Redeeming Conflict in Ministry Leadership : Ann Garrido

Full-Text Transcript

Jason Daye
Hello, friends, and welcome to another fantastic episode of FrontStage Backstage. I’m your host, Jason Daye. Each and every week, I have the honor and privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader. Together, we dive into a conversation around a topic to help you and other pastors and ministry leaders just like you thrive in both life and leadership. I’m excited today because I’m going to be joined by Ann Garrido. Ann is a theologian and a conflict mediator. She’s the author of many best-selling books, including Redeeming Conflict. At this time, I’d like to welcome Ann to the show. Ann, welcome to FrontStage BackStage.

Ann Garrido
Great, Jason, thank you very much for having me.

Jason Daye
Yes, thank you for making the time to hang out with us. You’ve written a number of best-selling books on a lot of different topics, but one that really stood out to me is Redeeming Conflict. I had the opportunity to get my hands on a copy, and you walk through some incredible habits, really, that Christian ministry leaders can begin to embrace to help with conflict. And I have to say, Ann, as ministry leaders, most of us are serving in a local church or a local parish. It’s highly relational, and anytime we’re involved with other people, conflict is bound to arise at some point, right? Now, none of us tend to like, or most people, I think, don’t really like conflict. If you do like conflict, maybe you need to look into that a little more deeply. But most people don’t like conflict. Ministry leaders included. Ann, you have a fresh perspective that I certainly appreciate about conflict. You go so far as to encourage us to look at conflict as a blessing, and how conflict can be a blessing. And I’d love to start there, Ann. Help us understand how it is that conflict can be a blessing.

Ann Garrido
That’s such a great question, Jason, because I’m going to acknowledge this up front. I’m not one of those people who love conflict either. It really keeps me awake in the middle of the night if I feel like I’m in a tense relationship with someone. So, my whole life has not been an experience of feeling like conflict was a blessing. But, partly, I came to that realization maybe by doing a little bit of the research that undergirded the book into what makes for healthy relationships. And one of the things that I came to realize was that people only fight about things that they care about. So, actually, in congregations that report that there’s no tension here whatsoever, often it’s an indication that the congregation has gone comatose, rather than because there’s like this incredibly vital life of Christ. So, it trained me to begin to look at conflict in my own ministerial work differently. To think about it, first, as Whoa. First off, there’s a blessing here, and that people actually care. People still care, and they’re passionate about it. And could this actually be part of our Christian witness in the wider world, to be able to show the world what healthy conflict looks like? That healthy conflict can actually bring a relationship closer together because it enables people to talk about what they’re most passionate about and what really means a lot to them. A lot of the work that I did early on was looking at some of the research of the psychologist Dr. John Gottman, who says that in healthy marriages, about one in five interactions tends to be a little bit frictious. That in marriages where there’s a lot more than that, one in two, that’s not healthy. But where you see sometimes like one in ten, it actually is a sign that people are opting out of the relationship, like they don’t care enough to remain in the conversation. So, my suspicion is that’s probably a healthy statistic for ministry life, too. We should expect, as pastors or as pastoral leaders, that probably about one in every five of our interactions as a minister, if we’re in a healthy community, is going to have some friction in it, and that doesn’t mean we’re doing anything wrong. It actually can be a sign that we’re doing something right.

Jason Daye
Absolutely love that. That’s actually so freeing. Because, as you said, many times we think that what we’re shooting for is no conflict whatsoever, right? So, we sometimes set ourselves up to think in some way we might be failing if we are bumping into conflict. But, that is so liberating because and I love that perspective. I love that idea that if people really care, then they’re going to be engaged. And if people are going to be engaged, we don’t all have the same perspective or opinions on things, which means there will be some friction. That’s awesome. I love that. So, Ann, share with me a little bit about the value, the importance of conflict resolution, especially in the role of a pastor or a ministry leader. Why is understanding conflict resolution and spending some time investing in it so vitally important?

Ann Garrido
So, I would just say, if we normalize conflict as something that’s going to happen in any healthy community, then we want to develop skills for how to manage it well, because we know there are ways in which it can go very, very badly and actually fragment the community. So, we want to develop skill sets that are going to capacitate us for managing it in our communities in such a way that it can actually energize and build up the depth of relationship that exists between the members. In the field, we actually tend not to use very much the language of conflict resolution anymore, but to use the language of conflict management, because it assumes that there is always going to be conflict. I mean, some conflicts really can get resolved, praise God, but a lot of conflicts are rooted in some pretty deep-seated differences of perspective, as you mentioned, between us. And they’re probably always going to be part of the life of our congregation. So the question is more, are there some skill sets that can help us to really manage the conflict so that it doesn’t burn down the house?

