On too many occasions, I have seen churches ripped apart because of a handful of “wolves.� I used to think that this was isolated to Asian churches (particularly Korean!), but I discovered that it’s not. Apparently, the susceptibility to wolves is cross-cultural. Over the years, however, I began to see something else. It is not simply the wolves who are at fault. I realized that they are going to be around until Jesus comes. What is actually disturbing is the inability of the church, particularly, by the leaders to deal with these wolves.
Conflict resolution is a lost art-form. But dealing with wolves involves far more than an art-form. I’ve discovered that it takes becoming like doves and snakes. For someone like me, it is way too easy to become like a lion myself to deal with these wolves. The danger is that I would probably take out many of the flock as well as the wolves. The collateral damage would be devastating. Others would prefer to be a canary, chirping along even as the dangers surround us—choosing to ignore the red flags has very little to do with faith. Maybe we need to become more like Tweetybird.
The problem that I have seen is that the innocence of one dove and the shrewdness of one snake are not enough. Wolves travel in packs. We need help from other Tweetybirds. As a churchplanter, because of the young congregation, I’ve seen the need to train the leaders while they are young to be such comrades in arms. I have to admit that living in NY, it’s been a lot tougher to teach them to be like doves—the shrewdness part seems to naturally come! The challenge has been to admonish them to lay aside the cynicism and skepticism while empowering them to use their amazing perceptions and insights. It does, however, start with this Tweetybird though. The congruence in my life as a dove and a snake has the greatest impact on them… beyond any wolf that they may encounter.
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