In the animal kingdom, what makes the human unique is our brains.  There are many species that use collaborative behavior.  But the human has developed the capacity to collaborate through shared attention.  It is the ability of two or more people to not only pay attention to the same object but also be aware that they are paying attention to the same object.  For this blog I'll be referring to shared attention as focus.
 
In general, there are two processes that direct our collective focus.  The first, an anxious focus, is an automatic reaction to a perceived threat or worry.  For example, we might become concerned about the health of another person and focus more of our attention on them.  On the other end of the spectrum, we might draw the attention of others to our self and be concerned about our own well-being.  Murray Bowen’s concept of the triangle is relevant here.  As anxiety increases in a relationship system, person A becomes concerned about person C.  Person A draws in person B to focus on person C.  In this way person A and B have a shared attention on person C who has been identified as a problem.  It turns out that this type of focus (on a third person as a problem to be solved) has a way of calming down the relationship system.  Especially when everyone can agree on the problem, including the person being identified.  
 
A second, more productive focus is curiosity.  When a person can be curious about their situation, without judging or blaming others, there is a genuine effort to discover new possibilities.  The result is a more thoughtful process of observing what is true instead of what one wishes to be true.  While this type of focus does not immediately address the anxious worry of a congregation, over time, as solutions emerge, anxiety will decrease overall.  It is the sacrifice of short term gain for long term stability.  This is true of any effort to learn, problem-solve, or vision. 

When it comes to creating a vision for the congregation, it’s important to know the difference between these two ways of focusing.  If the effort to discern the future of the congregation is like the first type of shared attention (anxious and worried), then the vision process will be a disaster.  If, however, the process is consistent with the second type of focus (curiosity and discovery) then the chances are good that the vision process will bear fruit.

When a congregation participates in a vision process, it should include opportunities to learn and think.  When done well, a large circle of participant are engaged in a process of thinking about the current reality of the congregation, where the congregation needs to go, and the best way to get there.  In this way, multiple brains are receiving new information to determine the best course of action.  Each person may see things differently but collectively, congregations (when given a chance) are usually able to determine how to move forward.
 
 
Shared attention and the vision process
 
A good leader is one who pays attention to how the congregation is focused and navigates the process to provide opportunities for thoughtful, shared attention.  Here are some ways of thinking about a thoughtful process:
 
INFORMATION - A good leader encourages the congregation to discover facts about the congregation and the community.  This can include historical information, current information about the community, an assessment of strengths of the congregation, and other facts that become available.
 
TIMELINE – A good leader develops a process that allows for a sequence of opportunities for 1) learning, 2) integrating, 3) articulating, and 4) communicating.  This process is repeated several times.  It is essential that that congregation be given opportunities to give feedback to the visioning team which becomes part of the learning process (see step 1).
 
DISRUPT– Worry, fear, stress, and anxiety are detrimental to the visioning process if left unchecked.  While anxiety can be a useful motivator for change, if a congregation’s attention is focused on worry, individuals will have limited capacity to think.  If worry becomes the central focus of the process, it will be impossible to develop a vision for the future.
 
THINKING – A good process includes opportunities for good thinking.  Sharing feelings, emotions, heartfelt views of the congregation may make for a good newsletter article but they are not helpful in developing a vision.  We, humans, know God because of our prefrontal cortex, the heavenly lobes that make us unique in the animal kingdom.  This section of the brain that allows us to relate to God is also what gives us the capacity for shared attention and other executive functions.  Why would we turn it off and operate out of a feeling state when it comes to leading God’s church? 
  
Bringing together a congregation to participated in an activity of shared attention to develop a robust vision is hard work.  It's vital work, but it is challenging.  If you want to create a vision for the future of the congregation, always error on the side of thinking.  One way to engage thinking is to ask good questions, be curious about the process, observe patterns of behavior, look at historical frameworks, and draw a wide circle of participation to make the most out of the resources that are available.  We can learn a lot when we take advantage of a process like this.  Discerning a congregation's direction is possible when leaders engage their own thinking and the thinking of others.

Researchers in Australia have been interested in studying the interactions between teachers and students.  Particularly, they are interested in what makes for good teaching and learning.  To this end, they’ve conducted experiments to monitor students in real time. 
 
In one experiment students were given wristband monitors to wear during class.  The wristbands were specially designed to measure heart rates and electrodermal activity.  Researchers were able to take the aggregate of the data to examine how comfortable the students were and to what extent they were engaged in the material. 
 
It got me thinking:  What if we hooked up an entire congregation during worship?  That would be cool!
 
