The decision was made to paint the kitchen.  The trustees had met, reviewed a handful of color options, and then made the decision.  Because it was a small church, the decision makers became the volunteer painters. 
 
So, jump ahead a few weeks.  It’s a Friday morning.  The paint had been purchased.  The appliances were all moved to the center of the room and the walls were prepped.  It was going to be an all-day project.  It’s wasn’t a big kitchen, but with cabinets, sinks and pipes to paint around it would take the better part of a day to finish.  Plus, these are retired volunteers.  No one is punching a clock. 
 
I was helpful.  I’m not a great painter (although it is amazing how much better I’ve become the longer I have served congregations).  I rolled paint.  We talked.  When doing volunteer projects, you get to learn about other people; who they are, and what’s important to them. 
 
It ended up being a steady day of painting.  I must say, the kitchen looked great.  It’s amazing what a new coat of paint can do for a room. 
 
Proud of our accomplishments, we cleaned, packed up, and headed home.  It was dinner time.
 
I don’t remember why I went back to the church.  Maybe I forgot something.  Maybe I was driving by and saw someone in the building.  Or maybe someone had called me to let me know what was happening in the kitchen.  Whatever the reason, when I went back, there she was.
 
Jacqueline was an active member.  She didn’t serve on any committees, but she volunteered and sung in the choir.  She was good friends with the former pastor and was always suspect of me.  She had two teenage children.  And there, standing in the middle of a freshly painted kitchen were the three of them.  In my naiveté I assumed they were there to take in the amazing work of the trustees and to celebrate, finally, the completion of the project.  I was wrong.  While it’s true she was there to see what had been done, she was not excited.   
 
What she said to me, in a tone of exasperation, was, “This is a terrible choice of color.  I’m going out to the store and purchasing a different color.”  In that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me she was serious.  I would come to learn how serious she really was.  I decided to give her the process litany: 
 

• This is a decision of the trustees
• They met several times and discussed whether or not to paint the kitchen.
• They met several times and discussed a choice of color.
• They voted.
• They painted.
• The end.

 
While I don’t recall verbatim the conversation, I’m pretty sure at some point in the litany I said something like, “If you don’t like the color, I suggest you talk to the chair of the trustees and take it up with them.” 
 
She said, “I’m not going to talk to anyone.  I’m going to pick out different paint.” 
 
With the knowledge on my side of how satisfied the trustees were with their accomplishment, I responded by saying, “Who’s going to paint?”
 
Without hesitation she said, “The three of us are.”  And just like that, the three of them left.
 
I thought I had some time to figure out what to do next.  At least twelve hours.  It was 7 pm.  By the time they purchased the paint and were back, it would be closer to 8 pm.  It had taken us all day to paint (granted, they were not a fast bunch) so even if they got back by 8 pm, only a fool would start that late. It would be easier to start fresh in the morning, or so I thought.  I ultimately concluded that she was bluffing.  I would be wrong again.
 
Just in case I was wrong about her motivation, I arrived early the next morning to meet her and the two teenagers at the church.  As I entered the church, there was no signs of the three of them.  No ladders and no cans of paint.  No drop cloths.  Only the sight of the kitchen with a different color of paint.  She hadn’t been bluffing at all.  They had been there all night repainting the kitchen.  It was the color Jacqueline wanted.
 
Nowhere in my seminary education or training had I been given an inkling that someday I would be dealing with this.  How am I going to respond to this?  What would I do?  I was completely lost.  What in the world was going on here?
 
 
The importance of taking time for input.
 
What do trustees fear the most?  Congregational input.  Anyone who has ever attempted to replace carpeting in a worship space knows firsthand when you open the conversation up to the congregation for input, chaos may await you.  But is that really true? 
 
The biggest enemy to a board of trustees is not the congregation but a sense of urgency.  It’s amazing how a board of trustees can take months to discuss and debate the merits of a capital improvement, but are often unwilling to afford congregational members the same opportunity.  When this happens, trustees and congregations begin to struggle.  It becomes a pattern.  Trustees fear congregational conflict so they don’t consult with the congregation about decisions they are trying to make.  Congregations become frustrated with trustees because they are never consulted on decisions.  So congregations become critical of decisions made by the trustees.  In reaction to the criticism, trustees react by being defensive which makes them less motivated to consult with the congregation in the future and on and on it goes.
 
