The Faith and Leadership blog from Duke Divinity School is offering a quiz to test your knowledge of issues and trends related to congregational change:
Quiz: Congregational conflict in changing times
Periods of change can stress the relationships among church members and leaders. But there’s also good news related to such conflict, research shows. Take our quiz to test your knowledge of issues and trends related to congregational conflict
From Faith & Leadership Blog of Duke Divinity School
The pastor was at a reception on his last day at the congregation when he noticed that a member was crying.
The cleric approached and said, “There’s no need to be upset. The next pastor may be even better.”
“That’s why I’m crying,” the congregation member said. “That’s what the last one told me.”
This joke — which can be told about a pastor, priest, rabbi or imam — illustrates two issues with potential to cause conflict in congregations: leadership and change.
Thirty-five percent of congregations in the National Congregations Study reported conflict over clergy, and 12 percent reported conflict over leadership issues.
The Faith Communities Today: American Congregations 2008 survey found that leadership, money and worship “were the big three for congregational fights.”
But conflict over leadership had the most serious consequences
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