Relating to difficult people important

What do the phrases Sherman tank, ticking bomb, handwringer, wonderful, entitled, perfect and bull-headed have in common?

They are all descriptions for difficult people — Christians who can be found in just about any Southern Baptist church in the world, said Bob Sheffield, a conflict management/mediation specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Sheffield led a two-part workshop on proper Christian responses to difficult people during the National Conference for Church Leadership, June 24–28 at LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina.

“Difficult people can be pastors, Sunday School teachers, deacons, staff members, church members or pastors’ wives,” Sheffield said. “The church is not an institution or organization; it is the people. If we can do everything else right within the church and not have good relationships, then something is dreadfully wrong.”

Because ministers are “in the people business,” they should know how to get along with difficult people, Sheffield said. And to do that, they must understand a little about their own personal history.

“We don’t come to our relationships in a vacuum,” he said. “How we relate to people has to do with our own history of relating.”

Issues to look at include:

• family of origin
• personal relationship history
• age group influences
• genetic emotional makeup
• the current peer/support/work group
• sense of call, type (or personality) of church they grew up in
• spiritual health

“Most of the problems of difficult people come out of their emotional or spiritual immaturity,” Sheffield said. “But all of these things impact how we experience a person in the moment and how we deal with conflict.”

Almost everybody has one or two difficult people in their lives, he said, and that is especially true of church leaders.

“We can’t change our difficult person. You just have to learn to relate to him or her,” Sheffield said. “With God’s help we can relate to anybody, but that doesn’t mean we are going to like everybody equally well.”

Some general characteristics of difficult people include:

• They are provocative or quarrelsome.
• They seek to gain an advantage in situations.
• They have a low self-image, even though they may look like egotists.
• They have a tendency to be devious, deceptive and/or manipulative.
• They are unpredictable, even to themselves.
• They are unimaginative.
• They could have low-grade depression.
• They are gifted in creating dissension.

Sheffield listed four ways to confront and, hopefully, diffuse difficult people.

• Develop gentleness rather than impulsiveness. “Let the Holy Spirit develop the gentle spirit within you.”
• Let the mind of Christ guide you in all of your relationships. “Jesus took on the form of a servant, a bond slave. Take the same attitude as Christ Jesus.”
• Commit yourself to personal intervention. “Try to talk to the person about the issue in private.”
• “Pray, pray, pray. You need for God to guide you even as you begin to think about what you are going to do.”

(BP)