In my experience, when congregations are invited to give feedback on a particular project, the process is, in general, positive.  If this has not been your experience, you can comment below.  The problem is really the fear of what others might do.
 
 
The importance of knowing the three “C’s” of an effective process.
 
I once heard Richard Blackburn, the guru of congregational conflict and mediation, describe the three C’s of making a decision: communication, communication, communication.  It is the key to any decision making process.  When there can be good communication and time to address problems as they arise, the best possible decision will be made.  Decisions that are rushed, done in secret, or exclude specific people or groups are recipes for disaster.  Open communication in these situations is offend viewed as a threat to the process. 
 
 
The importance of protecting the process and asking good questions.
 
Problems arise, not in developing the process, but in the implementation.  It’s common to hear leaders say, “There hasn’t been much resistance to this new idea being proposed.  That’s unusual.”  I always remind them it’s because no action steps have been taken yet.  When concrete steps are taken, and the process moves forward, anxiety and reactivity go up.  When it does, it’s critical for congregational leaders to not defend, not attack and not withdraw. 
 
Clergy in partnership with congregational leaders can be helpful by protecting the process; making sure agreed upon steps are being followed.  When anxiety rises, which is inevitable, the temptation is to side step the process in order to side step anxiety.  When a leader is confident in the process and is able to articulate their best thinking about the importance of sticking with the process there is a better chance the anxiety will decrease.
 
Another way for clergy and congregational leaders to address rising anxiety is to ask good questions.  Questions that engage thinking can make all the difference.  Questions like:
 

1. How have decisions been made in the past?  What was the process?  Who makes the decision?
2. When has this congregation made a good decision?  What was the process?
3. How does your family make decisions?  Who makes them?  What’s the process?
4. What is the greatest fear about this project?  How do we get factual about this fear?  How likely is the fear to come true?
5. What are leaders responsible for in the process; not responsible for?
6. When it comes to communication, what is leadership responsible for?  What are congregational members responsible for?
7. What factors might push this process off course?  How do we get ourselves back on track when we get off course?

 
 
It’s important to remember that each person is responsible for addressing their own level of anxiety.
 
Before you decide to say to someone, “You need to calm down and deal with your own anxiety,” don’t do it!  It never goes well.  Trust me, I know from experience.  However, it is true that each person is responsible for their own reactivity.  We cannot control each other’s response to anxiety.  We can only control the self.  The best we can do is adjust and modify the anxiety we share with others.  It is more than just being a calm, non-anxious presence.  It is being a thinking presence.  Calming oneself is helpful in order to think clearly, but it is the thinking that modifies the distribution of anxiety from one person to another.
 
This, then, is the heart of what we call “bad behavior”.  As much as we would like to think that bad behavior is the result of evil intentions of others or calculated attempts to infuriate our sense of well-being, the truth is bad behavior is a symptom of a larger problem within the relationship system.
 
 
It’s important to resist the need to over-function.
 
Dr. Murray Bowen observed that when an individual picks up the anxiety of a group, there is a tendency for some to take on more responsibility.  It’s difficult to be critical of someone who is a hard worker, willing to take on more responsibility.  Bowen observed, however, that this effort is motivated by a need to reduce their own level of anxiety.  Doing too much is a reaction to rising tensions in the relationship system.  Bowen, in his theory of human behavior, described this process as over-functioning and under-functioning.
 
Before becoming critical of controlling people in your congregation, remember we all operate out of a relationship system.  Those who over-functioning do so because the system demands it.  In other words, when anxiety goes up, those who are vulnerable to taking on the anxiety increase or decrease their functioning.  When functioning in the system decreases, others pick up the slack and do more.  When someone increases their functioning in response to anxiety, others respond by decreasing.  It takes at least two to tango.  You can’t have one without the other. 
 
