The Hidden Reason Your Church is Divided and How to Fix It

Why is your church so divided? In this episode, Carey Nieuwhof kicks off our seven-part series on Pastoring in a Partisan Age. Carey looks at three hidden reasons people are so upset about everything these days, including politics. He also shares practical steps you can take to bring about unity.

Ultimate Guide to Healthy Church Conflict:

The purpose of this podcast series is educational and informational. A variety of perspectives are represented throughout this series. Please play nice and keep it civil in the comments. The goal of this series is to help, and to diffuse the conflict the culture is experiencing.

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Welcome to The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast, a podcast about leadership, change, and personal growth. I hope this episode helps you thrive in life and leadership.

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Intro Music:
Song: Alexey Anisimov - Always Be Beautiful
Music provided by Tunetank.

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Chapters

[DenisePeckham]

Excellent. Especially loved the reminder about identity. I have listened to and read a lot of Keller's work on this and am convinced a lack of common identity grounded in Jesus Christ is the root of so many issues.

[marlasailors]

This is so good and timely. Looking forward to hearing these next podcasts. I need it.

[williamfrench]

Thank you for your thoughtful podcast. My recent experience dealt with a church (ECUSA) that embraced political positions; this was explicitly communicated from the national office to the local bully pulpit. I left and joined a functioning church that focuses on God and scripture. Much happier

[Tugedhel]

Great root cause analysis. We are becoming a bunch of problem people. We are lonely and fearful.

[vialarmsecurityandfire]

There is a retired ATF agent that is a go to for some news organiazations, Jim Cavanaugh. He speaks frequently about conflict management. We don''t teach it and we don't prioritize it. BTW, an awful lot of seminaries recommend Pastors stay away from marriage counseling, and counseling in general. They maintain Pastors are not equipped for it. That is exactly backwards. Pastors are an integral part of the front line and they need to be trained to recognize trouble, trained to intercede. Todays Pastors are no more equipped to handlle conflict in their Sanctuary than they are at the local bodega. We need more people trained, not fewer. I don't know exactly who is responsible for that trend, but my guess is an insurance company is involved somewhere. Thank you for caring enough to try Carey.

[mostlynotworking]

As Paul vanderklay says, religion is always. Politics is now. Religion is dollars. Politics is cents

[mostlynotworking]

“We want to be in your corner”…. This little corner 😂

[bevcarr]

I love your podcast. But you missed the main point. As a Canadian living in the USA…people on both sides are profoundly concerned about what is going to happen to this country. It is at a pivot point that may not have a ‘return’ option. They are engaged about what world their kids are going to live in. So much more than identity.

[rsusman]

It's true about the need for a clearly Christian identity, objectivity about feelings, our need for conflict management. But this discussion fails to address clearly Christian objectives that should be addressed in our poltical behavior. Secularity is not only found in taking sides but will be found in an attempt to find a supposed middle ground or in some spiritualized position of separation from all of division. In an increasingly anti-Christian society which still affords us a voice, clearly Christian positions must be voiced at the risk of being labeled conservative (oh no!). We do need to examine our positions as to whether are based on Scripture alone, the Constitution (good ideas that can have good JudeoChristian presuppositions, or a mix of both, or none of the above (such as Marxism).