Week 7 (Michael Berens) Church Conflict

Week 7
Michael Berens
Church conflict story
Tuesday February 23, 2009

I spoke with Chris Demarse on February 4th, 2009

At a church near here there is a rotation of worship leaders that lead every couple of weeks on Sunday mornings. Mainly there are younger College aged students that lead, but there are a few older men and women. One particular couple that lead together on a pretty regular basis were beginning to have some problems. They seemed to do ok until emotional issues started to service. Apparently at previous churches this couple had been scorned and burned. Like humans do, they carried it with them and brought there past hurts into their worship. They started to become unruly and it was very evident that whatever sores they had were being wiped onto the church they were in now.
What is a pastor to do? Well talking was one of the pastor suggestions, but somewhere along the way it never happened. The couple did not get scheduled to lead again for the next few months and were very upset. Their worship was extremely distracting and hurtful in the service and they did not understand that. A younger pastor now has to talk to them about their emotional past hurts and their worship leading. That is a hard situation to be in.
It is not resolved yet and is breeding discomfort in the relationship that couple has with the church. Something needs to change for them to be able to come back and be leaders again. Something needs to be resolved in their past.