A good coach works with the person who is most motivated in the relationship system.  It is usually the one who over-functions.  It’s important to appreciate the motivation and weight this person carries within the system.  They often feel personally responsible for the well-being of others.  Telling them to be less responsible sounds cold and callous.  It’s only when one is able to see their part in the process, the role they play in perpetuating patterns and anxiety, that the system can change. When one is able to tie their over-functioning and over-investment to the decreased functioning of others in the relationship system, there is a realization that the effort to help others is having the opposite effect.  The extent of the shift will be commensurate with the leader’s capacity to tolerate increasing levels of anxiety and their ability to respond with more thinking and less reactivity.  At the core of this effort is a belief that others are doing the best they can with what they have and that we can all do better. 
 
I invite you to share your thoughts below in the comment section.  How do you think about these problems within congregations?  What role can a leader play?

We live in circles of belonging and circles of believing.
 
What we believe may have to do with who we belong to.  If you have ever disagreed with a family member or even found yourself at odds with a congregational leader, you know that it can be difficult to think differently while maintaining the relationship.  The good news is that there is great variation among family members and congregations.  Some are able to do this better than others, so there is hope that we can all do better when it comes to the interplay between our beliefs and our relationships. 
 
I recently heard a story from the Moth Radio Hour titled “Sunday School Dropout.”  You can listen to the 6-minute story by clicking here. 

Jen Lee tells the story of taking a weeklong vacation with her two young daughters to see her parents.  One of the highlights for the girls is going to their grandparent’s church and attending Sunday School.  While Jen no longer shares her parent’s faith, she and her husband agreed it’s okay for the girls to go to Sunday School.  One Sunday, after church, the eight-year-old goes upstairs to her grandparent’s bedroom and starts reading a Bible.  In the back of the Bible she finds something called “the sinners prayer.”  That night, the eight-year-old and her mom talk about the prayer.  Jen explains to her daughter it’s not true that if you magically say the prayer, you get to go to heaven.  There are other ways to get to heaven.  Her daughter cries and says, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.  I don’t know what’s true.  I just want to believe what you believe, and what dad believes, and grandpa and grandma and the Christians religion.”   It turns out that at Sunday School, when the teacher asked her if she goes to church back home, half of the kids in the class gasped when she said, "no".  She immediately realized she was outside the circle of belonging, and she desperately wanted to be back in.
 
Jen observed that beliefs have a way of creating a circle of belonging.  Her daughter was working hard to fit into a circle because she wanted to belong, especially when it came to her family.  What would it look like for circles of belonging to shape naturally, she wonders?  Do we get to belong to the family even if we don’t belong to the same circle of belief they belong to?
 
That’s a great question.  What role do beliefs play in shaping the circles we belong to?  Can you belong to a relationship circle without sharing identical beliefs?
 
 
The beliefs we hold serve a function in the relationship system.
 
Beliefs have a way of keeping people together or keeping them apart.  A community of people can form a strong bond around shared beliefs.  In the extreme, people will take their own lives.  That was the case for the people who followed Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.  They were drawn together in their belief in Jones, even to death.  It’s a powerful reminder of the connection between beliefs and relationships.  In my community, the United Methodist Church, people have different beliefs about homosexuality and same-sex marriage.  The intensity of these differences has become disruptive to the denomination’s ability to remain a global community.  These different beliefs may end up keeping us apart. 
 
Whether it’s a congregation or a family, the essential question is: what is driving this process?  When you listen to people talk, it appears that it is the beliefs that are influencing the relationships.  But is that really the case?  Is it possible that it is the relationships system that is actually driving what we do and don’t believe?  Does the level of tension in the relationship system have an impact on our beliefs?
                                                                                            
 
Where do beliefs comes from?
 
While we would like to think the beliefs we hold are our true convictions, Dr. Murray Bowen observed that beliefs function as a reflection of the family emotional process.  “Pseudo-self” is what he used to describe beliefs we adopt based on the relationship system.
 
"The pseudo-self is created by emotional pressure, and it can be modified by emotional pressure.  Every emotional unit, whether it be the family or the total of society, exerts pressure on group members to conform to the ideals and principles of the group.  The pseudo-self is composed of a vast assortment of principles, beliefs, philosophies, and knowledge acquired because it is required or considered right by the group.  Since the principles are acquired under pressure, they are random and inconsistent with one another, without the individual’s being aware of the discrepancy. . . . [It] is a 'pretend' self. . . . The joining of groups is motivated more by the relationship system than the principle involved.”  Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 365.
 
