North American Church Planting Foundation

From the resource family of Peacemaker Ministries, Alfred Poirier’s The Peacemaking Pastor presents an insightful and practical application of peacemaking principles to the field of pastoral ministry. Throughout my last five or six years of ministry, the principles taught by Peacemaker Ministries have been extremely helpful to me in shepherding believers to become more adept peacemakers themselves. Likewise, I have greatly benefited from this book as well. While a number of the previous Peacemaker Ministries books focused on making peace between individuals are within families, Poirier’s book is uniquely applied to resolving conflict within a church family.

The first principle which was a key for me was that of sonship theology. Centrally, Poirier draws an essential connection between the peace made by the Lord through the cross and the peacemaking work of elders and pastors. Poirier explains that “to be ‘like’ God is to be a ‘son of God.’ To be a ‘son of God’ is to be like God.” ((Poirier, Alfred. The Peacemaking Pastor: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Church Conflict. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 95.)) Poirier’s logical conclusion to this connection is that believers, especially pastors, are to “be like God” in their work to cultivate peace and resolve conflict in the church. Of course, such imitation of God in conflict requires a firm grasp upon a number of theological points such as the causes of conflict, reasons pastors are reluctant to embrace biblical discipline, and the overarching purposes of peacemaking. While Poirier does well to lay these out, I will not deal with them in detail here because of their common presence in many similar resources. Instead, I prefer to cover Poirier’s overwhelmingly practical treatment of biblical discipline as a central component to church conflict resolution.

In chapters 10-12, Poirier puts forward three interconnected key principles/practices: mediation, arbitration, and church discipline. While most pastors and churches are likely either unaware of biblical church discipline or wrongly view discipline as a Scriptural process for expelling trouble-making members, Poirier provides a basic yet profound explanation of what biblical discipline is, how it is practiced, and the role it plays in conflict resolution. Especially key is the author’s foundational teaching on the details of mediation and arbitration. For Poirier, mediation involves a pastor’s work to cultivate peace conflicting parties. Such mediation is composed of a careful and insightful process by which a pastor helps the parties arrive at a mutual agreement. Included in this process is a concern for personal satisfaction (equal and fair treatment of parties) and product satisfaction (reaching a tangible and final solution). This is key to the work because it so articulately brings to readers’ minds a clear picture of how and why a pastor should intervene in the conflicts of believers.

Furthermore, as an advanced form of mediation, arbitration is practiced in the event that a pastor-mediator and the parties with whom he is working cannot come to an agreement of peace. In such cases, the pastor-mediator becomes a kind of pastor-judge in which the parties entrust their conflict resolution (final and binding outcome) to the arbitrating pastor who hears their conflict and “renders a binding decision on the matter.” ((Ibid., 217.)) Arguing from 1 Corinthians 6, Poirier guides peacemaking pastors to take up these practices which have been long neglected by the church and often deferred to human courts. Strikingly, his guidance springs from a well-supported history of biblical peacemaking, careful discipline, and in-depth discipleship in the Old Testament, New Testament church, and early church history. Finally, a key principle is Poirier’s clearly stated purpose of such discipline. Poirier writes, “Discipline loves a brother enough not to leave him in his sin and consign him to the misery of its bondage.” ((Ibid., 241.))

As a result of Poirier, the most profound personal challenge/lesson for me as a pastor and biblical counselor is to more readily and thoroughly embrace the opportunity and responsibility to serve the church as a mediator and/or arbiter. I believe a foundational issue leading toward my failure to fulfill this pastoral role well has been my lack of awareness and sensitivity toward conflict in the church. I often have opportunity to mediate and counsel troubled individuals/couples as they request help. However, I recognize that my recognition of conflict in the church is lacking and, likewise, growth in this area would greatly benefit me identify conflict and help the church resolve trouble in both early and late stages. Following this, I have also been challenged to discerningly seek out such opportunities to cultivate peace.

Apparent to me from my reading of Poirier is the fact that biblical conflict resolution for the church is essential to shepherding the flock of God toward His end objective: “…for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13). Equally apparent is the extensive lack of knowledge and practice which is likely playing a central role in the failure of churches to adequately and mercifully shepherd their members toward Christ-likeness and unity.