At the TAG Consulting Leaders Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona, this week, Jim Osterhaus spoke on a topic that comes up every day in church leadership, yet is so challenging: How do you navigate competing values?

Jim is senior partner of TAG Consulting, a veteran psychologist, and author of Thriving through Ministry Conflict: By Understanding Your Red and Blue Zones (Zondervan, 2005).

Jim says, "Competing values wreak havoc." Yet they can be hard to discover in yourself or in your church, because "Our minds can hold two competing values and then go about covering up the contradictions."

For example, Jim told the story of a small church in the exurbs of a major city. Their life together had been largely unchanged for 200 years, but now new people are moving into the area and showing up at church. The pastor asked ushers to welcome newcomers and guide them, but the ushers were largely ignoring newcomers. So the pastor would stand up front on Sunday morning and say, "Newcomers, we're so glad you're here!" But the newcomers are thinking, "The usher made me feel like I was an end table."

Why was this happening?

Competing values. On the one hand, these ushers do value reaching out, as Christ commands and their beliefs state. But they also value the community, intimacy, and safety they have enjoyed in their small church for generations, and they hate the way newcomers are changing that.

Other common examples of competing values in churches would include:
--Quality vs. Frugality
--Listening to Everyone vs. Making Decisions That May Disappoint and Moving Forward
--Tradition vs. Mission
--Community vs. Outreach

In a situation of competing values, the tension never goes away completely. People want to solve the problem, so they suggest technical ways to fix it. But where there are competing values, that fix won't last.

What should a leader do?

Become a facilitator. Gather people in a safe place and surface those competing values. Let people talk about them. Acknowledge that both values are good, yet these 2 good values are in some degree in tension. At the end of the meeting, you still have the tension, but it's less frightening because you're all aware of it and now talking about it. You're not pushing people to quickly solve it, but instead inviting them to navigate it together.

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