Beliefs function to either bring people closer together or keep them at a distance.  The extreme version of how a belief functions to create distance is the rebel.  Sensitive to the tension in the relationships system, the rebel develops beliefs contrary to the group in order to maintain distance. 
 
"Opposing viewpoints appear to be related more to opposing the other than to real strength of conviction . . . The opposing viewpoints seem to function in the service of maintaining identity. . . The more clearly one states a viewpoint, the more rigorously the other raises the opposition." Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, 78
 
Because beliefs can be created and influenced by emotional pressure, they are vulnerable to anxiety.  As anxiety increases, the belief system can be hijacked.  Because our fear response is hard wired into us, the functional response of fight, flight, and freeze is connected to our belief system.  As anxiety increases and we become afraid, there is an increased need for people to agree.  At higher levels of anxiety, disagreement means you are against me.  As the current U.S. presidential race has shown, people feel a strong need to draw a line in the sand between what they believe to be right and wrong in order to draw this distinction.  In situations where the fear response is low, it is possible for individuals to do a better job of maintaining the relationships even if they don’t agree. 
 
A good read on this topic is Robert L. Williamson’s book Family Thoughts: Studies of the Functioning of Beliefs within the Family Unit.  He writes:
 
“Understanding that beliefs can be the product of the family unit raises questions as to whether such explanations can always hit the mark.  Some beliefs are fashioned through an individual effort to take in information, think about it, and decide what is most reasonable or best fits the facts through a process that is largely free of the influence of relationship pressures.  These beliefs are not attractive in that they have some function in the family unit or other group, but because they make the most sense.  This is what Bowen called “solid self.”  It is my view, however, that many of our beliefs are adopted, modified, or abandoned in ways driven largely by family process.  Does this distinction matter?  I think it does.  Beliefs which are the product of the family unit or other group can be brittle.  When relationships change, beliefs which function to express and support the patterns which marked the relationship can become unnecessary or undesirable.  On the other hand, such beliefs can be defended rigidly in a way which is impervious to new learning.  Doubts can be experienced as threat to the relationship which a belief functions to support.  Or such beliefs can simply leave a person confused, embarked on a life course that, at some point, comes to make little sense.  Solid beliefs, on the other hand, can help someone set and maintain a life course.  Or, they can be freely modified when new information is available.”  Family Thoughts, page 73-74.
 
Those who are more mature are able to develop what Bowen called a “solid self.”  The beliefs of the solid self are shaped over time.  They are developed through a thoughtful, reflective process based on the best available facts and one’s best thinking.  Most importantly, these beliefs are a resource for the individual as tension increases and the relationships system because less flexible.  In fact, the ability to act on a solid self belief during times of anxious reactivity from others can provide a more stable pathway forward for the person and for the relationship system, over the long term.  Effective leaders can stick to their core beliefs without defending, attacking, or withdrawing.  They are less influenced by the anxious reactions of others, they decrease the level of chronic anxiety in the relationships system, and provide an arena for others to pick up the effort to do better.
 
In addition to not defending, attacking, or withdrawing, effective leaders know what others think and can respect their beliefs without effecting the relationship.  When there is a change in the relationships system, it is a reflection of the level of immaturity in the system, not just in the individual.



What’s at stake is not the belief but our willingness to defend a belief despite evidence to the contrary. 
 
Scientific communities can seem to be places where individuals do their best research and thinking.  In reality, they are just as vulnerable to these emotional processes as families and congregations.  Confirmation bias and other variables play a key role in blocking scientists from embracing new discoveries and new ideas.  Bias is influenced by the relationships system, which means the way a scientist views their findings has something to do with the influence of the relationship system.   
 
Like scientific communities, congregations have their set of core beliefs that drive behavior.  These beliefs are based on writings/scripture and the reasoned teachings of the community over a long period of years.  But in the heat of the moment, beliefs are susceptible to the emotional process, as discussed above.  While it is possible to hold a belief that is contrary to the teachings of the congregation, when tensions are high, it’s a challenge.  Likewise, when there is a heightened level of anxiety, individuals may react in a more automatic way, not based on a core set of beliefs. 
 
