Week 7 - Church Conflict

Adam Fike
Interviewed – Pastor Mark Deisler on February 18
Tuesday 2/24

At his first church, Pastor Mark dealt with a conflict that began in the membership class he was teaching. A woman in the class smoked and still wanted to be a member. Pastor Mark had explained to the class that tobacco use is prohibited in the Wesleyan church. In the last class, the woman spoke up during class and asked Pastor Mark if she could still become a member. Pastor Mark told her that he would discuss it with her after class. After class, he offered the woman a lesser degree of membership is she still wanted to smoke. He thought that would be the end of the discussion, but he thought wrong.

This issue arose again at the annual conference day during the meeting when the woman’s husband, who was a member of the church, piped up and said he wanted to address the conference. Pastor Mark began to feel a little nervous and apprehensive of what this could possibly be. Consequently, Pastor Mark told the man he would have to wait until the meeting was over. After the meeting, the husband was allowed to speak. He started to rave about how the church should be open and accepting to everyone. He gave quite a long and emotional speech. On top of this, another member of the church rose in agreement. At this time, Pastor Mark stepped in and shut it down. He ended without any debate or argument on his side by reading a passage from Ephesians about unity.

Afterwards, Pastor Mark was pretty upset with the other member who rose in agreement with the husband of the smoking wife, but God worked out reconciliation. After that meeting, one of the board members approached the member who had rose in agreement with the husband and told him he was out of line. So the next day, the member stopped by Pastor Mark’s office and apologized. Furthermore, the husband who had caused the conflict wrote a note and stuck it under Pastor Mark’s windshield wiper apologizing to the whole church.