So here comes a "Family Systems" approach claiming to address the situation. What can it teach us about how we conduct ourselves in public places, and why should anyone come to such a workshop as this?

Often unknowingly, in adult life, we emerge, from an underlying "river of emotional experience" with our ancestral families. We bring with us into each "Family - System - like" community the loaded content of these rich experiences. The church is one of these "Systemic" organizations in which we participate. In recent years, critical organizational processes have been tested. Thanks to the "Family Systems" work of Murry Bowen (in the 1950s) and its application to congregations by such writers as Rabbi Edwin Friedman (1985) and Peter Steinke (1993) we can now fruitfully apply solid family systems research to helping congregations become "unstuck"[2].

A church's stuck-ness shows up in several ways. Due to the comfort of close friendships, over the years, a reluctance to initiate creative and needed change can develop out of fear that such action might rock the boat. The main hope for moving beyond this impasse of timidity is a small group of people or some clergy and lay leadership who see the need for creative change and who will overcome any fear of the reactions they might receive from others.

Emotional stuck-ness refers to the processes that guide us automatically. These are instinctive responses that bypass thoughtfulness. They are not chosen or planned, but result from what is done as a matter of habit and for the sake of stability, familiarity and maintaining balance in the midst of anxiety.

Friedman gives an example of counter-productivity in automatic functioning when he comments upon the emotional triangles created by clergy and other leaders when they "try harder." Leaders push, pull, tug, kick, shove, threaten, convince, arm-twist, charm, entice, cajole, induce guilt, shout louder or attempt to become more eloquent. This approach does not work because the leadership behavior creates an emotional triangle between the leader, the followers and some goal. Such activity by a leader gives power to the follower so that in system after system, the most dependent personalities call the shots and engage in sabotage. Family Systems understandings will help one to know how to be effective by de-triangulation.

Anxiety in the system is driven by "survival thinking." Anything that threatens the system's safety is rejected or denied. Anxiety limits creativity and functioning. It restricts the number of options we can imagine and the full range of responses we might need to make. Emotionally stuck congregations act our of anxiety and automatically in an effort to survive; but these responses create more problems than they solve.

Until congregations can somehow be consciously awakened or even jarred from automatic functioning, they will be ever emotionally stuck, seeking only passivity and like-minded tranquility. Congregations that protect their "whiners and supersensitive souls" will never have the strength to move out of their stuck-ness. Attending only to the weakest members, the passive-aggressive personalities, those least likely to be responsible for leadership, and a clear missional direction, gives over to them the control of the future.

So how do we move ahead and not remain mired in the past? Friedman says that change seldom happens without two major elements: (a) A sufficient amount of pain for the present situation to motivate new behavior and (b) leaders who are uncommonly motivated with emotional stamina to see change through. In this process a most clear common denominator is a "strong pastor willing to weather conflict, with a clear sense of vision, engaging in the inevitable conflict and defining him or her self well" --- joining together with renewed, energetic and imaginative lay leadership.

For these and many other critical reasons --- (some of which you must come and see) --- you need to attend this workshop and we all need to know about Family Systems!

Dr. Mike Simpson is Senior Minister of the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Winston Salem, North Carolina, and a national authority on Family Systems and how they might be utilized to revitalize congregations.

Roger Sizemore, Consulting Pastor for Discerning Missional Faithfulness
November 2006

Endnotes:

1. This article is, in large measure, adapted from the work of Peter Steinke, "When congregations are Stuck," Christian Century, April 7, 1999.
2. See: Edwin H. Friedman, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue (1985); and the Family systems works of Murry Bowen, Jay Haley, Salvadore Munuchin, and their dependence upon the communication theories of Gregory Bateson and Milton Erickson

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