Today, there seems to be less flexibility among congregational leaders to articulate beliefs which run counter to the teachings of the congregation, and there appears to be less flexibility within congregations to respect the variation in beliefs among its members.  One can see this emotional process at work when one publicly agrees with the group even though they really don’t personally agree, when one remains silent about their beliefs even when they run contrary to the group’s public stance, when one attacks those who think differently, or when ones leaves out of a congregation over a belief.
 
 
There are alternatives for individuals to develop mature beliefs that are easily accessible.
 
I have this idea for a small group but haven’t yet set out to implement it.  The idea comes from Bowen’s practice of writing belief papers.  The exercise invites individuals to describe a belief, how one arrived at the belief, how the belief has changed over time, how one has changed their behavior based on the belief, and how this belief is consistent or inconsistent with other beliefs and actions.  Individuals would have 5 minutes to present their belief to a group.  In order to address the emotional process, there would be no interaction between group members regarding the presentations.  It would simply be an effort to articulate a belief to a group of people in an environment where the leader of the group works to disrupt the emotional process that attempts to criticize or applaud a specific belief.
 
In this age of heightened anxiety and polarization, we are in desperate need of places to do our best thinking about what is really going on around us.  Congregations are uniquely poised to do this important work because of their long history of understanding the dynamics of beliefs.  No other institution better understands the impact of beliefs on determining a life course.  Understanding the influence of the emotional process on beliefs is essential, if congregations are to once again flourish and regain their health and vitality.

None will lead.  None will follow.  None will get out of the way.
 
I first heard this phrase at a conference hosted by the Center for Family Consultation.  The speaker was Dr. Dan Papero whose thinking inspired this blog post. For those in the Chicago area, you can hear Dr. Papero again this October.  Learn more by clicking here.  This phrase typifies what it means to be emotionally “stuck”.  Congregations, political institutions, and families can all experience being stuck.  While everyone can identify with the problem, we continue to struggle to find appropriate solutions.  We can see it playing out in a number of different ways in congregations:

• Very few decisions are ever made.
• A lot of discussion at meetings but very little is ever accomplished.
• Leaders avoid the problem and struggle to engage others in solving the problem. 
• Leaders hope someone from the outside will come in and solve their congregational problems. 
• There are rifts in relationships that make it difficult for certain people to talk to each other directly.
• Leaders have limited awareness of how the congregation is viewed by its members.
• Leaders have limited awareness of what individual members of the congregation are trying to accomplish in their own faith development.

 
 
Congregations are functionally helpless. 
 
Why is it when a congregation has lost hope and views themselves as helpless, they will continue to move in that direction as opposed to becoming more capable?  We see this even when congregations have motivated and experienced clergy.  Dr. Murray Bowen described this phenomenon as functional helplessness.  He originally observed it in families with children diagnosed with schizophrenia.  In his research, he described with great predictability, what happened when anxiety went up in a mother.  The child became helpless, which immediately drew the attention of the mother who then assumed an over-adequate role in order to help the child.  The result was a calmer mother.  Bowen never blamed the mother for this and never saw the child as a victim.  He called it functional helplessness because he did not believe the child was constitutionally helpless.  Instead, both were caught up in an emotional process, driven by reactivity to anxiety.  Efforts by both the child and the mother to do better were unsuccessful because each was sensitive and reactive to the emotional needs of the other. (Bowen, FTICP, 61) You can read more about over and under reciprocal functioning by clicking here.  
 
Becoming stuck in a relationship with someone happens in the context of a system.  Helplessness is not the result of individual deficiencies and is not created in a vacuum.  It is the result of a system.  By observing everyone’s behavior it is possible to see how the system functions as a whole and not simply as a collection of individuals.  All reactive behavior is reciprocal in nature.  It is also true that anxiety motivates behavior.  While it is difficult to see anxiety at work, one can observe it at work in the ways the relationship system behaves.
 
When a stressful event occurs, tensions develop between the relationships.  If the problem is resolved satisfactorily, tension dissipates.  However, some relationships are vulnerable to being unable to adequately resolve tensions.  This is due to higher levels of tension which are sustained over a long period of time.  With the focus on relieving tension (instead of solving the problem) congregations become stuck, unable to move forward in their mission.  Thus, we come to the leader’s mantra that I began with: no one leads, no one follows, and no one gets out of the way. 
 
