Caring Enough To Confront By David AugsburgerSample

Day One 

Care-fronting

Scripture: Matthew 18:15

Caring. Obviously a good word.

Confronting? Frequently a bad word. 

Both are highly important relational words. Put together, they provide the unique combination of love and truth that is necessary for building effective human relationships. 

The more common practice is to keep these two distinct and separate. Caring dare not be contaminated by any mixture of confrontation. And confronting must not be diluted by any admixture of caring. Each weakens the other. To confront powerfully, lay care aside. To care genuinely, candor and confrontation must be forgotten, for the moment at least. 

“When someone matters to me—really matters, I do not dare to disagree. To differ is to disrespect. I cannot confront, because hurting another is the very last thing I want.” 

“When I’m angry, I confront. To talk of caring at a moment like that would be false. I speak the truth as I see it and let the chips fly from my shoulder to fall where they may.” 

A third word: Care-fronting. A good word. 

Care-fronting is offering genuine caring that lifts, supports, and encourages the other. To care is to bid another to grow, to welcome, invite, and support growth in another.

Care-fronting is being upfront with important facts that can call out new awareness, insight, and understanding. To confront effectively is to offer the maximum of useful information with the minimum of threat and stress.

Care-fronting is loving and level conversation. It unites the love one has for the other with the honest truth that I am able to see about the two of us. Care-fronting unites concern for relationship with concerns for goals—my goals, your goals, our goals. So one can have something to stand for (goals) as well as someone to stand with (relationship) without sacrificing one for the other or collapsing one into another. This allows each of us to be genuinely loving without giving away one’s power to think, choose, and act. In such honesty, one can love powerfully and be powerfully loving at the same time.

Care-fronting is, arguably, the most valuable secret for reforming conflicts. To be truly for the other person even as you stand for what you value is not just to be adept at interpersonal communication. It is what it means to be adult. 

Would you say you are good at care-fronting? Why or why not?