 
Teaching and Preaching
 
Church growth pundits continue to insist that preaching is the most important element for  a Christian congregation.  Unfortunately, not every pastor is a good preacher.  Like any effective presenter, good preachers know their audience and how to engage them.  But for some pastors, it’s a challenge to observe what resonates with a congregation.  And most congregants (the audience) are reluctant or unable to give helpful feedback. 
 
From a biofeedback perspective, what makes for good preaching?  Some might consider that question blasphemous.  In protestant circles, the spoken word is seen as a powerful vehicle for transformation.  What a preacher says matters.  But if two preachers preach the same words they might be heard differently by different people.  How might we explain this?  It could be the work of the Spirit, but there also might be other things at play.
 
Perhaps after I finish up my current list of projects, I might look into purchasing a wristband for everyone who attends worship.  As they arrive, worshipers and worship leaders would put on their neurofeedback wristband for the length of the service.  The wristbands would provide important feedback.  For example, when our worshipers most engaged with the worship service?  When are worshipers listening and participating and how might we explain the difference between different times of attentiveness?  A second area of interest might be providing worshipers with feedback about their level of participation.  Worshipers could see when they are the most engaged and what steps they might take to stay more engaged during the entire worship service.
 
 
The Complexity of This Work
 
Things like attentiveness and engagement are best understood in the context of one’s family of origin.  It is there that individuals learn levels of attentiveness and engagement.  The wide variation of attentiveness and engagement that exists in a family unit has to do with the level of anxiety in the family and where the anxiety is focused.  If the level of anxiety is high in the family and one child receives the majority of the projection of the anxiety, that child will more than likely struggle with regulating their attentiveness and engagement as a child and as an adult.  Those who are out of the projection process will more than likely do better self-regulating their attentiveness and engagement. 
 
Most preaching is evaluated with little regard for the emotional complexities of both the preacher and the hearer.  I’ve made this case in earlier blogs; the majority of praise or criticism one might receive at the conclusion of a worship service has less to do with specific aspects of the worship service and everything to do with the emotional functioning of the persons offering and receiving the praise or criticism.
 
Leaders can play a role in the emotional process.  The functional level of a leader can exasperate or improve the functional level of the group.  But that’s true of any relationship system. 
 
If the wristbands turn out to be an effective way of giving one feedback, I may decide to wear it all the time.  Learning how one is responding to the emotional process present in every relationship system is valuable information for the one working on differentiation of self – a concept developed by Dr. Murray Bowen.

What type of feedback have you found useful?  How do you use this feedback to work on regulating your reactivity to others and engaging your thinking system to keep on track?
 
The wristbands used with the Australian students and teachers were from Empatica  and can be found by clicking here.

As long as I can remember, congregational consultants have talked about the need for congregations to reach out to people beyond the four walls of the church.  In the face of declining membership, how do you motivate people to build relationships outside of the church?  Walls are constructed for a reason, and most congregations like to pay more attention to what’s going on inside the four walls. 
 
Rev. Peter Steinke, who wrote the book Healthy Congregations, said congregations are always living with the tension between serving those who are insiders and those who are outsiders.  This tension can lead to arguments over funding and the use of the building.  It can also stir conflict over whether the pastor should spend time visiting the home bound or meeting people in the community.  It’s a false dichotomy which pits one against the other.  When anxiety is high, having the pastor spend time building relationships with people outside of the congregation can feel like a threat to the future of those inside the building. 
 
 
We are by our nature territorial.
 
We are by our nature possessive, especially when it comes to physical space.  We strive to define a space and then protect it.  When neighbors, for example, get along with each other, they are able to manage their differences.  But not all neighbors are able to get along.  The tension between neighbors can escalate. What may have started out as a minor disagreement can result in building fences and walls.  The escalation of the problem exposes the emotional immaturity of each neighbor and their families.  Attempts by each neighbor to justify their position is fueled by an emotional process in which the thinking system is hijacked by the the feeling system. 
 
Relationship space is also an emotional trigger.  If we feel that someone important to us is distant, we might move emotionally closer to them.  You might pick up the phone and call them.  If someone is “up in my grill,” we might ask them to back off.  Space matters because our brains are highly sensitive to space as it correlates with safety.  If we haven’t heard from someone we love in a while, we become concerned that something bad has happened to them.  But if someone is too close, we fear they might attempt to control us.
 
