A REVIEW: ON SOCIAL IDENTITY, CONFLICT MANAGEMENT, RELIGION AND A

BUILDING: PEAKS AND VALLEYS IN THE LIFE OF A LARGE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT (LM 607)

ETHIOPIAN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

BY: SAMUEL NEGUSSIE

SUBMITTED TO: DR. BELAYNESH

FEBRUARY 15, 2020

Box No. 140

The article is about a large Christian church experienced its members to drop from over 3000

members to almost 2000 members over a several months period of relocation. That growth issues

forced the church to purchase of another property in expectation of relocating the congregation to

a new place. Disagreement has emerged after land and a momentary sanctuary, and office

building is considered to be bought.

The main argument of the article is that previous formal and informal church leaders initiated a

massive and risky change through a belief in the ability of the community of faith to pull

together and support this undertaking. It argues that the formal and informal leadership of the

church should consider the conflict that has appeared from the time of the first vote. All the

things could be constructive if the leaders consider the idea differentiation between the member

of the church raised due to the relocation of the Sanctuary plus additional offices and classrooms,

children’s Sunday school area and youth gathering areas.

The leaders of the church didn’t manage the conflict arise in the members. When the church

members at a ‘town hall’ meeting presided over by the Bishop was executed, the church

membership voted on purchasing the new site and optional acreage. But there are 26%

exceptions who didn’t vote for the purchase of the new site. This should raise a question on the

minds of the leaders that why these people don’t want the new site to be purchased. But the

leaders have avoided the conflict by the voice of the majority. This becomes the means for the

church to lost about one-third of its membership.

The church leaders, considering there is no reason for them not to talk to the members voting

against the relocation, should have to have a better understanding of conflict management.

Because the almost ignored the conflict or try to address the idea differentiation which has arisen
between the members of the church. Avoiding conflict is not the better way of managing a

conflict. If the leaders tried to be involved in the idea differentiation and tries to settle all things

for positive they may have a better way of relocating without losing members of the church. The

idea difference could have a better outcome to harmonize the two conflicting groups.

In the article conflict is defined as an idea differentiation between the members of the church in

the relocation of the existing site to a new site. Most of the members of the church want the

relocation of the church site which is good to the accommodation of the new members which are

continuously growing due to the hard work of the formal church leaders. Some of the members

reject the idea of the leader in relocating the site of the church due to their own reason. This is

the idea differentiation which had happened between the members of the church. The other is the

way the conflict is handled is the main issue of the article which is not proper and causes a lot of

troubles in the church.

As mentioned above the leaders uses avoiding type of conflict management which have a

negative consequence at the end. As a church leader, bible tells us the leaders are responsible

even for the life of the members. The above may address the personal, psychological and social

matters of the members which some may have practice outside of the church.

Lack of communication between the leaders and members who vote against relocation, was one

of the main problems which causes the members get out of the church. When the church

membership voted 74 per cent to 26 per cent to relocate, no pastor or other church leader tried to

question why 26 per cent voted not to relocate. The Leaders assumption that the opinions

contrary to the relocation would serve to bring the community closer, was not correct because the

member has their own reason for doing it. The leaders should communicate, if they can, to all of
the disagreed members or some representative of them to know the main reason why they

rejected to the relocation of the church site.

The article is very inspiring and has given the full outline of the activities done on the church.

The structural flow of the article is good and help full to understand the situation better in a clear

and concise manner. But the article didn’t mentions some specific details like why the members

reject/opposes the relocation of the site of the church. Also didn’t specify how the informal

leadership member of the church didn’t fit for the relocation, organization and tasks which are

given to them. The other is, it didn’t clearly states what is the perception of the leader when they

didn’t want to communicate the member which votes against relocation.

In my opinion the article should have a deeper investigation on the points raised above and other

points which may allow the reader to have a better understanding of the case which happed on

the church. This also may help the reader to identify the main source of the problem and which

party should better have changed their idea.

The lesson learned in terms of writing scientific articles we should consider different viewpoint

of the different people about the situation so that we should refer as many materials (books and

journals) as possible to have a full understanding of the situation. If we refer only few materials

we may become one sided or abused because the person who wrote that specific material could

be highly involved on the situation raised and can have a side or personal perception about the

situation which may be wrong.

The other situation we should consider is that we should be neutral in reporting a situation and

has to express our feeling or emotions in a separated topic which the reader could understand and

have a free ground to have an argument with the idea or the points raised.
We should reference all the materials that are cited on the article we are using whether the

citation is direct or not directly caught from the referencing material. This kind of work gives

acknowledgment for the original researcher who has devoted his/her time and resource to work

on the topic given. So, we should give acknowledgment by citing the original work of the topic.