A misunderstanding between two women in a Bible study I led once nearly split the entire group — hurt feelings, sides quietly forming, a handful of women considering whether to simply stop coming rather than sit through the tension.
What held it together was not a clever mediation strategy. It was two women, eventually, choosing to sit across from each other and do the very unglamorous work Paul describes — bearing with one another and forgiving, “as the Lord has forgiven you” (Colossians 3:13). Community is not the absence of conflict. It is what survives the conflict when people choose forgiveness over being right.