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that. All of this is so good, Ann, because you’ve given us language and perspective that really helps us and gives us permission to be humans in the midst of things, right? It gives us that permission. It gives us that idea that it’s not all going to be resolved. There will be conflict that’s present. A lot of it’s some things even, the baggage people are carrying in from childhood or other things they’ve experienced, right? And that all informs us. So I love that. So conflict management, because it’s not always going to be resolved.

Ann Garrido
Just ease yourself.

Jason Daye
Exactly. Wow. Life is getting easier the more I talk to you, Ann. I love it. Awesome, excellent. So one thing that I’ve noticed, just in my life in ministry, and the work that I do, the work that we do at PastorServe, it seems that there’s at least a segment of ministry leaders who do not do conflict management well. They struggle with that. And I’m curious in the research that you’ve done, in the work that you do, Ann, why do you think that is? Not to put you on the spot, but what might be behind that to kind of help us process through this?

Ann Garrido
I think in many ways, one is because we tend to be pretty darn nice people, and in the narrative that we have in our own heads, nice people don’t get into fights. And, also, if you’re competent, you wouldn’t have arguments within your communities. It must be that you’re doing something wrong. Or the other narrative we have, largely within the Christian tradition, is somehow like Satan’s involved in this. Like, it means there are evil forces at work, rather than just saying one, as we’ve already been talking about, this is a normal part of life. God created a lot of diversity in our planet, and that diversity seems to be part of the divine plan, and us figuring out how to live in communion in the midst of all of our diversity, which I would say is just like a Trinitarian perspective of looking at the world, that God is God’s very being is both diverse and in communion at the same time. So if we could reframe that. If we began to think about conflict, not always being against God’s plan, but actually maybe built into the fabric of God, how God created the earth. And if we could begin to change the narrative that in order to be kind and competent, I must always be nice, or there can’t be conflict where I’m at. Is it possible that also learning how to be assertive, learning how to listen well, learning how to manage diversity, and those kinds of things are also part of what it means to be a competent leader?

Jason Daye
Hey, friends, just a quick reminder that we provide a free toolkit that complements today’s conversation. You can find this for this episode and every episode at PastorServe.org/network. In the toolkit, you’ll find a number of resources, including our Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. This growth guide includes insights pulled from today’s conversation, as well as reflection questions, so you and the ministry team at your local church can dig more deeply into this topic and see how it relates to your specific ministry context. Again, you can find it at PastorServe.org/network.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s super helpful. So, as we look at our role as ministry leaders, and this is really what your book, Redeeming Conflict, really lays out and spells out in beautiful fashion. But how do we begin to improve how we approach conflict? What does that take from us, right?

Ann Garrido
I think the greatest gift for myself as someone in ministry was to discover the work. For me, a huge body of literature has been the literature of the Harvard Negotiation Project. To find out that there were people, because I know I want to live this biblical vision, but I don’t always know exactly how. Like, what are the concrete strategies? And to discover that there was a whole body of literature of people who had studied conflict as a research field and just found out what works, and broke it into micro skill sets that we can engage. So, one of the first books I read getting into the field was a book called Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. And I read it the first time, and I thought, This is just kind of common sense. And then I read it the second time, and I realized, this is common sense. I don’t do any of this. And then I read it the third time, and I thought, This is common sense. I don’t do any of this. This is really hard. And what I began to do is to take it just a chapter at a time, and to try to practice in daily life one of these micro skills. So, when I was working on Redeeming Conflict, in many ways, what I was trying to do was to take some of what I had learned in the study of negotiation, break it into just micro units of what would be one practice at a time, so that I might begin to just practice this month. And maybe next month, I’ll add one more practice, and maybe next year I’ll add another practice. And I’m still in that process myself. I’m still trying to develop these micro skills and apply them in daily life. But some of the things I’ll talk about in the book will just be things like distinguishing between intention and impact. That it’s possible to recognize that I can have really good intentions, but I might not be having the impact I want. That often, when other people impact me negatively, it doesn’t mean they have bad intentions. So I mean, that would be one micro skill. Some skills around listening and summarizing what other people have said. Some skills around things to de-escalate really strong feelings. Some skills around things I might want to be telling myself in my own brain, not to escalate my own sense of what being in the conflict might be telling me. So, I try to, in the book, talk about 12 different skills, just one chapter at a time. Try this this month and see how it works in the big picture. Break it up and make it manageable.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that, that you break it down, you try these 12 different habits that we can begin to practice. And I think that’s the key, because many of us might have had some sort of relational course, or class in seminary, or something that touched on conflict, right? But, really, that was like, Okay, I’m never going to have conflict when I’m in ministry, right? I’m working with Jesus, right? Exactly. So we really don’t pay a lot of attention to that. Then we get into life, and, again, maybe conflict management, good, positive conflict management may not have been modeled well for us in our family of origin, or whatever it might be. And so we don’t have those tools. So, Ann, you provide, as you said, these micro skills, these habits that we can actually practice and allow them to become a part of who we are and how we interact with others. Absolutely love that. I’d love for us to dive into and spend our time on one of these habits, one of these micro tools, and that is this idea of triangulating relationships. Because I believe this is one. I’ve had many conversations around this in the past. I believe this is one. I think again, I don’t remember if it’s one, two, or three. It’s in the very beginning of these habits. And, for me, very much a priority as you set it up in the book. So, share with us a little bit, Ann, about what we are talking about when we’re talking about triangulation. Just set it up.

