Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Working through Peter Steinke’s book, Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times, offers a number of insightful observations about the realities of congregational life.  He presents 20 concepts regarding congregations in conflict.  Here are some of those ideas:

1. “Most people are interested in relieving their own anxiety arather than managing the crisis or planning for clear direction.  Their primary goal is anxiety reduction, not congregational renewal.”
2. “Under certain conditions, anxiety is neutral.  As much as possible, effective leaders normalize anxiety. Considering what is happening, anxiety’s presence is what we would expect.  By normalizing, people will not automatically think it is because the community is flawed.”
3. When anxiety is high, people are unable to be self-reflective.
4. Typically in churches, peace is preferred over justice.  “Congregational members can resist or be hesitant about taking stands, making decisions, or charting a course of action that would offend or upset the community.  By placing a premium on togetherness, they play into the hands of the most dependent people who can threaten to incite disharmony as a way to receive what they want.  When such superficial harmony—so-called peace—must prevail, then the pursuit of justice is sacrificed and others who are involved become excused from responsibility.”
5. “The way we use information is an emotional phenomenon; what we hear and don’t hear, what we remember, how we gather and exclude data are all connected to emotional processes.  We gravitate toward information that coincides with our viewpoints and that promises to contribute to our survival.”
6. “The healing process for midrange to severely anxious congregations takes two to five years.”
7. “Losses (membership, offerings, attendance) will result no matter what choices are made.  Most congregations regain their losses within two years.”
8. Hidden agendas and secret loyalties need to be brought to light.  Transparency is critical.  Sin and evil will be present.  Expect to see and be prepared to name it.  Remember the story of Jesus and the demoniac in Mark 5.
9. Reactivity can come from all sorts of people—talented, educated, well-spoken, wealthy, pious, charming, etc.  Remember that none of these named characteristics indicate emotional maturity.
10. “Issues must be clearly identified and individuals must be challenged to act.”  An anxious church can not handle more than three to five issues at a time—so clarify and condense.
11. Expect sabotage of the process.  “The usual saboteurs will be those who are losing control or not getting what they want from the process.”
12. “How the conflict is framed affects the behavior of those involved.  When the conflict is conceptualized as cost or benefit, the participants’ behavior changes.  People become more involved if they anticipate losses as a result of the conflict than if they anticipate gains.  Losses arouse greater emotional force.  Researchers found that a prospect of loss led to less yielding behavior.”
13. “No emotional system will change unless the members of the system change how they interact with one another.  Patterns of behavior ten toward rigidity.  Conflict may be necessary to jolt and jar the shape of things in order to reshape the pattern.  But the degree to which that change is positive or negative depends on the leadership present to respond to it.”
14. Final, perfect solutions are not possible.  Conflict is a messy thing, conducted in the messiness of life.  “The best solutions to insolvable problems are the approximate solutions—ones that prepare a system for new learning and a new beginning.”