1. Understanding Your Church Family
Elder-Pastor Retreat Oregon Christian Convention January 25th, 2014

2. Characteristics of a Healthy Church

3. Characteristics of Healthy Churches
God’s Empowering Presence
God-Exalting Worship
Spiritual Disciplines
Learning & Growing in Community
Loving & Caring Relationships
Servant-Leadership Development
Outward Focus
Wise Administration/Accountability
Networking with the Larger Church
Faithful Stewardship and Generosity

4. The Biblical View of the Church as a Family The 4Th Characteristic of a Healthy Church Commitment to Loving & Caring Relationships

5. The Church: The Family of God
“I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18).

6. The Church: The Family of God
“Stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matt. 12:49-50).

7. The Church: The Family of God
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19).

8. The Church: The Family of God
“As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).

9. The Church: The Family of God
“Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Tim. 5:1).

10. Other Relational Figures of the Church

11. The Church: A Body of Many Members
“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Rom. 12:4-5)

12. The Church: The Bride of Christ
“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31-32).

13. The Church: The Spiritual Temple
"You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5).

14. Understanding the Church as a Family System
Basic Theory
Stress → Anxiety →
Anxiety → Symptoms →
Symptoms → imbalances in the family/congregational systems →
→ more stress and anxiety

15. Family/Relational Systems
Stress → Anxiety →
Anxiety → Symptoms →
Symptoms → imbalances in family/congregational systems
→ more stress and anxiety

16. Family/Relational Systems
Stress, Problem, Issue
Anxiety
Symptoms
Imbalance
Family/Church
Problems

17. Systems Thinking Circular vs. Linear
Linear Thinking A B

18. Systems Thinking
Circular Thinking A B

19. Examples of Systems Thinking
Sequencing
How are other parts of the system affected?
Patterns, Roles, Boundaries
“The Whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

20. Exercise in Systems Thinking
Aging and Declining church wants to reach younger people. So, they decide to reallocate 30% of the budget to youth programming.

21. The Dynamics of Church Families
Differentiation of Self
Triangles
Nuclear Family Emotional Process

22. Dynamics of Church Families
Family Projection Process
Cutoff
Multigenerational Transmission Process
Sibling Position
Societal Emotional Process

23. Differentiation of Self
Emotional
Feelings
Rational
Thoughts
High
Moderate
Low

24. C: triangulated by A or B
Triangles
C: triangulated by A or B A B

25. Triangles
Church member
Minister
Elders

26. Emotional Process – Conflict MGT
Engaging Conflict
Distancing
Over/Under-functioning
Enmeshment/fusion/Co -dependency

27. Codependent Roles Enabler Scapegoat Family Hero Lost Child Rescuer
Mascot

28. Family Projection Process
Typically focused on a Child
“Please fix my child. We’ve tried everything we can think of.”
Child (or other family member) is blamed for family problems.

29. Family Projection Process
When parents and other family members manage their own anxiety and relationship issues, the functioning of the “problem child” typically improves.

30. Family Projection Process
Churches often behave in the same way.
Identified People or Problems
The Minister
The Elders
A Certain Group
The Budget
Music

31. Emotional Cutoff Extreme Distancing Posture
Managing Anxiety with the relationship by emotionally Disconnecting
Chronic anxiety increases
Less places for anxiety to go
Other relationships are substituted

32. Multigenerational Transmission Process
Looking back to earlier generations in a person’s family may indicate intergenerational patterns in family processes:
Differentiation of Self
Patterns of Emotional Process

33. Sibling Position
Functional Levels of Differentiation are affected by sibling position:
Oldest
Youngest
Middle

34. Societal Emotional Process
The Tendency of People within a society to be more anxious and unstable at certain times than others.
Overpopulation
Scarcity of resources
Epidemics
Economic forces
Lack of skills for living in the world

35. So, What’s A Boundary? Where one person ends, and another begins
The line between who I am, what I can do, what my responsibility is, and who others are, what they can do, what their responsibilities are.

36. Three Kinds of Boundaries
Rigid Boundaries
Clear Boundaries
Diffuse Boundaries

37. Setting Clear Boundaries
Do not interrupt the law of Cause and Effect (Sowing and Reaping)
Be Responsible “to” others, but do not be “over-responsible” for others
Identify what YOU have the Power to do

38. Setting Clear Boundaries Con’t
Respect the boundaries other people set for themselves
Check your motives
Evaluate for harm, not hurt
Don’t be Reactive. Be Proactive and Assertive