Ann Garrido
I did choose to begin the book with that, because it’s not something that’s oftentimes found in the literature on skills around difficult conversations, because I think it’s not specific to ministry. It’s found more widely. But let’s just say it’s very widespread in ministry. So, triangulation would be the pattern of bringing in, that the conflict is actually between two people, and you bring a third party into the situation. Triangulation flourishes in places where, one, kindness is highly valued and, two, in places where there’s a lot of power differential. Where people have a hard time figuring out how to use the systems in order to advance what their own needs are. And when I thought about it, when I realized that I was like, Oh, no wonder it flourishes in church life in a particular way, because as communities, we do value kindness, and one of the ways in which we try to remain kind is not to actually have direct conversation, because those are so scary, we might lose our identity of kindness. So, instead of talking directly to the person that we’re upset with, we’ll talk to somebody else instead. The danger of that is that, as one of my colleagues said to me a long time ago, he goes, Ann, you need to be careful with your anger. You want your anger to be like a coursing river and not a finely diffused mist. Because one of the things that I would do is being uncomfortable with my own anger and not wanting to get into the uncomfortable situation of actually speaking directly with the person who I’m upset with, and I tell other people, right? Then my anger dissipates. But now we’ve got kind of a toxic work environment. Now, everybody has little particles of my anger that they’re breathing in, and it doesn’t actually solve the challenge that I’m facing with the other person, because the one person who still doesn’t know is the person who I’m actually mad at. So one of the challenges, I think, in ministry is, how do I sidestep the triangle? A lot of times in the triangle, there are a couple of different roles that get cast. And sometimes the language around this isn’t great, but the literature on it oftentimes refers to the victim, which is the person who perceives that I’ve been injured here, and I’m the person who, like, I’m the one who’s going to I need to get other people on my side, to take my side against this awful person over here, the villain, who’s the person I’m upset with, and then the also the rescuer, which is the person who I go to and am like, come take my side. Get involved in this even though it’s not really your problem. The rescuer is the one who keeps getting called in. I call it calling into my conflict. And I think all three of those roles can be problematic in ministry. And one of the questions is, when we’re cast in each of those roles, what’s the best way to respond?

Jason Daye
Yeah, Ann, great setup. I’d love to lean in and walk through each of those roles. Ann, if you can help us process a bit, how, in whichever role we might be in, what are some ways that are God-honoring, respectful of all those involved, but help us to really manage that conflict? So, let’s begin with, like, if you’re the victim, if you’re the one who feels grief.

Ann Garrido
I think, as much as possible, to stir up courage inside of myself to have the direct conversation with the person that I’m upset with, rather than turning to other people first. And that if I do have to turn to other people, I engage them as my coach rather than as my rescuer. So I might go to them and ask them, Hey, this is a situation that I’m facing. I think I could use some wisdom here. Would you have any advice for me here? But not actually ask them to take my side, and not ask them to get involved in it themselves. And one thing to be careful about if we’re living in the same community, perhaps not even to share names. Keep confidentiality to preserve the dignity of the other person. But also, to look for what that person could give me that would help me to recognize where I might be contributing to the situation, like where I might have a blind spot in myself that’s not enabling me to see the full picture. And I have to ask myself somewhat, if I’m over and over again asking other people, will you take my side on this? How closely am I actually following the gospel of Matthew, who’s just saying, if you recognize you have an issue with your neighbor, first, go to them before calling other people into the mix, because you might be sowing seeds of division within your community that aren’t really going to be healthy for your community in the long haul. Again, you want your anger to be like a coursing river and not a finely diffuse mist.

