But the next thing we knew, we got an email. We had to have a bigger meeting with her husband and a person from the church. And man, my co pastor, whom I will leave unnamed, he got just ripped a new one. And it was like, oh my God, what is happening? What have I signed up for this?
Like, is this the same meeting? So regardless of your friendship status with a particular person, always make sure that if you’re going to have a difficult, contentious conversation, that you have other ministry leaders with you. Just to make sure that you’re catching everything. Just to make sure that the stories line up. Because what does the devil do?
The level? The devil loves to distract. He loves to send you on detours and he loves to destroy. And that happens through misconduct communication. But then sometimes people have ill will.
So make sure that you are wise in your conversations. And in Today’s world, in 2024, make sure that you’re wise in what you text and what you send, because that could end up as a screenshot for the entire universe to see. So walk in holiness, walk in purity, walk in love. You won’t have anything to hide. But also walk in community because it’s good for everybody to have many voices and many different perspectives of the certain issue so that we can work it out in love.
For goodness sakes, we’re God’s people. We should be experts at reconciliation. We should be experts at communication. Now, it takes time and the power of the Holy Spirit to, to be able to do that. But leader, what I wish I would have known before I became a pastor is that you have to effectively engage in difficult conversations.
Never raise your voice and also never meet with someone alone, have someone else there. And then lastly, the more secure you are in Christ, the more mature you can engage difficult conversations. Let me say that again. The more secure you are in Christ, the more mature you can engage in difficult conversations. What does it mean to be secure in Christ?
Let me sum it up this way. Jesus, in His 33 years of life embodied Torah. He embodied the righteousness of God, the shalom of God. He embodied God’s perfect vision for humanity. Sinless Jesus on the cross died for us because you and I did not embody perfect righteousness.
And he rose again to not only validate that he was the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, but also to live that righteous life through us. He gives us a new status. He gives us a new identity. He gives us a new union with himself. And through the remainder of our lives, we begin to become who God has declared us to be.
Our identity, our status, is unchanging. It is unbreaking. Because when we are united to Christ, when we are sealed by the Spirit, when we are chosen by the Father, he will sustain us and he will keep us. So what does that mean? It means that everything that I ever hope to be is found in everything that Jesus is in.
The more that I relinquish my right to Jesus’s righteousness, the more secure I am. So what does that mean? It means that when I engage in difficult conversations, I don’t have to engage from a posture of fear. I can engage from a posture of love. I don’t have to engage in a posture of power, because I can engage in a posture of humility from Christ.
And so what that means is everything that comes towards me, I can filter through my new life in Christ. And everything that comes out of me can come from my new life in Christ. And then that way, I can engage in those types of conversations. You can do it with your spouse, you can do it with your children. You can do it with ministry leaders.
You can do it with the angry congregation person who, like thousands of people, get baptized, but they’re mad because there’s laser lights being shown in the congregation. You know all types of things, right? But the more secure you are, the more you engage difficult conversations. What I wish I would have known before I became a pastor, this subsection of Effective Ways to Communicate. I wish I’d have known.
Never raise your voice when having a difficult conversation. Never have a difficult conversation alone. And the more secure you are in Christ, the more mature you engage in difficult conversations. Hey, guys. When the church is transformed.
The world will be transformed. Catch you later. I’m Pastor Derwin.
