During a recent training session with one of elementum’s partner ministry leaders, I was asked the eternally pressing question in small group or missional community-based ministry; What do we do about the difficult people?
If you’ve led ministry for any length of time you know who I’m talking about. The people who are just plain awkward. Or antagonistic. Or endlessly needy. Or just desperately in need of a shower and freshly laundered clothes.
We’ve dealt with dozens of people like this over the years in Threshingfloor, from the harmless who simply need a gentle reminder to think more before they speak to the frightening who need police intervention to resolve to those in the midst of spiritual warfare who simply need wise, powerful, and faithful Gospel-freedom.
Here’s the reality: difficult people are God’s grace to your community. It may not feel like that in the moment, but it’s true.
Jesus dealt with dozens of difficult people in the Gospels, and probably hundreds more that aren’t recorded by the Gospel authors. Since Jesus is the wisest of all of us there’s much we can learn from how he interacts with the difficult people he encounters.
How Jesus handles difficult people
The first thing that’s notable as you scan the Gospels is that there isn’t a formula for how Jesus deals with difficult people. Each situation is unique. The consistent factors, however, are that Jesus always comes with love for the person and listening to the Holy Spirit. If we can learn to lean into those two things – love for difficult people and intent listening to the Holy Spirit’s leading – we’ll be successful.
Though there’s no formula, there are consistent things that Jesus does. Here are seven things that I see Jesus repeatedly do with people who we might label “difficult.”
8 tips from Jesus for dealing with difficult people
1. Set your priorities and boundaries:
Jesus has a clear mission. He came to seek and save the lost. That means that he’s almost constantly on the move and doesn’t sit in one place until everyone’s problems are solved. He pursues his priorities and focuses where he knows the Father has called him to focus, even if it means he’s not resolving every issue that he could.
2. But allow them to be interrupted and broken sometimes:
Whether it’s a blind man shouting for Jesus as he walks by or demanding crowds interrupting Jesus’ retreat time with his disciples, Jesus sets the example of setting aside priorities and plans in order to love and bless those who come to him with a need.
3. Ask them direct questions:
Time and again Jesus asks the needy people who comes to him, “What is it you want?” letting them identify what need they want met. Too often we assume we know what the difficult people in our lives are looking for, when if we were to simply be bold and loving enough to directly ask them what it is they need or want we might be surprised at how straightforward the need is.
4. Meet their needs whenever possible:
They key with asking those direct questions is following up with meeting those identified needs whenever possible. When Jesus encounters someone who asks for healing of their blindness, he heals them. When a Roman centurion – an enemy and oppressor of Jesus’ people – asks for healing of his servant, Jesus gives it. Whenever it’s possible we should be intentional about meeting the needs of difficult people.
5. Prayer is essential:
Many of the “difficult” people Jesus encounters are those who are demonized, and as he tells his disciples when they fail to cast out an evil spirit from a boy, prayer and often fasting are essentials for dealing with those challenges. Let’s never forget the massive powers that are at work in the spiritual realm and the crucial fact that we have been given power to have an impact there through prayer.
6. Sometimes you need to just leave:
There are plenty of times, particularly when dealing with the Pharisees (probably the most difficult of people that Jesus confronts), where Jesus simply leaves the situation. In one case he apparently phases through the crowd that’s trying to kill him. Sometimes when you’re dealing with a difficult person you need to step back, leave the conversation, and return to it later. When doing this don’t simply disappear. Tell the person that you need to step back and that you’ll pick things up later when they (or you) have calmed down.
7. Sometimes they need to be told to be quiet in no uncertain terms:
Another consistent thing Jesus does with those who are demonized (note – I’m saying that difficult people are demonized) is to tell them to be quiet. Particularly if your ministry is built on small group discussion-style interactions, there may be times where you need to tell someone that they need to talk less. Obviously this should be done gently, but it also needs to be done clearly.
8. Believe that god can do a miraculous transformation:
One of the most challenging parts of working with difficult people is that it feels like there’s no end in sight. That’s when we tend to get short-tempered and forget the reality that God can work miraculous transformations in anyone. Saul was definitely one of the most “difficult” people for the first Christians to deal with (how would you like to have him show up at your small group in his let’s-murder-the-Christians stage?), yet a single encounter with Jesus utterly transforms him into Paul, the Apostle to the gentiles. When we’re working with the difficult people in our ministries let’s keep our eyes on God’s power more than we do on the person’s problems.
Difficult people and the Kingdom
Who are the difficult, awkward, frustrating people in your life and ministry? Are you loving and relating to them the way Jesus would? Are you equipping others in your ministry to do the same?
If we want to accurately reflect the grace and power of God’s Kingdom we need to be communities of people who welcome and truly love the people who the rest of the world has written off. In many of those cases they are difficult people. And, in many of those cases, they are the people who God delights to work massive transformations in. As Paul wrote to the Corinthian church:
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
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