Jason Daye
At PastorServe, we love walking alongside pastors and ministry leaders just like you. If you want to learn more about how you can qualify for a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches, please visit PastorServe.org/freesession. You don’t want to miss out on this opportunity. That’s PastorServe.org/freesession.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that imagery. So, on that piece, as the victim, it seems that oftentimes we rush there because we feel that we’ve been wronged in some way. And it’s almost like we want to prove to ourselves that, yeah, we’re on the right side and the other person’s on the wrong side, right? How can we, I don’t know, rewire ourselves in such a way that that’s not our default mode? Are there any ways that we can kind of think through that, Ann?

Ann Garrido
No, that’s a great point. I mean, I think it’s one of the things that is, again, coming into conflict with a different set of beliefs. Which is that when conflict happens, a lot of times, it’s not necessarily because one of us is right and one of us is wrong, but that we do have a difference of perspective. We might have some different data points. We might be interpreting those data points in some really different ways. And that usually speaking, there’s going to be multiple different things that contribute to a difficulty, a challenge, or a conflict. If I can step back for just a moment, I know this is hard to do, as we’re talking about ministers, because we do believe there’s such a thing as right and wrong, and I myself do believe there’s right and wrong. And if I can step back from labeling things immediately through a moral lens, and I can just ask myself the question, what all happened here? What are all the things that contributed to this event happening in time and space? Some of them also are probably things that I contributed to the situation, and if I can begin to be aware of what I’d contributed, it might not mean that I did something wrong. It might not mean that I have any blame for the situation at all, but there’s probably something that I could do, that if I did it just a little bit differently, it would shift the dynamic of the conversation a little bit differently. So, I want to cultivate within myself always and my own sense of identity, a sense that, generally, there are multiple factors. I don’t want to say it takes two to tango. Usually it’s more than that. Usually it’s 10 to tango. 25 to tango. There are a lot of things that contribute to it. But, if I can go into the world realizing that there’s probably something I could do differently in this situation that would result in or get a different fruit, that helps me just to cultivate a way of being in the world that’s not always, when something goes wrong, quickly looking for blame and for right and wrong.

Jason Daye
Yeah. I love that. It’s the idea of remembering relationship, and not just right or wrong, but that there’s relationship, this relational context involved. Yeah, I love that, Ann. That’s excellent. Okay, let’s move on to the rescuer then. You’re the one who’s being pulled in. If you feel like you’re the one being pulled in, what do you do with that?

Ann Garrido
I think a lot of times, when a person comes to me to tell me about the problem that they’re having with somebody else, one of the things I can just do is affirm the person’s feelings. Like, it sounds like this is really painful for you, or it sounds like this has been an incredibly frustrating situation for you. And then I can always make sure to keep the frame, again, on what do you think you want to do about that? How are you going to when you go talk to the other person? Just continue to assume that they are going to talk to the person. When you go talk to that other person, have you thought about what you want to say? Have you thought about how you might want to address it, or how you might want to try to solve the situation? So, keep it focused on what they might do, rather than getting pulled into other people’s problems. And if they do ask you, oftentimes, what I would tend to say is, it sounds to me, and I would encourage you first to go directly and talk to the person. They might not even know how you feel about this. If it feels like you need more communal support. Again, it would depend on what my role is. Sometimes, if I’m the manager in this situation, and let’s just say two employees who are having it, if you’re like, as your manager, I’ll come sit in with you as you want to talk with the other person about it, but I’m not taking sides in the middle of this yet. I mean, sometimes, as a parent, also, you’re going to get called, and you can’t really avoid this situation, but I’ll sit with you as the two of you talk about it. I can help facilitate the conversation, but I can’t myself. This isn’t my particular problem. This is something that’s existing between the two of you. As much as possible to keep the conflict as local as possible. Sometimes that’s not always going to be possible, right? But to keep it as local as possible. I think, don’t set yourself up as the go-between. Don’t set yourself up as the person who’s going to relay communication between the partners. And don’t say anything to the person who’s coming to you that you would not be comfortable also being heard by the other side, because it will get there eventually. And in a lot of these situations, sometimes you might actually say to the person that it might help, in a really complex situation, to think about bringing in a coach here, or you might want to think about bringing in a mediator here. Probably isn’t me, but you might want to think about who you could bring in if it’s very escalated within a community, because this is going to probably need some more skill sets than what I’ve got. If people keep coming to you over and over and over again and trying to draw you into their conflicts, which can happen, I think part of it might be that they’re spotting within you that they think you’ve got some skill sets in this area. But sometimes you might want to ask yourself, is it because I’ve gotten into a pattern of setting myself up as a go-between, as a fixer, and is that, in the long haul, what my congregation most needs? Is it the healthiest way to go? Because I don’t want to get stuck in a permanent role within the community.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. You know, it’s interesting, because in that role of the rescuer, typically, the victim is coming to you because they want to get you on their side. They want you to justify their feelings. So, Ann, you’ve, I think, done a great job of when someone’s coming that way, not falling into that, but positioning yourself more objectively, and listening, affirming what they’re experiencing, and listening to them, but kind of keeping yourself outside of the conflict. Outside of either side. Just kind of, from the outside, being a good friend, and that can be challenging, right? Because they’re trying to pull you in.

