"Elders at the Madison Church of Christ said Sunday they would bring in a church dispute resolution expert to help resolve the split developing in the church over worship styles."
"The Madison church's elders asked Sullivan to help them mediate their conflict after an elder worked with Sullivan in a dispute-resolution class."
"Church elders discovered Sullivan when one of them attended a seminar of his about how to handle church disputes, Hoppes said. Sullivan had served in Churches of Christ for 25 years before working at Pepperdine University, where he trains Churches of Christ to handle dispute resolution on their own and acts as a mediator in resolving church disputes."
"With other churches, Sullivan said, he has tried to speak with everyone involved to find out which issues are at the heart of the matter. He then facilitates discussion and problem solving among the parties."
''I call it eliminating the noise so they can hear each other and hear God,'' he said."
Do you think that Mr Sullivan offers an unbiased service of mediation to the Church?
Well first we understand that his group is being paid to offer his services.
Almost the same words used in the newspaper article were used to describe Sullivan’s role to the church by one or more of the elders and by Mr. Sullivan himself standing before the congregation.
The Headline of the web page is "Leading Congregational Change" which ironically is also the title of the book. Mr. Sullivan promotes at one of his web sites..
Here are direct quotes from one of his web sites:
"Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church recommends that church leaders read "Leading Congregational Change""
"Leading a church to change from being tradition- or program-driven to being purpose-driven is a task filled with all kinds of potentially explosive and divisive issues. This is a book [Leading Congregational Change] you ought to read before you change anything."
It appears that Mr. Sullivan is a change expert, not an unbiased mediator! Mr. Sullivan, it appears is using "Consensus Processing" to achieve a predetermined result - a change in the worship format at Madison.