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Do Churches Try and Protect Their Congregants from Anxiety?

July 12, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine shared an article with me on my Facebook profile called, How to Land Your Kid in Therapy.

It is a fascinating read for sure, and well worth your time.

But I was especially taken by this passage:

Paul Bohn, a psychiatrist at UCLA who came to speak at my clinic, says the answer may be yes. Based on what he sees in his practice, Bohn believes many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.

Consider a toddler who’s running in the park and trips on a rock, Bohn says. Some parents swoop in immediately, pick up the toddler, and comfort her in that moment of shock, before she even starts crying. But, Bohn explains, this actually prevents her from feeling secure—not just on the playground, but in life. If you don’t let her experience that momentary confusion, give her the space to figure out what just happened (Oh, I tripped), and then briefly let her grapple with the frustration of having fallen and perhaps even try to pick herself up, she has no idea what discomfort feels like, and will have no framework for how to recover when she feels discomfort later in life. These toddlers become the college kids who text their parents with an SOS if the slightest thing goes wrong, instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with it themselves. If, on the other hand, the child trips on the rock, and the parents let her try to reorient for a second before going over to comfort her, the child learns: That was scary for a second, but I’m okay now. If something unpleasant happens, I can get through it. In many cases, Bohn says, the child recovers fine on her own—but parents never learn this, because they’re too busy protecting their kid when she doesn’t need protection.

I think that we often do the same thing in the church as well.

Take this quote:

“parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.”

And re-write it like this:

“churches will do anything to avoid having their congregants experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment-’anything less than pleasant.’”

I just see too often instances where pastors will swoop in and try and rescue a congregant from having anxiety as they wrestle with scripture or with God. They somehow believe that any anxiety is wrong and the person should have a solid certainty about God’s truth. So much for the dark night of the soul.

Or a youth pastor tries to keep a youth kid from asking too many tough questions that promote some anxiety in the group, and uncomfort with the youth pastor themself.

Or a worship planning meeting will spend endless hours managing every detail of a service so that nothing unplanned happens, or no mistakes are made. Sometimes I wonder if they are just trying to stave off any anxiety that may arise during the service in congregants or themselves if something were to not go off as perfect.

Much of church life is geared around trying to protect people from the frustrations of life and from experiencing any discomfort during church or their spiritual lives.

I say this from experience in my own work as a pastor for many years, and from what is conveyed to me by clients who come in for counseling.

But if anxiety is unpermitted in the church pew, then where else can they go to freely express it than the counseling office?

How Ministry Leaders Avoid the Hard Work of Boundary Setting

June 1, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 3 Comments

We talk a lot about boundaries in our culture.

“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership.

Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.” (Boundaries, Townsend and Cloud, pp. 29)



In fact, boundaries is one of the first things I address most often in my therapeutic work because a lack of clear and defined boundaries often leads to many problems in relationships with people. If people don’t have clear boundaries they often have a confused sense-of-self and identity.

But I feel like I’ve started to notice a trend regarding boundaries, especially in ministry circles.

The trend is this

A pastor/ministry leader/lay leader, et cetera makes a sweeping or non-negotiable statement about the boundaries they are practicing or want to practice.

Usually the statement comes from up front, preferably in front of many people as possible (Sunday worship perhaps) so as to communicate to as many people at one time the established boundary.

It may go something like this

“Because our church is so big, or because I’m so busy, I want you to know that I will NEVER personally return any emails/phone calls that you send to me. And I will NEVER meet you one on one at dinner/lunch/coffee, et cetera. I have a family and it’s a boundary that I have set in order to protect them.”

Though there are situations that this may be appropriate, it often feels like many ministry leaders do this in an attempt to avoid the difficult task of establishing healthy boundaries that can only come about in up and close relationships and interactions with other people.

Sure, it’s easier to just cut people off and avoid them.

Sure it’s easier to tell 6,000 people you will never return their emails than to have a heart to heart conversation with them about why you are setting a boundary with them regarding their emails.

It certainly helps us try and squash our own anxiety…but it certainly doesn’t lead to the relational growth that I think is necessary for not only people…but especially ministry leaders.

We only grow as people when we have to do the day in and day out hard work of being in relationship with people. We don’t grow by avoiding them or cutting them off.

I definitely think ministry leaders can do a better job of setting boundaries, but I just wonder sometimes if they avoid it because it’s such hard, ongoing work. Nothing is easier than getting up front and just delivering a boundary in front of 6,000 people. That way we can avoid the individual relational interaction and just address the big, anonymous crowd before us.

And when we do this, I wonder if we are actually avoiding the task of being a pastor.

How do you go about setting boundaries in your own life and ministry work? Any tips or suggestions?

Our Emotions and Grace

May 23, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 4 Comments

“Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people….We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The Good News of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.”

What’s So Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey (quoting counselor David Seamands)

Writings on Marriage, Katy Perry and Grace…

May 10, 2011 in Marriage-Family, Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership with 1 Comment

Here’s a list of three pretty distinct articles that I wrote or contributed to in the last month. Check them out and let me know what you think.

Transform Your Marriage at the Start Marriage Right blog.