Ann Garrido
Jason, you narrowed in on a part of that that I love. That can just use special focus. Oftentimes, I’m not affirming their side. I’m affirming their feeling. And there’s a distinction here, because I want the other person to feel heard. They’re in a really hurt spot, and I can affirm, you’re really feeling frustrated by this, or it sounds like this whole situation has been really hurtful to you. It sounds like this is causing you a lot of angst, and it’s keeping you up in the middle of the night. That allows the person to know they’ve been heard, which is different than saying, You are so right about that, I can’t believe that she said that. So, I’m not affirming the storyline. I’m affirming the feeling that’s there. It’s not my job to affirm the storyline. There’s probably a different story on the other side. But that doesn’t mean that the feeling itself is not true. And I can convey, I hear the pain, I hear the story. I hear the pain. I hear the feeling. I hear that.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that is such a good distinction. That’s excellent clarity on that. Okay, Ann, let’s move into our favorite of the three, when I’m the villain. How do I even know I’m the villain in the first place, I guess, right? What do we do when we find out that we are the villain in this sort of situation?

Ann Garrido
I think that’s hard because no one likes to be cast as the villain in somebody else’s movie plot line that they’ve created around the scenario between you. And one of the things that’s most hurtful when you’ve been cast into that role is to find out that you’ve been cast in that role through a third party, and that’s inevitable. I mean, when you’re in leadership, sometimes you are going to play the villain and someone else’s narrative, and, occasionally, it’s just purely like the person who is in authority and leadership gets a lot of stuff from people’s background projected onto them, right? So, one of the things is, if a person, a third party, comes to me and says, You would not believe what he said about you, or this is the story that’s going on. What do you want to say to the congregation about this? I would just recognize, one, that a triangle has been set up, and say, Wow, it sounds like the other person’s experiencing a lot of frustration with me right now. Again, I just would affirm the feeling. It sounds like they’re feeling kind of left out. Could you encourage them to come see me directly about that? I want to have a conversation with them. But just don’t even entertain the third party being the interlocutor there. If they’re challenged by the relationship right now, that’s something I want to attend to, and I want to do that one-on-one with them, so invite them to reach out to me. That’s the only message I would ever send to the third party, the rescuer kind of person who stepped into that role. Send them back to me or just nod and be like, Yeah, that’s a really rough situation, but don’t give any more information than that. If, over and over again, you are getting cast in the role of the villain in your congregation, though, I would say that, too, is something to look at because you can ask, Are the normal ways that people would try to give me feedback not working for me? They’re not working for them. Like, I appear impervious to feedback. I do not appear receptive to wanting to hear people when they do try to approach me. So, if over and over again I keep finding, Hey, I’ve been cast in the role of the villain again. I mean, that is probably an indication that I’m not perceived within my congregation as someone who’s receptive to feedback. That people feel like they have to go around and use other modes to get to me. That I might be intimidating and not someone who is perceived as having my door open to conversation. So, that is information I’d want to be paying attention to.

Jason Daye
Yeah, good, to reflect, right? So, if someone comes to you and says, Hey, here’s the situation. This is what they’re feeling. This is what they’re saying. Would you recommend that you receive that, and then you would go and reach out to that person? Or do you wait? Or do you, as you said, to the rescuer tell them, Hey, yeah, let them know. I’d really like to talk to them directly if they’re feeling that way. What are your thoughts on that spot?

