkbook every month is keeping short accounts so that if there's a problem, you catch it quickly and catch it a lot easier that way. I'll share a story about a time when I didn't do this well with you.
Bernard 17:45
You're speaking of keeping short accounts?
Kyle 18:17
Yes. And as a part of that, I did not lean into healthy conflict very well, because I let it go on too long. For it was at least three, four weeks, where I was feeling very much alone. Like, I was feeling like, I'd be reaching out for things and like, maybe you weren't participating as fully as I would hope. We were doing team ministry, I didn't really feel I could team up. I was feeling like I was carrying a lot of weight and doing a lot of things on my own. And I wasn't bringing it up to you. And I think it was because I was talking to my therapist about it. And he was just like, hey, maybe you should just talk to him about that. But I was nervous because I had such deep, deep feelings around it. And honestly, so much fear around you how that would come across.
Bernard 19:07
Right. So what was the fear coming from?
Kyle 19:11
Oh man. The fear? I think that fear was coming from a probably a few places. And that's probably why it was so hard to deal with because it wasn't just one fear. I think there was a fear that if I said this, it would push you further away from where I perceived you to be. I think there was a fear that if I said this, I would come across as like that white guy, right that you wouldn't understand me, really? Or that I would come across as like ungrateful or like complainy? Whiny. Whinging, as the British say. I think there were multiple layers of fear there. So I when I finally did talk to you about it. When I finally did talk to about I remember right where we were standing on Telegraph Avenue.
Bernard 19:54
I remember and I must confess that I hadn't that poorly too, because I was having these feelings of like basically like they don't need me. And instead of leaning into it, and coming to talk to you about it, I let it go on.
Kyle 20:15
Yeah, yeah. Right. And honestly, that was like, That was harder for me to hear than anything I expected to hear. But in a really good way. Yeah. Like, I expected you to be like, I don't know what I expected you to be honest. I expect you to receive it well, but not like, not like, Hey, I'm hurting too. You know, yeah, I thought I was the one hurting. And here, you're like, oh, my gosh, I am hurting too, in the exact opposite way. That's why this has been happening. Right? And, you know, I can say, I'm feeling alone. And you can say I'm feeling unneeded or unnecessary. And I can say very clearly, like, no, like, I need you. I really need you. That's what I'm saying, I really need you. And you can say, Well, I really want to be a part of that. It was such a healing conversation. And it didn't need to take weeks,
Right. And that's why we put these things in place to prevent things like that from happening again. I'm not saying that it won't happen again, but we have a way of going about handling it now that will be much better for us and for others.
That's right. So I mean, I think one of the principles that we want people to take away from this is that conflict, or I should say this confrontation is just conflict that's getting talked about. In other words, the conflict is already happening under the surface, even if it's not getting talked about. The tension is already there. It's already building up. In confrontation, all that means is okay, we're talking about it now, we're bringing it to the surface so that there can be said there can be healing there. There can be resolution and grace given and forgiveness given. I think about the story of Paul in Galatians when he's telling the Galatian people, and when Peter goes around, he's like, not willing to consort with Gentiles, you know, and Paul is like, when I heard about that, I confronted him to his face. You know, in other words, but I didn't just go around talking about it. Like, I'm not telling you, like, like, I haven't already talked to Peter. We're good, right? We are only good, because I confronted him to his face. We talked about it right. We brought up the conflict.
Bernard 22:37
So you mean hauled in, go around, trying to get people on his side to hear him out first.
Kyle 22:43
Do you know who the best apostle is? No, I don't think he did that. I don't even think he wrote him a letter. Yeah. Or a nasty email. Seems Paul went to his face. He kept short accounts. And I think it's a good model for us that confrontation is conflict that already exists that is just now getting talked about. And, and one of the ways that we have come out of that moment in our history together, is we realized, man, it is really hard to bring this stuff up. In part, because they're all these feelings, but also, in part because it just never really feels like a good time. It's not like you're just like, man, you know, it's crazy that the Warriors left Oakland, by the way, I feel like I'm really alone. Like, there's never a time that feels natural to bring up really hard feelings. How do you bring it out? So can you tell folks about one practice that we have on our team that helps us to have a space to bring it up?
Bernard 23:50
Tough stuff our team meets. We have team meetings every Wednesday. And we have set aside a place in our meetings called tough stuff where we'll bring up conflicts that we have with each other. Conflicts we may have with an idea or something. Or like, just man you hurt me the other day when you said this and I want to talk about that.
Kyle 24:18
So every single week, towards the end of a meeting, we always have a space. So it's not like, when do I bring it up? It's like, this is the time.
Bernard 24:27
This is the time.
Kyle 24:32
So it's short accounts. It's short accounts. And I would say one of the interesting things we found and once we instituted is that we almost never have to use it because we bring it up before we bring it up before.
Bernard 24:48
I don't want to bring up this in tough stuff so I better go to them now.
Kyle 24:52
That's right. Because you are going to be put on the spot. So that's something that I think is worth offering the folks out there who are listening right now that this practice, this regular cultural practice of just saying, we are going to hold space for the difficult things because in a multiracial ministry, we know that tough stuff comes up. And we know it's going to keep coming up in different forms so we need to make space for it.
Okay. So we have a resource to share with folks back home if they want to dig more deeply into this. It's a resource that has really helped both of us in our ministry in our leadership and our personal lives. And it's a book called Crucial Conversations. So this book has been helpful in so many ways. We'll put a link to it in the in the show notes to the description, but, but it's one of the ways it's been helpful to us is in giving us really practical steps to tell different stories about the other person's motivations than we were telling ourselves initially when we started getting our feelings,
Bernard 26:03
And it helps you identify when a conversation is going to become crucial.
Kyle 26:13
Exactly. So if there's somebody listening at home, who feels like, I don't ever really know how to bring this stuff up, or I don't really have a good way of bringing this stuff, this kind of stuff to the foreground. If you're like me, I picked this up when I was working underneath somebody that I needed to have a crucial conversation with that I like, did not know how to talk to my boss. It's a really, really great book for us. And these are tools and resources that people in multiracial ministry especially need to avail ourselves of. So if people want to keep listening and find out more about what we're doing at the multiracial ministry mindset, how can they do that?
Bernard 26:54
So you want to go to multiracialministry.com. Like, Subscribe,
Kyle 27:03
Find us on all the things. Maybe not all the social things were kind of older, you know?
Bernard 27:09
Yeah, I only do Facebook. But yeah. Find us on Facebook. Instagram. X.
Kyle 27:15
I don't know. We're gonna we're not gonna be on X
Bernard 27:18
I like saying that though.
Kyle 27:19
You do?
Bernard 27:20
Yeah. I like saying X,
Kyle 27:21
All right. Well, I find us on things, on social things. Yeah, hit subscribe on on wherever you get your podcasts. And we want to encourage you. If you have enjoyed this podcast, if it's been helpful to you in any way, share it. Share it with your friends, share it with your pastor, maybe if you feel like that would be useful or with your board. We really want to make sure that this stuff goes out far and wide because we really believe that the church, it should not be a unique thing in the church to have a multiracial ministry. So thank you for listening today. We're so glad to be on this journey with you. And we'll see you next time at the multiracial ministry mindset podcast.
Bernard 28:04
We want to thank you for listening to the multiracial ministry mindset podcast, where we are dedicated to helping you lead a more unified people and a divided world.
Kyle 28:17
And if you enjoyed this episode, why don't you share it with a friend or follow and subscribe yourself and if you want to connect more, you can always find us at multiracialministry.com and on Facebook and Instagram at multiracial ministry mindset. See you next time.