Thursday, July 23, 2009
Gentle bluntness
How do you deal with confrontation? How do you approach it when you are the one who needs to confront? How do you receive confrontation? I was talking with a friend last night about how to deal with some tough issues. As we were talking about a variety of things, it struck me that gentle bluntness is how I best receive and hopefully deal with confrontation. I need people who will bluntly tell me when I have sinned or am out of line. But with that blunt honesty, I also need them to be gentle and not crush me. Can you confront and also encourage at the same time? Is it possible to point out the issue without being too soft about the problem, but at the same time building up the other person? It is tough. I know there are people who have gently pushed me. Bluntly challenged me to move forward, but at the same time been an encourager in my life. For me, confronting someone is tougher. I often know when I need to, but it sometimes takes awhile to build up the courage to say something. I ask questions and try to push gently, challenging them to discover the areas they may not see or are ignoring. There are a few people who I can be truly transparent with and challenge or confront knowing it will be received well. So would you rather confront or be confronted? (Neither isn't an option.) Who in your life does the tough job of being willing to challenge you? Can you be gentle and blunt at the same time?
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I would say that Kent McCracken is probably the person who confronts me. He's probably the person that I feel most safe confronting as well. It's interesting though that even when you have developed that friendship that allows for that, people seem to have areas that are "out of bounds", so to speak..... (maybe for a little while at least...) Like areas in their lives that they aren't ready to deal with yet, (elephants in the room) areas that send them running.
How do you know when to speak and when not to speak? How do you know when to confront and when to allow Grace room to function? I believe in the gentle confrontation approach, but timing is a challenge sometimes. And how do I keep from going after someones stuff, that are really say, my "pet peaves"? (or maybe not even real sins.... or debatable at best.)
An extreme example: There are guys i know in my church right now, who want to confront newcomers (kids) for wearing a hat during the service. But these same guys are way away from the ultimate standard of Love that Jesus has commanded, yet they are focussed on hats.
I dont think I would respond well to someone telling me to take off my hat. But i do usually respond humbly to Kent's suggestion in my life. What is the difference? Any thoughts? (This is one of those topics I think that generates a lot of discussion....)
More complications.... Even though I respect Kent, and he and I have that type of relationship, what if Kent were to confront me someday, with something like the equivalant of his version of.... "you need to take off your hat"? How would you work through that?
Another question I have is, how do we deal with unrepentant sin in the community? I will give an example; I believe racism is sin (confession: also my pet peave). What do you do with people whose racism is so entrenched in their lives that they don't recognize it, or even think its an issue? This type of thing is rampant in older generation christians, as well as younger people who have been raised in that environment. What do you do when they have been confronted and there is only unrepentance and hostility?
This is a great topic for discussion, but one with many answers I believe. Still love to hear other thoughts.
This should be a sunday school topic one day, I think.
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