Ann Garrido
Yeah, that’s a bit of a sticky wicket, isn’t it? I mean, and I think probably on an individual basis, you can make a decision. As a general rule of thumb, though, to crack the triangle, to break that cycle, I would say to the person who comes to tell me, Could you ask that other person to call me? And ask the other person to initiate, in part, because if, in response to the third party getting involved, you do go and call them, you kind of are reinforcing within your congregation that this is a good way to get things done. And, in general, I don’t think you want to set that up as a pattern. You want the other person to initiate. But I would say, if you say, Could you ask the other person to give me a call? If this is something that sounds like it’s upsetting to them, could you ask them to initiate? You better darn well be receptive to it when they do call, because that is a pattern that you do want to reinforce. You do want people to call you, and if you then are going to respond in a negative way, scare them, or intimidate the bejeebers out of them, then what you’re going to do is make them think, Oh no, it’s better to create a triangle. So, you want to reinforce positive behaviors, and you want to not reinforce negative, what you don’t want to see people do.

Jason Daye
Right. That’s good. Very good. Awesome. Wow, Ann, this has been an amazing conversation. Absolutely amazing.

Ann Garrido
I loved it too.

Jason Daye
Yes. So good. So good. As we wind down, Ann, I would love to give you the opportunity just to share some kind of closing words of encouragement. You have the eyes and ears of men and women serving in ministry right now. I’d love to hear what you’d like to share with them.

Ann Garrido
Well, first off, what I want to say to people who are in ministry right now is just thank you for hanging in there. We’re doing ministry right now in an incredibly polarized and fragmented nation and world, and the conflicts that we are in are uncomfortable for us. They’re awkward for us. They can also be though, part of the way that we issue Christian witness in the world. I see us in our churches a lot of times praying for the war-torn areas of the world. And I know in my own head, I’m thinking about, yes, couldn’t Israel and Palestine, couldn’t they just sit down and work this out? In Yemen, in South Sudan. And you’re like, Why are Ukraine and Russia? Couldn’t we just work this out? And we pray for that to happen in other places. But then, when the opportunity comes to just have a very, we’re having a minor conflict around the fact that the dishes were not put back after the parasocial in the correct way. And we can’t talk about that, but we keep expecting other people in the world to deal with these really major, long-standing, generational conflicts. But we can’t do this. I would just say every time in the congregation that you call the congregation to practice the kinds of, on a small level, what we’re hoping that people are going to be able to do on a very large level, with much more complicated, much larger, long-standing hurts and injuries than what we’re experiencing, is part of our Christian practice of reconciliation in the world. And that beyond only praying for people elsewhere, to pray for ourselves and then to actually have the courage to try to do some of this in our actual families, in our marriages, in the person we sit next to in the pew, our neighbor, to do what we wish that other people were doing.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love it. Absolutely love it. Ann, as I said, it’s been an incredible conversation. Redeeming Conflict is Ann’s book, among many others, but this one that we’re kind of focused on. If you guys want to learn more about these 12 habits for Christian leaders to lean into so that you can help redeem conflict and manage conflict better, I encourage you to check that out, and links to the book will be in the toolkit for this episode. So, for this episode and every episode, we create a toolkit that complements the conversation. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. In there, you’ll find lots of resources, including links to what we’ve shared, links to Ann’s book, and you’ll find a Ministry Leaders Growth Guide, which pulls insights out of this conversation and then questions for you to process through. You can process through them with the leaders in your local church. I think this is going to be a great conversation for you guys to work through. So check out PastorServe.org/network, and be sure to get the toolkit for this episode. Ann, it has been a pleasure. Thank you for making time to hang out with us here on FrontStage BackStage. Really appreciate all that you’re doing for the Kingdom, Sister. Amazing, amazing stuff.

Ann Garrido
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jason Daye
Yeah. God bless you.

Ann Garrido
God bless

Jason Daye
Here at PastorServe, we hope you’re truly finding value through these episodes of FrontStage BackStage. If so, please consider leaving a review for us on your favorite podcast platform. These reviews help other ministry leaders and pastors just like you find the show, so they can benefit as well. Also, consider sharing this episode with a colleague or other ministry friend, and don’t forget our free toolkit, which is available at PastorServe.org/network. This is Jason Daye, encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well.