I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, in the faces of men and women, I see God, and in my own face in the glass. I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name. In a play it is the presence of conflict, or two opposing ideas in one place, that gives a scene meaning and interest. In writing about congregations, Gilbert R. Rendle uses the word conflict in the same way - to mean that two or more ideas are present in one space.
Conflict is absent only in dying congregations.
As Rendle points out, we wouldn't be happy with a congregation whose members all held identical ideas. It would be too monotonous, too stagnant to support growth or original thought. It isn't easy to be in conflict, because our natural instinct is to try to prove the other person wrong through debate or discussion . In discussion, one opponent overwhelms the other with forceful and persistent arguments. Both are win - lose.