Katy Perry’s Comments Prompt the Question: How Strict Is Too Strict? at the Christian Post website.

Avoiding Grace at the POTSC blog.

Why ‘Pastors’ Become Therapists

April 27, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Counseling, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 9 Comments

Several weeks ago I was at The Hideaway Experience doing co-therapy along with another former ‘pastor’ turned therapist. It’s not unusual to find therapists and counselors who were former pastors, but I think that vocational movement is often looked at with a sense of skepticism. That somehow, when a pastor leaves the pastorate to do counseling, they somehow also leave God behind in the process.

But what I am finding to be true in my own life and in the lives of many other therapists and counselors who were former pastors, is that they feel that God is now more alive and present than He ever was in their pastoral work. That is not to say that God was not or is not alive and present in both contexts. But what it does perhaps call attention to is the nature of pastoral work and pastoral identity and what that really means in our contexts, especially the North American context.

Eugene Peterson in his new book and memoir, The Pastor: A Memoir, says this:

“The vocation of pastor has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans…..

I wonder if at the root of the defection is a cultural assumption that all leaders are peole who ‘get things done,’ and ‘make things happen.’ That is certainly true of the primary leadership models that seep into our awareness from the culture—politicians, businessmen, advertisers, publicists, celebrities, and athletes. But while being a pastor certainly has some of these components, the pervasive element in our two-thousand-year pastoral tradition is not someone who ‘gets things done’ but rather the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to ‘what is going on right now’ between men and women, with one another and with God—this kingdom of God that is primarily local, relentlessly personal, and prayerful ‘without ceasing.’”

As my friend and I (both former pastors now turned therapists) talked about that night at The Hideaway was the fact that for some of the first times in our lives we felt like we were free to be a pastor. But being a pastor didn’t come for us in the context of the Evangelical American Church, but rather in the mix of intense therapy work with couples who were struggling to put the pieces of their lives and marriages back together. There we were eating dinner with the couples, doing therapy, praying with them, crying with them, celebrating with them…witnessing all that life has to offer.

We felt like pastors.

But in the Church we as pastors often aren’t very pastoral. Instead we spend our time on budgets, on architecture plans, raising money and developing curriculum. All good things but it often pulls us away from what I think Eugene Peterson is describing when he says pastors “the person placed in the community to pay attention and call attention to ‘what is going on right now’ between men and women, with one another and with God…”

Instead of a pastor “paying attention” and “calling attention” to what is happening in a church community’s context, we end up taking on areas of specialization.

For example there is the 45 minute a week keynote speaker (aka preaching pastor). But many pastors who fulfill this role often remove themselves from the role of being a pastor to their people. They make statements and set boundaries that communicate something like “I’m too busy to spend time with you, so don’t expect me to ever come to dinner with you, or email you, etc.” They leave someone else to do the marrying, burying and hospital visits…the very things that make up the daily fabric of life. Perhaps they have removed themselves perhaps from the very act of pastoring.

I just wonder if in the process of specializing ministry positions the very essence of pastor then becomes lost. So now we have to designate someone to do pastoral care…i.e. to do the very things that a pastor does but that no pastor wants to do.

I have been a pastor (by title) for the last 13 years. But over the course of that time I have always struggled with who and what a pastor is. My expectations and the expectations of the churches I worked for were often very different. That is okay. But there should at least be some clarity when we talk about pastors then, because maybe we are all coming at it with different definitions. One way that that clarity manifested itself to me in ministry as a pastor was by the type of books we were recommended to read on staff (business books, leadership books, vision casting book, planning books, strategy books….all okay stuff in moderation, but what happened to the books on pastoral care, prayer, hospitality, spiritual direction, death, etc.?)

The books we read often indicate what kind of pastor we desire and strive to be.

In my 7 years as the college pastor (actually director since my denomination will not call me pastor unless ordained) at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, I honestly think my students would say of me that I was a good pastor…meaning I was good at “paying attention” and “calling attention” to what was happening in our community and pointing out the work of God in our midst. But I was not a good pastor in the context of how it is defined in the Evangelical American context. I wasn’t much good at budgeting and planning and coming up with strategies that would grow our ministry tenfold over a two year period. I could get by for a while, but I was not gifted at that, nor was I passionate about that.

Ultimately I had to make a decision on what type of pastor I wanted to be.

So what does one do when they feel like they are good at pastoring by “paying attention” to and “calling attention to” the work of God in people’s lives, but they are not good at being a “religious entrepreneur?”

They become a therapist.

I have found that in therapeutic work I am more of a pastor than I have ever been in my church ministry work. I am privy to parts of people’s lives that they would never share with me when I was their pastor, and in that interaction I have seen the work of God in ways that I was never witness to when I was in the pulpit.

Let me end by saying, I love being a pastor (I’m still on staff of a church), and if I could be the type of pastor in a church that Eugene Peterson talks about, then I’m totally open to that. But for now, I love being a therapist and I love the pastoral work that I get to do in that context.

I just wonder if we need to re-think…re-define…re-imagine who and what a pastor is in our modern day, Evangelical American Church context.

How do you wrestle with this as a pastor?

