The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The False Peace That's Undermining Your Staff Culture
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There's a kind of peace that doesn't come from help, it comes from fear. And in today's episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're going to talk about the danger of conflict avoidance. Okay? I think we all do it from time to time, but we're going to talk about how it affects church staff cultures. We're going to explore how keeping the peace can actually damage trust and stunt growth and create a fragile team environment. And we'll walk through how to build a culture that hopefully embraces healthy conflict for the sake of real unity. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes, and you are listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm your podcast host, also one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com. Peace isn't always a good sign. Sometimes what looks like unity is just fear in a cardigan. Today we're going to talk about the kind of staff culture that avoids conflict at all costs. And it will pay the price in trust and creativity and long-term health. So stick with me. This could be one that stings a little bit. And I know it's Friday if you're listening to this on the day that it's released, but it's a heavy topic for a Friday, but we're going to go for it anyway. It could also be something that could really save you and your team. All right, so let's talk about what false peace even looks like. It's meetings where people nod but they don't speak up, and real issues that everybody knows. It's the elephant in the room, but they go unaddressed because maybe it's just not the right time, right? The pressure to be agreeable is it's just every everybody just feels like we just need to agree. Even when there's clear disagreement, you you just kind of leave the room and say, okay, we're just not, we're not gonna mess with this right now. And what you end up with what you end up with is fake harmony. People get polite at first, they just figure, hey, it's not worth a fight. They're polite at first, and then they get maybe a little bit more passive aggressive. They smile in the meetings, and then they vent in their office in private later. I once knew a pastor that left a board meeting, went into his office. He would love it if I told this story, so hopefully he's listening. Kicked his trash can and his foot got the trash can but also got his desk. And he was lumping for about a week after that. Sometimes you smile in meetings and vent in private. That's not peace, that's pretense. And I'll tell you what, he never did that again, I'm sure. But conflict avoidance feels spiritual. You it's kind of scriptural not to be in conflict, right? So it feels spiritual, but it really isn't. Many church leaders mistake conflict-free environments for maturity. Let's be real. Jesus didn't avoid hard conversations, he leaned in. Listen, Paul called Peter to his face. The early church debated doctrine with intensity. You think some of the doctrinal debates today are intense? They didn't include body parts. If the debates were absolutely intense in the early church, they didn't shy away from that conflict. Avoiding conflict doesn't make you holy, it makes you unhealthy over time. And eventually all that buried tension shows up elsewhere in either turnout or burnout and surprise exits. So what real unity looks like is forged in the fire of honest conversations. Okay? And that's part of what we're having. Uh I'm excited about some of the things that are happening in our country because it's being taboo to even have conversations with people that maybe you don't agree with. And finally, people are starting to have conversations with each other. Honest, legit, calm conversations. And here's what that looks like. Norms for feedback are up and down and sideways. There's psychological safety where people can say hard things without fear, disagreements that lead to deeper understanding, not division. And a healthy team doesn't avoid conflict. It knows how to do conflict. And it knows how to do conflict well, and that makes all the difference. Makes all the difference. Here's the final thought for today. If everybody's always smiling and nothing ever feels tense, you might think that's a sign of health, but it's not. It might be a warning sign. It might be that you're avoiding the very things that you need to be talking about. How does your team handle disagreement? Is there space for honesty? I'd love to hear how you're doing. And if there's a way that I can help you work through some of this mess, and it does get messy at your church, you can always reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And if there's any way that I can help your church in the area of staffing or compensation analysis or succession planning, any of those kind of things, reach out to me, either myself or somebody on our team here at Chemistry would be glad to see if there's a way that we can partner with you and come alongside and make your ministry life better and make your church more successful. All right, that's it for today. If you're listening, it's Friday. If you're listening on Friday, hope you have a great weekend, and we'll be right back here on Monday. Hope you have a great day.
