Church Conflict Track
Living Stones does not address church conflict in an vacuum, but rather in the context of the total health of the church. We want to not just help you put out the fire, but to take advantage of the conflict as an opportunity to strengthen the underlying health of the church. The mission of Living Stones is much broader than problem-solving; we work with churches that are committed to improving overall church health and increasing their missional effectiveness.
The consultation process
Phase 1: Assessment Visit
The first step is a site visit to your church by a church conflict consultant or consulting team for mutual assessment --for the consulting team to assess the church's needs and opportunities, and for the church leaders to assess whether they wish to enter into a working partnership with Living Stones.
To prepare for this visit, your church will conduct the Natural Church Development survey and complete a brief (4- to 5-page) self-study that can be completed in a few hours. These materials need to be returned to Living Stones about two weeks before the Assessment Visit.
The Assessment Visit is a one-day visit, usually by one or two consultants. The consultant(s) will meet with church staff members and perhaps other key ministry leaders, mostly to listen and gather information. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to conduct a mediation session as part of this day. Your consultant(s) will then meet with your Leadership Team--staff, governing board members, and key ministry leaders--for two to three hours to present your NCD scores, to give a preliminary assessment of the most important challenges facing the church, and to recommend a process for addressing these needs. This Leadership Team meeting can take place on a weeknight, a Saturday morning, or a Sunday afternoon. If it is important to you that the consultant(s) experience your Sunday worship services during the Assessment Visit, you should schedule a Saturday/Sunday Assessment Visit.
When you schedule an Assessment Visit, neither you nor Living Stones is committing to anything beyond that. A key purpose of the Assessment Visit is for both parties to determine if there is value to a working partnership beyond the initial Assessment Visit. If the church and Living Stones agree that they wish to explore a continued consultation process, Living Stones will develop a custom proposal for the next phase of the consultation process. This will include a description of the recommended next steps, a time frame for completing them, and costs.
Depending on the nature of the issues to be addressed, the scope of services for such a proposal could be as little as a single site visit or as extensive as twelve months of intensive coaching with multiple visits.
Fees
The fee for an Assessment Visit is $2000 plus travel reimbursement (mileage, air fare, parking and tolls, lodging, meals, and, if applicable, rental car expense) for two consultants or $1250 plus travel for a single consultant. If you have completed an NCD survey and Detailed Analysis within the six months prior to the Assessment Visit, you can submit those results to your consulting team and $250 will be deducted from the cost of the visit leaving the net cost at $1750 plus travel for two consultants or $1000 plus travel for one.
Our experience makes clear that generally a consulting team provides greater value to the church. We include the solo consultant option for the benefit of those churches where the expense of a team consultation would make it impractical for a church to schedule an assessment visit.