A letter from Doug Baker serving in Northern Ireland
November 2014 - Hugs, cake and an apology help restore relationships
There are hundreds of ways to engage in reconciliation. Sharing cake, hugs and an apology helped a lot on this occasion!
About six months ago I received a phone call from the minister of a rural congregation about 70 miles from Belfast. Four years earlier he had been in a “Handling Conflict in the Church” course I teach for final-year theological students. He wondered if I would do some general training with his elders on dealing constructively with conflict. We agreed on a date and place for a morning session. It was fairly easy to establish rapport, and there was good participation from the group. As the time was drawing to a close and I was asking what key points they would take away with them, one elder said, “Actually we do have a conflict affecting us now that we could do with help discussing.” I invited him to say more and he and others began to put me in the picture.
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Training Participants
About a year earlier there had been an election of elders in the congregation— something that happens only every 5 to 10 years in most congregations here since elders serve on session for life rather than for a fixed term. Hence this was a big moment with significant consequences for the congregation. Some members, including some of the existing elders, had not only been surprised but had been disappointed enough by the outcome that they succeeded in getting the election invalidated by presbytery on a technicality. A second election was then held, with the same people elected as in the first. Now there were two groups feeling hurt: Those who felt the right people had not been elected and those who had been elected and now felt that some of their fellow elders and others in the congregation did not accept them in their new role. For a year they had been carrying on with this in the background but not directly talking about it.
We agreed to meet again after the summer. And, as I always do in such situations, I reminded them of Paul’s words in Romans— “In so far as it depends on you, live at peace with all people” (Romans 12:18)—and encouraged each of them to consider what was in their power to do to help heal the hurts that obviously were there.
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Small group discussion
When we met again two of the women arrived with cakes. A good omen for what you hope will be a good ending! More important, all arrived committed to listening to each other. I opened with prayer and then simply created a structure and gave them permission to share things they had found difficulty in sharing previously. When a couple of people began by sharing something of the hurt they had felt personally, another elder stated that he was sorry for what he now felt had been an inappropriate attitude and action on his part. When he did, another said half-accusingly, half-gratefully that it was the first time he had heard that. Not everything that might have been said was said, but they were now talking about things they had not talked about before. By no means was all of the hurt removed, but they had made a start. As we turned to the future a couple of folk said they needed to keep talking more openly with each other and one confidently shared his hope that they would now be able to do that by themselves.
Shortly after a responsive prayer that included the line “May the hurts of the past be healed through sharing new and positive experiences with each other,” we shared the cake and warm conversation. Then one of those who had felt hurt and had an early work start the next day indicated he would need to depart. Before he did he hugged each of the others and then looked at me and said, “I’ll give you a hug too.”
Through an atmosphere of listening, an apology, the sharing of food, and a gesture of acceptance, God’s Spirit was moving and there was some significant progress toward reconciliation. It all made the journey there worthwhile and the journey home feel a lot shorter.
Over the past two months a colleague and I have been training 15 volunteers from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to be engaged as new conciliators in similar work with congregations throughout the island. It is my prayer that amidst the pain of church conflicts each of them will also get to experience such hope-filled moments. It is also my prayer that each of us will learn to see more clearly the seemingly small but hugely important things within our power to help heal the conflicts in which we find ourselves.
Faithfully yours,
Doug Baker
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 309
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 322
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