Ministers are trained and expected to be decent at conflict management. Generally people who are in conflict are okay with a minister walking into the room because it is thought that ministers will not, at the very least, escalate the conflict but hopefully help manage the tension in the room.
This is an important skill set to have and cultivate when you are in ministry and, well, life.
Most of the time, I have experienced that we ministers forget that we are not in the conflict management business. Oh sure, we can and do help manage conflict, but this is not what we ought to be about.
Surely you know this as well, but maybe you just don't know that you know.
How about a parallel example.
Doctors can give you things to manage the pain you feel in your life, but doctors are not in the pain management business. They are in the healing business, and while doctors can address pain, they are much more interested in healing the source of the pain.
Ministers are not in the conflict management business, we are in the wholeness business. We are not there just to manage conflict, but to work at conflict resolution.
We can manage all the conflict in the world but the source of that conflict will remain and wounds will continue to reopen if we forget that we are, like doctors, in the healing not just management business.