Making Peace Quotes

“Reconciling conflict is not about knowing or feeling. It is about obeying and being. That is, holiness is a craft, a discipline that requires a community of others to practice. We cannot be holy alone.”
― James Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“Where you start has direct impact on where you end up. If the starting point is self, it is very difficult to end with the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
― James Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“our identity as leaders and members must be in Christ crucified.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“For instance, how do people describe your church? A red flag should go up in our minds whenever people refer to their church by the first or last name of the senior pastor. “I go to Bob Smith’s church.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“This is our calling: to be separate and holy. “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15-16).”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“Right-handed leaders will try to keep order by centralizing power. A right-handed pastor will preach about submission and authority while employing a hierarchical, top-down management style that often becomes legalistic. The result is a church organized to protect a leader instead of to point to Christ.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“Too often pastors address problems from within the flawed assumptions of their culture and training. Unable to see how problems are forming, and how their leadership is often a cause, church leaders employ legalistic or democratic remedies to issues that require Spirit-directed discernment, repentance, and forgiveness. Meanwhile, leaders have to deal with members who, as noted above, insist on rights and want to “vote” instead of submit.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“Conflict reveals the true character of a leader.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“Conflict reveals our faith and character: our willingness or refusal to be the body of Christ.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“reconciliation is not a set of principles to be followed but a life to be lived.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict

“When church leaders and members are willing to honestly accept, openly confess, and intentionally address the underlying causes of church conflict, God will repair and restore the church.”
― Jim Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict