Before the Next Storm: A Pastoral Approach to Conflict Transformation in the Local Church by Reviving the Old Testament’s Theological Language

Abstract

Local churches suffer from insufficient preparedness for intragroup conflict. Thisproblem may be addressed fruitfully by pastors and their local church leaders when they encounter Old Testament narratives of intragroup conflict with their theological imaginations. With the working metaphor of storm preparation, the author examines how imaginative theological speech gives a constructive shape to the local church’s conflict cycles. Drawing from John Paul Lederach’s work on the role of the imagination in conflict transformation and the work of Brent Strawn on the Old Testament’s theological language, the author developed a Bible study that trains participating local church leaders in four elements of conflict preparedness: imaginative theological fluency, Lederach’s conflict transformation skillset, empathic practical wisdom, and the capacity to rehumanize an enemy. The Old Testament is an essential theological resource for the local church cultivating intragroup conflict preparedness, because the Old Testament itself contains many narratives of intragroup conflict as well as rich intertextual theological conversations that illustrate the productive intragroup tensions abiding within God’s people. A pastor may tap into these narratives and conversations creatively in this Bible study to develop participating leaders’ imaginative theological speech about conflict in their own lives. The quantitative and qualitative outcomes of this Bible study’s first iteration in the local church are analyzed and interpreted theologically in order to reimagine the storm metaphor itself. By intervening with the Old Testament’s theological speech during low-intensity phases of a conflict cycle, the pastor weatherproofs their local church leaders before the next storm.