"When anxiety increases and remains chronic for a certain period, the organism develops tension, either within itself or in the relationship, and the tension results in symptoms or dysfunction or sickness.”  (Bowen, FTICP, 361-362)
 
Congregations with ongoing, heightened levels of tension:

• struggle to receive and process new information and are more likely to filter new information and experiences through a perception bias shaped by anxiety.
• end up with leaders who are reactive to others, who struggle to self-regulate their own reactive behavior.
• desire short-term relief by transferring the tension around the congregation through basic relationship patterns (over/under functioning, conflict, and/or a focus on a third person).
• focus on the immediacy of problems instead of the long-term goals and the mission of the organization. 

 
In response to these experiences, leaders may attempt to force some kind of change on the congregation or they may give up.  Both responses represent a focus on the tension in the relationship system, instead of the actual presenting problem, which adds to the tension.  For example, the Christian church in the US continues to decline.  An enormous amount of time, money, and energy has been poured into fixing this problem.  At the same time, tensions within denominations and local churches have increased.  All levels of the church are experiencing tension - from worshipers to Bishops.  The research continues to shows things are getting worse, not better.  From a systems perspective, is it possible that efforts to address the initial signs of decline have in essence created functionally helpless congregations?  In our efforts to “help” congregations do better, we’ve become stuck in the underlying emotional processes.  The only way out of the quagmire is for each congregation, and its leadership to do their best thinking about a path forward.  So how do leaders go about this effort?
 
 
Becoming unstuck happens when a leader gains traction by being more thoughtful and less reactive.
 
The first step is raising one’s own level of functioning, which can result in being less reactive around anxious others and less tense about perceived problems in the congregation.  To get there, one has to shift their thinking from perception to reality.  When you see a gaggle of geese, notice that one or two always have their heads up keeping watch.  Their function is to spot danger and warn the others.  When danger is perceived, they sound the alarm by squawking and flapping.  This response sets in motion a chain reaction of survival behaviors.  Within seconds, all the geese are squawking and flapping.  This is how I think about congregational meetings.  One person perceives danger and starts sounding the alarm.  Before you know it the whole committee is up in arms, flapping and squawking.  One way out of this mess is to rely less on others to perceive danger and work towards being more objective.  In other words, unless the committee is in the throes of a life and death situation, don’t squawk and flap.  To do this, leaders need to engage thinking.  One way to do this is to ask questions that try to get more factual about the problem.  Differentiating oneself from the group requires “I” statements that reflect one’s best thinking about a situation. 
 
 
Before you can address the functional helplessness of the congregation, you have to address your own participation in functional helplessness.
 
What I’m talking about is improving one’s basic level of differentiation.  This is a long term effort.  It's developing the capacity to do a better job of regulate oneself.  The ideal context is the work one does to understand one’s family of origin through observing patterns in the family, researching facts of functioning for each member over multiple generations, and creating a plan to function differently in the family. 
 
In the work I do as a coach with clergy and congregational leaders, I’ve discovered that the problems leaders face in the congregations they serve also show up in their own families.  Observing the patterns in the family and developing awareness and insight into the nature of these patterns is a transferrable skill into the congregation.    
 
The effort to learn about the family through an intentional multigenerational study can bring about changes in the way one functions as a leader.  Collecting facts about the functioning of each person in the family includes things like level of education, vocations and careers, general health over their lifetime (physical, psychological or social problems), cause of death, date of birth, date of death, location of the family at different times of their lives, and making notes of hobbies or other independent activities.  These all contribute to understanding the level of functioning for the family across generations.  To learn more about the family diagram, you can read an article about it by clicking here. 
 
As one does this work, one begins to consider alternative ways of responding to tension in others and in the relationship system.  One begins to experiment with being less anxious and more thoughtful, and observes how others react and respond to this change.  In the short term, this effort may not be welcomed by others and may be seen as problematic.  However, long term, this type of effort does have positive outcomes for the individual, their own family, and the congregations they serve. 
 
This is the work of differentiation of self.  When one engages this effort, they develop the ability to separate feeling from thinking.  Because feeling and thinking are separate systems in the brain, understanding when one is feeling and when one is thinking is helpful to being aware of the emotional system.  When congregations are stuck, it is because the emotional system is being engaged more than their thinking system. The thinking system has the capacity to down regulate the emotional system.  When thinking is engaged, problems can be solved.
 
