It impacts more than 19,000 congregations each year. Some 40 percent of church members leave their churches because of it. Nearly all of it (98 percent) stems from relational issues in the church. It’s church conflict.

Church conflict takes a big toll on churches, their leadership and their members each year. Church consultants David and Diane Noble wrote an interactive study guide this year to help. “Winning the Real Battle at Church: What Holds Your Church Together During Troubled Times” is a workshop-style study that offers a six-week course centered on overcoming church conflict.

Daily homework includes reading short church anecdotes describing various conflicts, studying applicable scriptures, answering questions and praying. Topics range from the spiritual aspect of conflict, to leadership roles, criticism, peacemaking and more.

The main strength of the study is the abundance of scriptural applications included in each chapter. David Noble describes the study as a “discipleship resource,” and because of its consideration of biblical records of conflict and biblical reactions, the lessons learned are both practical and spiritual. For example, in discussing biblical submission and authority, 16 passages of scripture are offered for study on the issue.

A weakness of the study is the leading tone that some of the question-and-answer sections apply to the issues of conflict. For example, the self-reflection questions in the Week 1 study ask readers to answer “yes” or “no” to queries such as: “Does God want you to be spiritually wise?” and “Does God want you to use your spiritual wisdom?” These questions follow a study of 1 Corinthians 2:12-13, in which participants discuss spiritual wisdom. However, closing the discussion with these types of entry-level and leading questions answered with a “yes” or “no,” seems to limit the text.

Overall, the discipleship model of the book makes it a proactive approach to safeguard a church against conflict. The authors suggest conflict as the personal responsibility of each church member, as a part of discipleship. They don’t suggest that churches should be completely devoid of conflict, but they differentiate destructive and constructive conflict, again using scriptural examples.

“Winning the Real Battle” has been endorsed by leaders at the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC, Back to the Bible International, and The Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dr. Chuck Lawless, dean of the Billy Graham School said churches are too often ill-equipped to respond to conflict. He lauded “Winning the Real Battle” for its teaching on biblical confrontation and Christian peacemaking.

The book has strong potential for use in small groups, Sunday school groups, church-wide study, or for study during conflict, during leadership transitions, or for leadership training. Centered more on personal heart transformations rather than conflicts either theologically or relationally, the book is poised to impact people to pull the log out of their own eye before attending to the speck in their brother’s eye.