Is it something you struggle with?

Ministry Leadership: Being ‘Authentic’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Bleeding All Over the Congregation’

February 22, 2011 in Ministry-Theology, Pastoral Leadership, Therapy-Psychology with 30 Comments

It seems that everyone is searching for ‘authenticity’ in their leaders. At least a younger generation of people are wanting this ‘authenticity’. In fact, Thomas Rainer who co-authored The Millennials: Connecting to America’s Largest Generation with his son Jess Rainer, recently wrote this in the article 4 Things Millennials Want in Their Leaders:

3. Transparency and authenticity. I wish Jess and I had counted the number of times that Millennials used the word “real” to describe leaders they want to follow. As one Millennial told us, her generation “can smell phony and pretentiousness a mile away.” They don’t want phony; they want authentic. They don’t want pretentious; they want transparent.

I admire that trait A LOT as well in leaders. And I tried to be that type of authentic leader when I was working as a college pastor. And I try to be that as a therapist with my clients.

But when we say that we want our leaders to be ‘authentic’, what are we really wanting of them, and asking from them?

I really, really wonder….so last week I posted this tweet:

I think there is a big difference between “authenticity” and “bleeding” all over the congregation. #self-differentation #fb

It was in response to a really great blog post by Rachel Evans, “Dear Pastors – Tell Us the Truth. This is a really great topic to be talking about, and you can read the comment I left at Rachel’s blog here. I originally saw her post linked at Adam McHugh’s blog where he responds to her analysis with his own, Pastors and Honesty.

My Concerns About What Is Often Passed Off As ‘Authenticity’
Something that I have been taught as a therapist, but never in my work as a pastor was this. When I share something personal with a client (when I’m wanting to be ‘authentic’), does my disclosure have more to do with me or the client? Often, when we share, we share because it fills more of a need in us, than the person we are trying to be ‘authentic’ with.  Therefore, it ends up being more self-serving, which is not what leadership is about.  So I wonder how many ministry leaders in search of being ‘authentic’ with those they lead are really trying to fill an emotional need in themselves?

I think authenticity is a great quality to have in leadership. But I think we have mistaken ‘authenticity’ as something that we can just acquire and put on ourselves, like some sort of skill or technique, rather than really letting it emanate from within. I agree with the research findings of Edwin Freidman in that leadership is an emotional process, and not a cognitive process. It has less to do with our training and skills, and more to do with our ability to honestly do the hard work of looking at ourselves.

One’s ability to be authentic is correlated to the degree at which a leader has done the hard work of REALLY, REALLY looking at themselves. Being ‘authentic’ has everything to do with the leader’s ability to be self differentiated (a term coined by family therapy pioneer Murray Bowen). When a leader lacks the ability to self-differentiate they are more and more dependent upon others for approval, acceptance, and affirmation. There is a strong desire to be liked.  They don’t know where they begin and end. And I would venture to say that there are few professions where more people are leading who have a need to be liked and affirmed than those in ministry positions. Remember, I was, and am a pastor. I pastored in Los Angeles to college students, the epicenter of wanting to be ‘authentic.’  And so I’m speaking from experience.  I really, really wanted/want to be liked.

It is only when leaders can stand before others, not needing their affirmation, acceptance, and approval, that they are then truly free to be ‘authentic’. When ‘authenticity’ is attempted out of one’s need for approval, then leaders end up violating healthy interpersonal boundaries and “bleed all over the congregation.”

Here are three ways that I think leaders ‘bleed all over the congregation’:

  1. When they lack the ability to “self-soothe” and manage their own anxiety, so sharing/oversharing (which passes a lot in our culture as ‘authenticity’) in an attempt to be ‘authentic’, is really emotional dumping on the congregation.  It can be a subtle and even unconscious way of passing off their anxiety onto members of the congregation.  When we don’t manage our own anxiety we skirt our responsibility as leaders.
  2. Leaders often come across as ‘authentic’ when in reality they may be lacking interpersonal and emotional boundaries.  I see this a lot when a pastor often shares intimate details of his married life (how often he and his wife are having sex).  When a pastor doesn’t model healthy interpersonal boundaries, they set a bad example of what ‘authenticity’ should look like in a community.
  3. Being ‘authentic’ can sometimes be an attempt by leaders to deflect truly looking at themselves, and so there is often a psuedo-’authenticity’ that is being practiced.  It’s a way to avoid responsibility.  I can’t tell you the amazing number of times where a leader confesses something publicly, therefore then putting the responsibility on the congregation for the outcome, rather than taking responsibility of their actions for themselves.

These are just three ways that come to mind today as I’m writing, so I’m hoping to pick up more on this conversation in future ongoing blog entries.

‘Authenticity’ in leadership is a super important topic, and I’m glad Rachel Evans and many others are bringing it up.  It’s something that I think I carried the banner for for many years.  And I will continue to strive for ‘authenticity’ in my leadership, but not at the cost of  not taking responsibility for myself and passing off my anxiety and other emotional issues onto those that I lead.

And by the way, leadership, and leading well is a journey and process that we are all on.  And so learning to be truly ‘authentic’ is part of that journey too.