Hard Conversations: Why have them?

Over a series of posts we’ll be talking about how to have hard conversations in community group. By this we mean both talking about divisive subjects, or disagreement, and addressing an area of disobedience to Scripture, or correction. Here at the beginning we’ll be considering both together, with content later on for specific subjects under those two banners. First we’ll look at four reasons hard conversations are so hard, then we’ll talk about why in the world we would still have them.

Why is it so hard?

Few of us enjoy hard conversations (and fewer still in a healthy way), but difficult topics are simply a part of following Jesus. At least, the kind of following that touches every corner of our lives—we certainly can skirt around divisive topics, but this is a false sort of peace. If we partake in deep communion with God and with his people, we’ll inevitably encounter disagreements between us and God and between us and other people. But several other factors that exacerbate the difficulty are worth our attention.

1. Disagreement and correction are hard because none of us is off the hook.
This hook has two prongs—first, any of us can be in the wrong, either in our knowledge/belief or in our sin, and we often are. This is part of our gospel confession, that we are sinners in need of a savior, so we should never be all that shocked when sin is found in our lives (grieved, yes, but never surprised). However, in line with point 2 below, we often don’t want to be the initiator of such a conversation for fear our own sin or ignorance might be exposed. And yet the second prong of the hook is this: the work of discipleship is something we all participate in alongside our Father (more on that below). It’s our shared, multi-directional duty within the body of Christ, to simultaneously be discipled and be making disciples. In both cases we simply can’t escape it; inevitably each of us will need correction at some point and need to give correction at some point. We simply can’t avoid it, no matter how much we might want to.

2. Disagreement and correction are hard because our sin resists them.
Generally speaking, we would rather pursue our own comfort than venture into dicey waters, and we rarely if ever want to be on the receiving end of confrontation. But more than simply dodging discomfort, something a bit more intentional is at work here. As Jesus said:

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. – John 3:19-20

Our sin has a survival instinct: head for the shadows. We might hide out of guilt, shame, or a more calculated avoidance of ramifications. Whatever the case, our sin actively avoids such exposure, and our own sinful tendencies will get in the way of us having a difficult discipleship conversation. And this sinful resistance can get tricky to identify, especially for Christians who might avoid the hard conversation due to people pleasing, fear of sounding legalistic, or from self-consciousness (“I’m a sinner too, who am I to talk about their sin?”). Our self-serving tendencies will leave someone to struggle on their own rather than broach a difficult subject, assuming the hard conversation is worse for us than the longterm ramifications of sin for them. We may even avoid the conversation because we’ve waited too long and have to address our own fear, lethargy, or casualness about sin. 

3. Disagreement and correction are hard because discipleship involves discipline.
To be a disciple is to be a student of Jesus, and learning his ways is not easy. That’s especially true because following Jesus is inherently disruptive and demanding. Jesus’s job is to reveal God to us as the incarnate Word and, in this revelation, to call us to forsake our sin and become like God, to “Be holy for I am holy” (Lev 19:2, 1 Pet 1:16). This is a call to repentance; when Jesus started his earthly ministry he came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). And repentance is always two-directional, turning your back on one thing and walking towards another, dying to sin and living to God. This dying and disruption is always challenging, and it requires a serious exercise of and continual growth in discipline.

4. Disagreement and correction are hard because of cultural pressures.
Finally, we have to take into account our broader environment. Life in the United States today is awash with these pressures. Individualism claims, “I’m the ultimate authority, no one can correct me.” Secularism preaches, “Do what you want,” and assumes that beliefs are either a private affair or a public liability (i.e. keep your Jesus to yourself). Polarization and false views of identity have made every hot topic a potential flash point, equating disagreement with hatred. Examples abound for how we all come preloaded with cultural distaste for and suspicion of godly disagreement and correction, and these exert significant pressure on us to avoid hard discipleship conversations.

Hard but necessary

So, if these sorts of conversations are so tricky, why do them? Because this is our Father’s work and he invites us to participate and become like him.

Let’s look at that in three parts. First off, this is our Father’s work. Here’s how the author of Hebrews puts it:

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.” – Hebrews 12:5-6

In those last couple lines he quotes Proverbs 3:11-12, putting them into the context of the purposeful suffering of God’s Son. God corrects us because we belong to him; it’s our Father teaching us how to be his children. Above I mentioned that this is a core effect of following Jesus, to be corrected by being called away from sin and towards life with God. This is what God does in us, and he principally does it through his word:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Teaching, reproving, correcting, and training; this is what the word does in us.  Now the second part: This is our Father’s work and he invites us to participate. This is a broader theme in the Scriptures, that God does his work through human beings as an exercise of his sovereignty and an invitation to participation—as his servants we obey the orders of our sovereign king and as his children we do things alongside our Father. We see this in many New Testament commands:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. – Matthew 18:15

Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. – Luke 17:3

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. – Galatians 6:1-2

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. – Ephesians 4:11-16

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. – 1 Thessalonians 5:14

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. – 2 Timothy 2:24-25

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. – 2 Timothy 4:1-2

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. – James 5:19-20

Here’s another verse worth a slower read:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing (i.e. warning) one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. – Colossians 3:16

See how the word dwelling in us leads us to do corporately what the word does in us individually? Above we saw in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that the word teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains, and just as the word of God teaches and corrects us, we teach and correct one another. This shows the continuity of the work that God does and invites us to do with him. And furthermore, we don’t teach and correct out of our own manufactured wisdom, conforming people to our own image of right belief and right behavior. Instead, we simply teach and correct from the same source of our own learning and correction, from God’s word, directing people to the wisdom of God rather than our own wisdom so they can become more like Christ rather than like us (see 2 Cor 3:18).

Finally, the third part: this is our Father’s work and he invites us to participate and become like him. This is not to say that we become like God by telling everyone what to do. We must pay attention to the way in which we’re meant to have these sorts of conversations; perhaps you noticed in the verses cited above the repeated counsel towards patience, gentleness, and forgiveness. Again, this is the discipline of discipleship, and this is the unilateral expectation from the Scriptures on how we would go about these hard conversations, that both the teacher and the taught, the corrector and the corrected, would become more like God, holy like he is holy but also loving like he is loving, forgiving like he is forgiving, and patient like he is patient. And note that this is more than some individual benefit, some membership perk in the hardest of clubs. This is a work that God does in the corrector and corrected simultaneously, and this to the benefit of the broader community. God is making his people holy collectively, to his glory and to our collective good.

Conclusion

We can come up with plenty of reasons we might avoid hard conversations, certainly more than the four above. But in the face of all our reticence and foot-dragging, the truth remains: this is our Father’s work, in and through us, and he invites us into this work ultimately for our individual and corporate benefit, to participate with him in the trenches of discipleship and to grow closer to him in the process. In conclusion you might ask yourself, do I think God’s ways are worth the hardship? Is following him, learning Christ’s ways, repenting of sin, changing and growing—is all this worth it? And is it worth it to brave a hard conversation with someone else, that we might learn God’s ways together? Under all this talk about hardship and benefit is really the question of whether God’s kingdom is the treasure in the field worth selling all you have (Matt 13:44).