At the same time, it is also possible to separate out one’s own feelings, thinking, and actions from those of other people.  The ability to distinguish between what I feel, think, and do from what others feel, think, and do is an important step in pulling oneself out of the muck of congregational stuck-together-ness.
 
Here are some specific steps you can take:

• Develop beliefs that are not borrowed from others, but represent your best thinking.
• Take responsibility for your own tendencies to feel helpless or the need to rescue others by stepping back and observing the system. 
• See yourself as capable of this work, and become factual about what you are able to do and not do.
• See the congregation as capable, and become factual about what the congregation is able to do and not do.
• Find the motivation to do this work, and develop the courage to persevere in it.  What interests you or fascinates you about the work you are doing?
• Observe how anxiety moves through the relationship system and how you respond to it.  Apply these observations to your family of origin and then decide what you want to do with it.
• Continue to question and be curious about how all relationships function as a system.
• Be open to trial and error.  It takes time and requires a willingness to keep at it.

  
What are your thoughts about stuck congregations?  How have you experienced this for yourself?  What is useful to you in thinking about this issue?  How would you think differently about the nature of feeling stuck?  Please share your thoughts below in the comment section. 

The challenge of being a congregational leader comes down to balancing two things: being part of a relationship system, and being a self.  You can see the balance played out in a number of ways.  All congregations have specific tenants of the faith, but leaders may not agree with all of them.  Or a leader may take a particular angle on a sacred text and the congregation on the whole may not concur with their perspective.  Or a congregation may have unique celebrations where clergy are expected to attend, but the clergy person may have other priorities that are important to themselves and therefore choose not to attend.  The possibilities for conflict between the relationship system and the self are endless.
 
At some point, a leader will find their beliefs to be at odds with the belief system of a congregation and decide to take a stand based on their beliefs.  Such stances are challenging because they run counter to the emotional needs of the community to think, act, and feel the same.  An extreme version is happening today in our election cycle.  Most people in the Trump camp think, act, and feel very different from those in the Clinton camp.  Neither side would be welcomed or accepted in the other’s camp.  If Trump’s VP were to hold a press conference announcing that, after months of reflection, he now thinks Bernie’s idea of free college for everyone is actually a good idea, even the stones at the Trump house would cry out!  There is little space to have one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions.
 
All congregations struggle with these two opposing forces.  At one end is the need for congregations to come together and form a community.  At the other end is the need each person has to be their own person with their own thoughts, actions, and feelings about a whole host of faith issues.  Congregations vary in their capacity to encourage individual thoughts, feelings, and actions.  Some do a better job than others. 
 
The decline in congregational membership, particularly in the mainline protestant church, the increasing polarization of society, and the institutional demands to fix problems have put pressure on clergy to focus less on being an individual and more on developing a sense of community.  Most congregational leaders focus their energy on building a community.
 
We are hardwired for community and relationships.  Community happens naturally.  I was at a community prayer service recently with a room full of people I did not know.  It didn’t take long for that experience to feel like “church” to me.  Humans have a natural inclination to be social and a deep desire to connect to an experience of community.  Congregations struggle not because of a lack of community but from too much. 
 
 
Forgiveness and the balance of togetherness and individuality.
 
As a Christian, I was taught to forgive others.  It was a consistent message I heard as a child.  It continued into my adult life and into my training as a pastor.  I would ask questions like: How far does forgiveness extend?  Are there certain acts that are so horrific that not even God would forgive them? For me, the answer became no.  There was nothing beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness.  My practice of ministry began to reflect this belief as I encouraged others through my preaching, teaching, and counseling to forgive.
 
I recently attended a holocaust remembrance service, Yom Ha'Shoah.  The keynote speaker described her experience of forgiving her father.  Her father had been abusive towards her and her siblings.  As a child, the father had escaped Europe after watching the Nazi’s kill his parents, family members, and other members of his community.  After making his way to the United States, he married and had children.  The speaker described her struggles growing up with her father.  Later in her life she worked on forgiving her father.  It wasn’t easy, but as her father laid in a hospital bed, days before his death, she told him that she forgave him.  She attributed her capacity to forgive him to her own efforts to research and better understand the trauma of his childhood.  She described forgiving her father in terms of positive feelings.
 
