No matter how well two people like each other, no matter how much respect they have for each other---if real conversation over important issues is pursued---they will find areas of significant disagreement. The more people are together, the closer the relationship, the more likely conflicting views will surface.

Consider, if you will, siblings. Why do they argue and fight? Married couples, also, if they are to succeed, soon learn where they agree and where they disagree. An absence of conflict in marriage usually means one partner is dominating the other---or worse, that there's no personal closeness in the marriage.

If peace is defined as the absence of conflict, it's a highly overrated commodity. When Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you," he was speaking of peace amid conflict, not peace without conflict. "My peace I give to you," he said. "I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid" (John 14:27 NRSV).

Some seem to think that a smooth-running church business meeting with little or no dissent is a good meeting. But such a meeting generally means that nothing of a controversial nature is at stake. Or it may mean that those holding dissenting views are so discouraged that they don't even speak or perhaps don't even attend. The meeting is probably pointless. A small committee could have done as much...more quickly, and over the year there would be no noticable difference in the life of the congregation.

In fact, business sessions of the church are among the most poorly attended. People aren't interested in wasting their time. If a controversial issue is at stake, however, watch the attendance double or even triple. People will spend time and energy on what's important to them.

One of the most-used ways of dealing with controversy is to avoid it. Leaders may use a strategy of selecting among potential controversial issues. They often choose what they feel to be the less damaging issues and try to spend the emotion on them, thus diverting attention from more explosive items.

Unfortunately, only by focusing on safe issues can we be sure to avoid controversy and conflict. That plan may succeed, but it succeeds only in areas where success doesn't matter. We're left with the least common denominator for our work together.

Such thinking makes the church irrelevant to the culture around us. We're answering questions they're not asking. We make claims they don't understand. We even spend ourselves fighting over matters that cause them to look at us and shake their heads in wonder.

Something in the human spirit cannot stand the total loss of conflict. We are inherently competitive. So we will struggle with one another over something, perhaps over whether it's okay to serve coffee in Sunday school or what color carpet to place in the narthex.

Meanwhile, the world around us rushes to its doom without Christ.

The amount of conflict we allow in our churches, agencies, and organizations and how we handle that conflict will determine our success.

The more conflicting views we can explore and resolve, the more relevant we will become. Proverbs tells us "As iron sharpens iron, so one [person] sharpens another" (27:17, NIV).

The image here is of sharpening a knife on steel. You can cut yourself if you're not careful, or you can ruin the cutting edge of the knife if your angle isn't right. But, when properly applied, the steel puts a razor sharp edge on the blade.

Jesus seemd to seek conflict. He called the religious leaders of his time white-washed tombs. He chased the money changers out of the temple. Someone was always upset with what he was saying and even more with what he was doing. Yet in his short three-year ministry he gave us enough to think about that we're still talking about it and trying to understand it two thousand years later.

Without conflict, the church sinks into meaning-lessness. Conflict is necessary. It is also dangerous, and so Scripture gives guidance for handling conflict. It is called "speaking the truth in love" (Eph. 4:15). Love, not agreement, will bind us together. Enough love will allow us to be completely honest with one another so that we can always discuss and, yes, argue and fight over what's important.

Conflict wisely handled leads to relevance.