The Elephant Club: How to Engage in Hard Conversations (Part 2)
This blog is the overflow of the sermon from Greenhouse Church delivered on June 22nd 2025 - "Guarding and Defending the Community". To listen to the full message go to greenhousechurchnc.com/media.
Welcome! You’ve made it to the lobby of the Elephant Club. You’re not quite in the room just yet. You see, the Elephant Club is the place where we address, head on, the elephant in the room. We engage the problems that are real and felt. This is the place where say the quiet part out loud.
Read on, because if you take to heart some of the suggestions I make, you’ll be ready to enter the Elephant Club.
If you’re reading this blog, there’s a high chance you came across Part 1, Why You Don’t Have Hard Conversations. If you haven’t, go check that out and then come back here. Part 1 of this blog helps you identify why you might struggle when bringing conflict up to someone in your life.
In this blog, I give some concrete actions to take to address difficulty between you and another.
3 Ways to Engage in Hard Conversations
1. Trust the Spirit of God
When engaging others in difficult topics, you’ve got to be prayed up. Too often do we attack an issue without taking the time to bring it to the Lord in prayer. You should make a habit of praying before you address the issue. Pray for the other person to have a heart that’s ready to receive. Pray that you would be spirit led in your delivery rather than being led by your flesh. Ask God for his supernatural help.
Pray during your conversation. It takes an incredible amount of courage to share something hard. You need to rely on Jesus while you’re speaking and listening. Take deep breaths and let every exhale become a silent prayer that calls on the Lord’s help.
And when the conversation ends, your praying for this person is just beginning! You’ve done the work of bringing the issue to the attention of the other person. What’s next is God’s responsibility. Ask him to do the work in the other person’s heart. God is the one who brings understanding and life change. And for some reason, he’s chosen to move when we ask him, so ask him.
2. Be Timely
The second step in having a difficult conversation is being timely. I was sitting around a fire talking with a group of other pastors when one of them dropped a nugget of wisdom that was simple but powerful: don’t have a hundred dollar conversation in a fifty cent moment. What this pastor was communicating was the importance of the timing of a hard conversation. If you need to share something difficult, don’t mention the topic as someone is walking out the door - that’s not going to set the conversation up for success.
Instead, if there’s something hard to be said, schedule it. That’s right, I said schedule it. With the busyness of our world, it’s a rare moment that you can have a good conversation impromptu. Hard conversations are so important you ought to plan for it on your calendar. If you can’t meet in person, schedule a phone call. And make sure they can contribute at least 30 minutes to the topic at hand.
Timeliness isn’t just about time of day, it’s also about the location in which you meet in a day. You might schedule a conversation at the right time but the wrong location. If you have a difficult conversation in a room where people are moving in and out, interruptions are likely. But if you choose a place that’s secluded fewer interruptions can lead to greater understanding.
3. Be Clear
The last step in the process of having a hard conversation is in your ability to be clear. Sometimes we focus so much on being “nice” that we never actually say what we wanted to say. One way you can be clear is by seeking to be honest and honoring. Depending on your wiring, you lean one way or the other. Maybe you’re so honest you don’t care how you come across – that’s not helpful as it will prevent the other person from receiving what you have to say. Others of us are so honoring that we actually fail to say what’s actually on our mind. By seeking to meet at the intersection of honesty and honor we can actually be clear.
If you’ve figured out how to strike the balance between honesty and honor, the content of the conversation is something to surely prioritize. When you bring up the issue, be sure to state what you’ve seen and how it impacts you or others around you. This gives the other person a concrete example of how they’ve contributed to a problem or point of contention.
The last thing to think about is how you show up in the conversation. James 1:19-20 says:
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
I think this verse is a perfect formula for how you ought to have a hard conversation. Be quick to hear, be slow to speak, and be slow to anger. One way to practice being quick to hear and being slow to speak is by only speaking when a person has completely finished their thought. Refraining from interrupting the other person shows them that you’re committed to listening, that you’re not trying to speak the first time someone says something you disagree with.
If you do this well, I think the natural result is that you’ll be slow to anger. Why? Because all the listening you’ve done and the slowness of speech will lead to greater understanding. And more understanding leads to peace and reconciliation.
Now that you have all that you need to have a hard conversation, I now present you with your own set of keys to the Elephant Club. I pray that your time in this club is full of humility and reconciliation.
Neeko Williams is the lead pastor of Greenhouse Church, launching September 14th, 2025. Interested in checking out a preview service before then? Check out our preview services page.