Our efforts to manage the spaces between us reveal our own biases.  Take, for example, the automatic effort to keep certain people at a distance.  While we may think the problem is in the other person, keeping a distance from someone illuminates our sense of inadequacy related to our ability to resolve the problem, and the confidence we lack to find a solution.  It may feel easier to walk away and keep our distance.
 
 
Keeping a Distance
 
In every congregation I have served, there are people I have felt close to and people (not very many) I have kept a distance from.  This is part of the human condition.  Think about fellowship time in your congregation.  Who are the people you are addicted to?  Who do you migrate towards in a crowded room?  Who do you enjoy spending time with?  Whose presence makes you feel relaxed?  Also, who are the people you are allergic to?  Who do you avoid?  Who do you keep a distance from and avoid making eye contact with?  Who do you ruminate and worry about?  If you are not sure, consider doing an experiment before or after worship: pay attention to how you navigate groups of people.  Who do you move closer to and who do you avoid.  To some degree, we all have people we are attracted to and allergic to. 
 
If you find yourself avoiding someone at church, it’s helpful to observe and identify how you react to this person instead of focusing on their problematic behavior.  For myself, I have noticed times when someone’s behavior can get me revved up inside.  But then there are other times when the same behavior doesn’t bug me as much.  What makes the difference? 
 
Two things. One the one hand, it has something to do with the other person’s level of intensity.  They may be upset about something or agitated about life in general.  There may be more oomph behind their behavior.  On the other hand, my internal state may be calm, or it may be revved up.  This creates four possible variations that may or may not lead to my need to distance from someone else’s behavior.  1) The other is calm, and I am calm, 2) the other is calm, but I am revved up, 3) the other is revved up, and I am calm, or 4) the other is revved up, and I am revved up.  All four of these variables have different behavioral outcomes.    When both are revved up, psychological and/or physical walls are constructed.
 
 
Build your capacity to think, instead of building walls.
 
All living things contain walls.  Whether it’s tree bark or fish scales, walls protect organisms by controlling what comes in and what goes out.  For humans, the largest organ in the body, the skin, is a wall.  However, we also have other walls that are more permeable.  They include our sensory organs that transmit experiences of touch, taste, feel, see, and hear.  Our neurological system helps us regulate and control the spaces between us.  Our brain filters these sensory experiences as we move closer to or further away from others.  Current research suggests that our perceptions of what is real is often inaccurate and filled with biases.  Bias is an automatic function of the brain to help determine what sensory input to focus on and what to ignore.
 
Without intellectual oversight, we respond automatically to perceived threats.  These automatic responses are rooted in the emotional system.  The emotional system is what motivates our behavior.  It’s what motivates us to build fences, walls, to chase after a potential mate, or to run away from a barking dog.  How we behave in the relationship system is based on the reactivity of the emotional system.  Building a fence to keep out a neighbor says just as much about our own emotional system as it does about theirs.  We can point the finger at the other and declare that they are dangerous, but we can also discover how our own reactivity to a perceived threat can become hypersensitive and overreactive; essentially adding fuel to the fire.
 
Are humans able to work out their differences and not construct walls?  Yes, without a doubt.  Do we have the capacity to work out our problems and find creative solutions moving forward?  Yes, no matter the circumstances.  The issue is not capacity.  The issue is self-regulation. 
 
While we spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to regulate the behavior of others (often by regulating the distance between us) we spend very little time and money trying to regulate our own reactivity.  We accuse others of bad behavior, but often excuse our own and justify it as right or righteous.
 
I’m not saying that others aren’t capable of committing heinous acts.  But do I think it’s possible to live in a society where there are no prisons?  Yes.  Particularly if we think of the ways prisons are run today.  Crime will always be a problem, but our response to irresponsible behavior can look radically different; taking into account a systems perspective.
 
Do I think it’s possible to live in a world with open borders?  Yes.  I think there will always be individuals who act irresponsibly, but I think the response to irresponsible behavior can look radically different.  Our inability to conceive of a world without walls says something about our own level of reactivity and inability to engage our thinking system in the brain.  
 
I understand the need for boundaries, the need to define space, and the need to set up the rule of law.  However, the response to irresponsible behavior doesn’t need to be punishment.  Addressing a grievance is about finding a solution within the context of the problem through a process of engaging one’s best thinking about the problem.
 
When Dr. Murray Bowen began to think about the emotional process and how it works in the family, he noticed that individuals could either relate to each other out of their maturity or immaturity.  The effort towards differentiation of self was to engage one’s mature level, what he came to call the thinking system.  Bowen found that time and again when one made an effort to respond at a more mature level, the other person would eventually shift to respond in at a more mature level.  When one is able to have their mature self relate to their immature self, problems in the relationship system subside.    
 