 
It turns out that forgiveness has positive social outcomes and negative individual outcomes.
 
Oeindrila Dube, Assistant Professor of Politics and Economics at New York University, recently did a study to answer the question, "can there really be reconciliation after the atrocities of a civil war?" Following a decade of civil war in Sierra Leon, a truth and reconciliation program was established by an NGO to assist communities in restoring social cohesion.  The program brought communities together to allow victims to speak about the crimes committed against them and allow perpetrators the opportunity to admit their crimes.  The goal of the program was to find forgiveness between victims and perpetrators while they receive encouragement from the community.
 
In places where the program was offered, forgiveness went up significantly.  Trust of former combatants increased 22.2 percent.  Social networking increased by 11 percent as more friendships formed.  In these communities there was a substantial increase in the number of people who participated in parent teacher associations, government affairs and other community oriented organizations.  The overall benefit of forgiveness was to the community which experienced a sharp increase in community involvement post civil war.  This seems to confirm our natural, human propensity towards togetherness.
 
At the individual level, things were drastically different.  They were significant overall costs to the individual.  In the three measured areas of depression, anxiety and trauma, those who participated in the program either as a victim or perpetrator had negative outcomes.  In these individuals, the presence of severe trauma was 36 percent higher compared to control communities that did not run the program which was at 8 percent.  Even after two years, the results were the same; individuals were more depressed, more anxious and suffered from higher indicators of trauma after going through the program.  It is as if the community had benefited at a cost to the individuals.
              
The researchers concluded that more needed to be done to mitigate these negative effects.  In essence, the overall community benefits were considered high enough that it warranted the continuation of the program but only if individual health markers can be improved.
 
It would seem that there is a connection between the community and the self.  If the goal is social cohesion, then it’s possible that it comes at a cost to the individual.  If the goal is to support the health of the person, then it may require less social cohesion.  A different approach to forgiveness is required. 
 
 
Approaching forgiveness by thinking differently.
 
I’m not suggestion we not forgive others.  Forgiveness, learning to not retaliate, and developing a capacity to deescalate certain situations are all important skills for the health and welfare of humanity.  All religions to some extent teach the importance of forgiveness because at a basic level seeing one another as equals is an essential component of living together.
 
So how might we approach forgiveness differently?  Dr. Murray Bowen developed the concept of differentiation of self.  You can read more about this concept by clicking here.  Differentiation of self is about being more of an individual but not in the ways we typically define individuality.  Common notions of individuality move us to be independent of others.  For example, someone might say, “That group in the church is crazy, and I’m not going to participate in anything they do.” Or “I’ve differentiated myself from my family.”  That’s not differentiation in the way Bowen conceived of it.
 
Bowen’s idea of individuality was a self who operated out of well thought out core principles and beliefs, while staying connected with others in the relationships system.  It is the capacity to say “I” while others are demanding “we” without running away or insisting others agree. 
 
Bowen observed that when families focus on togetherness, negative symptoms emerge in individual family members.  They could be physical, psychological or behavioral in nature.  Not unlike the Sierra Leon study, when the focus was on togetherness, coming together and going along with the community, it had negative outcomes for some individuals. 
 
 
O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek . . . to be understood, as to understand. - Prayer of Saint Frances of Assisi
 
Differentiation can be a useful way of thinking about forgiveness.  For the woman who forgave her father, it wasn’t until she was motivated to learn about his upbringing, the facts surrounding the invasion of his hometown, and the way the family managed anxiety that forgiveness followed.  It was the result of her efforts to be more responsible for understanding herself, her father, and her extended family.  It was an effort for self, not part of a community process that was driven by others.  My hunch is that those who arrive at forgiveness on their own, do better long-term.  I think that’s an idea worth researching for anyone who has the motivation to do it.  Faith communities that provide space for individuals to work at their own pace, and foster an environment of discovery, will always do better long-term.
 
You can learn more about the Sierra Leon study on forgiveness at these two sites:
http://phys.org/news/2016-05-post-conflict-reconciliation-societal-worsened-psychological.html
http://www.npr.org/player/embed/464330379/464330624