In the end, a presbytery characterized by love shows the world that the Gospel is real. It proves to a broken, divided world that the church can handle intense disagreements without splintering into warring tribes.

For many elders, Presbytery and GA meetings can easily feel less like courts of the Lord Jesus Christ and more like arenas of political maneuver.

When leaders have to vote on hard questions about what the church believes or how it should be run, things get tricky. Because these leaders don’t work together every day in the same local churches, they are separated by distance. To make matters worse, most of our group texts and online chat rooms are filled only with people who already agree with us—creating little “echo chambers” where we only hear our own opinions.

If we aren’t careful, this distance causes big problems. We stop looking at other church leaders as real brothers in Christ. Instead, we start treating them like symbols of an opposing team. To keep the church peaceful and healthy, we have to understand why this is dangerous and remember how much things change when we actually get close to each other.

During church debates, disagreements over rules and ideas naturally split people into different sides. It is right and necessary for elders to hold deep, principled convictions on these matters. The danger doesn’t always lie in the disagreement itself, but often in how we perceive those who stand on the opposite side of the aisle.

When we view an opponent from far away, our minds try to simplify things. We start labeling people, putting them into neat political boxes, and guessing how they will vote. If a leader brings up a rule change, we assume he is just trying to block progress. If another leader argues for strict rules, we assume he is rigid and uncaring.

We do this because it makes us feel less anxious. If we can convince ourselves that the other side is just playing politics, we don’t have to do the hard work of actually listening to them. We can dismiss their ideas by dismissing them as people.

This is exactly how regular, everyday politics works. People tear down their opponents and try to win at all costs. When we objectify our fellow elders, treating them as structural problems to be managed or voting blocks to be overcome, we damage the church. We substitute political strategy for pastoral discernment, and in doing so, we grieve the Holy Spirit who binds us together.

Everything changes when leaders decide to break through the distance and get close to one another. The regular experience of connectional life demonstrates that emotional regulation and theological perspective are restored the moment we sit across a table from those with whom we disagree.

When a presbyter purposefully steps out of his comfort zone to spend time with those from the “other side,” the bad pictures we built in our heads start to melt away. Sharing a meal or a drink, hearing another leader pray for his home church, or listening to him talk about his hard days completely changes how we feel about our disagreements.

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