Instead of erecting fences or walls, we might consider ways to increase our capacity to think and engage our mature self.  Fear is what drives immaturity.  Fear is what can lead congregations to huddle in place and eventually die.  Stepping out and engaging a community signals to others that one is making an effort to be their best possible self.
 
 
Breaking down barriers at home
 
As always, it’s important to go back to one’s family of origin.  The automatic ways we move closer to some and farther away from others is a product of the family.  The family is where we learn to manage our discomfort with others.  By going back to the family, we can observe how people managed their discomfort and then think about options for responding differently.  And, as always, having a good coach can make a difference.

The powerhouse 70’s soul group The O’Jays gave us the hit song “For the Love of Money.”  If you don’t remember it, or wonder if you ever heard it, think Donald Trump.  It is hard NOT to think about Donald Trump these days.  “For the Love of Money” served as the theme music for the President’s  Apprentice television franchise.

Remember the chorus “money, money, money, money”? 

Often misinterpreted as a song that celebrates the accumulation of money, it actually has another message entirely.  “For the Love of Money” is an unadorned warning about the other, more sordid, side of the accumulation of wealth.  It points out what people wind up doing to gain more of the green stuff:  cheat, lie, even steal from their mother.
Songwriters Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff gave the O’Jays this striking statement about greed and financial gain. At the time, their song-writing skills were making them quite a lot of “money, money, money, money.”  Recent religious converts, Gamble and Huff also were reconciling their spiritual beliefs with their lifestyle.  They were curious about money’s impact on their own lives, and how it might ultimately change them. The main intention of the song is clear:  Don’t let money consume or define you.

Emotional process theologian and Rabbi Edwin Friedman, the author of Generation to Generation and A Failure of Nerve, often reminded his students that “the issue is never the issue.”

How does that translate to money?  There are layers under anything where money is involved.  Money is the flash point.  Money and stewardship are the focused upon “tip of an iceberg.”  What lies beneath the tip of that iceberg?  Relationships and the give-and-take between people encompass the larger body of ice that exists under the surface of the water.   Because you and I associate money and stewardship processes with survival or avoidance of pain, it is easy for money and stewardship to be a focus of heightened fear.  To observe what lies underneath the surface might just be the beginning of a spiritual awakening.

There is nothing boring about congregations and congregational life in the 21st century!   The ability to observe what happens in communities of faith around money, stewardship, and mission involves allowing our curiosity to emerge.  It involves engaging our thinking brains rather than our reactivity.  Curiosity has a motivating power.  Can we be curious about the intensity that surrounds a budget shift or a staff reduction?  Any chance we can look at something in our own history or the history of the organization that might give a clue about what is happening with me?  What would it be like to be curious about my own reactions to a budget that is not supporting something I hold dear or a key mission initiative?  

Money and stewardship unleash the power of the automatic.  I affectionately call reactive terms “the f words” – fight, flight, freeze, fuze, frenzy, fornicate, feeding and ph-armacology.  “The f words” demonstrate the survival buttons that God installed in us.  In the event of a threat, either real or imagined, mobilize!  Help me feel better right now!  And do it in a familiar way.  Everyone has a favorite reactive style, and it doesn’t usually fall far from the family tree.

Raised with second generation immigrant parents, my siblings and I had access to resources that were unavailable to our parents.  Our opportunities for education and easy “money, money, money, money” were a dream-come-true for our parents and grandparents.   The result was so automatic that it could be an emotional systems case study.  Our easy access created the tension of associating access to resources as “success” and the opposite as failure.  It wasn’t until I faced years of tough struggles in church budgets, building programs, and losses of key stewardship leaders that I had to acknowledge that my automatic reactions did not fit my experience.  It also did not fit with my desire to live into a faith defined by Jesus, where failure is also the beginning of resurrection and new life.  I had to grow up. 

Knowing what we believe about money and stewardship is important.  Equally important is the ability to maintain our curiosity when what we believe and what we react to just don’t seem to match.  Knowing your family’s story about money and stewardship helps to put the automatic into perspective. 

The O’Jays remind us to observe better and without judgment.  If we come to see that where our fears erupt is where a more mature family and a more mature church can emerge.  Maturing congregations manage the conflicts, find differences intriguing and a sign of new life, and acknowledge that the grace of God exists in the places where the hidden is revealed.

Emlyn A. Ott
Executive Director, Healthy Congregations, Inc.
[email protected]
 
Interested in further reading? Check the website at www.healthycongregations.com