The Elephant Club: Why You Don't Have Hard Conversations (Part 1)
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.
Have you ever nudged your way around the elephant in the room? We've all avoided obvious, uncomfortable topics at some point in our lives. As followers of Christ, we are called to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). This blog is intended to help you think through saying the quiet part out loud.
Before I invite you into the Elephant Club, let’s talk about why it’s not a place you regularly visit—
Why You Don't Have Hard Conversations
1. We Care Too Much About What Others Think
The number one reason we don’t have hard conversations is because we care too much about what others think of us. You’ll never venture into the hard conversations if your main concern is what the other person thinks of you.
If these are some of the questions that consistently prevent you from having a hard conversation, you’re most likely focused on what happens to you. I want to encourage you to keep the focus on the other person. Here are some questions that keep the focus on the other person: What happens if I don’t share what I’m noticing? What kind of freedom would be experienced if I engaged the other person?
If you find yourself more concerned about what someone else thinks about you, let me remind you of Galatians 1:10:
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Paul reminds us that pleasing man and serving Christ don’t work together. You’ll either have to choose one or the other.
2. Hard Conversations Demand Deeper Investment
When you shift your concern from 'what will they think of me?' to 'what happens if I don't speak up?', you understand that these discussions require more than a casual exchange. You can't just send a text or voice message and hope for the best.
To be clear, engaging someone in a difficult conversation should go beyond a simple text message. You should follow the example of Christ. God deepened his investment into humanity by being with us.
John 1:14 says:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,”
meaning that Jesus didn’t just die for us, he dwelt among us. He showed up for humanity. He sat with others in the midst of difficult situations. He wept with his friends in their sorrow.
Having a hard conversation means you’ll have to show up for the person. You’ll have to sit with them in difficult situations. It may even require a second or third conversation to help walk with them out of whatever they’ve found themselves in. Use the conversation to deepen your investment into someone else. And this is a most worthy investment because God will use it to grow you and others.
3. Hard Conversations Invite Emotional Daggers
Whenever you engage someone with a difficult conversation, you’re probably aware the other person might bring up some hard things about you as a defense mechanism. And who wants that? Here you are, trying to do the right thing by bringing a blind spot to someone’s attention only to be rewarded with being cut by their words.
Remember that this is only a defense mechanism. If this is the first time a person has been engaged in a difficult subject, don’t be surprised that they respond that way. As a believer in Christ, you must remember that your responsibility is not their response to you, but your response to Christ. Our response to others is steeped in Christ’s response to us. When we rejected Christ’s love in our sin, how did he respond to us? He graciously waited for us to accept his love and concern.
You can’t control how someone responds to you. But you can control how you respond to others. If someone retaliates with emotional daggers, arrows, and swords, know that in Christ, your heart is strong enough to be wounded and keep moving forward. It’s not that these responses don’t hurt, but because of a new identity in Christ, they don’t define us.
Now that we’ve identified the reasons you might struggle to have a hard conversation, you’re that much closer to gaining entry into the Elephant Club. Check out part 2 of this blog: The Elephant Club: How to Engage in Hard Conversations.
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.