Monday, August 24, 2020

Handling Dissent

There is always some kind of dissent in ministry, on a wide variety of things. My personal policy has been to "give people a run for their money" -- which is, engage robustly with them if I do not agree -- yet not go beyond that. If one ignores dissent, or gets into scheming, or tries to shut it down (and so on), one runs the risk that people will feel they are without recourse -- and then there is trouble. One is setting up an explosion. Another way of putting it is that, if dissent isn't solved through engaging robustly with people, allow it -- even encourage it -- to be discussed by the Church. OBSERVATION: It seems amazing how often that is not done. There is a difference, though, if dissent is malicious. I have dealt with that differently. 

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