What? Did I just say that? Am I off my rocker?

Perhaps. But despite every effort of my mind to dismiss such a peculiar, radical statement, I have come to embrace it, realizing that yes, we do in fact need more conflict in our churches.

Now, such a statement can’t be made without careful explanation. So give me a minute before you click the X in the corner of the window and vow never to visit my site again. It is, after all, easy to misinterpret the argument that more, not less, conflict is needed in our churches.

Firstly, I am not at all advocating division, anger, or hatred. Instead, I am advocating the exact opposite: unity, love, and forgiveness. But what does conflict have to do with that?

Forget, for a moment, everything you’ve been conditioned to think about church community. I am about to argue that conflict is, in fact, absolutely necessary in order for true unity to occur. Even more, without conflict, there can be no true love, nor even true forgiveness within the Church. Why then do we look at conflict as such a bad thing?

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