If a congregation made it through the worst parts of the pandemic, the 2020 election and a racial reckoning still more or less intact as a church, we are breathing a collective sigh of relief right now. Should we not just be basking in the relief and joy of regathering (albeit in modified form)? Yet, it is precisely when we seem to have made it through traumatic times that conflict bubbles up in relationships and systems, as Mark Wingfield explains helpfully in this article for Baptist News:
“Church conflict that has been suppressed for more than a year is now bursting forth with greater intensity. The problems that were there before the pandemic have not gone away; they just got shoved underground for a season and now are erupting with a vengeance.”
Read the article here.
This article helped me to manage my expectations and understand possible dynamics. Perhaps it will put your situation in perspective too.
