How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems
The first edition of How Your Church Family Works was written nearly thirty years ago, and the reach and velocity of change in the last three decades poses a new challenge for churches. Thirty years ago, churches functioned in a fairly stable environment and focused on growth an expansion. The tide has turned now, though, and supplanted increase with decline. Bowen family systems theory—on which How Your Church Family Works is based—has not changed, but its application has to be revised for the twenty-first century. How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works, the second edition of Peter Steinke’s landmark book, addresses the radically altered landscape of church sustainability with new introductory and concluding chapters bookending updates throughout the now-classic text. Core chapters of the book feature fresh examples of emotional process that are more exemplary of the current scene. One key addition is a new trigger of anxiety for churches—the change process. Change threatens the familiar and stable and suffers from negative connotations of endangering tradition. Where gradual change has been the norm for so long, churches now see a blistering pace of disruptions, some of which have forced change too early or too late, or sometimes in unproductive directions. How Your 21st-Century Church family works embraces the anxiety caused by change, transforming it from a source of anguish to a font of opportunity.
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How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems
The first edition of How Your Church Family Works was written nearly thirty years ago, and the reach and velocity of change in the last three decades poses a new challenge for churches. Thirty years ago, churches functioned in a fairly stable environment and focused on growth an expansion. The tide has turned now, though, and supplanted increase with decline. Bowen family systems theory—on which How Your Church Family Works is based—has not changed, but its application has to be revised for the twenty-first century. How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works, the second edition of Peter Steinke’s landmark book, addresses the radically altered landscape of church sustainability with new introductory and concluding chapters bookending updates throughout the now-classic text. Core chapters of the book feature fresh examples of emotional process that are more exemplary of the current scene. One key addition is a new trigger of anxiety for churches—the change process. Change threatens the familiar and stable and suffers from negative connotations of endangering tradition. Where gradual change has been the norm for so long, churches now see a blistering pace of disruptions, some of which have forced change too early or too late, or sometimes in unproductive directions. How Your 21st-Century Church family works embraces the anxiety caused by change, transforming it from a source of anguish to a font of opportunity.
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How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems

How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems

How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems

How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems

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Overview

The first edition of How Your Church Family Works was written nearly thirty years ago, and the reach and velocity of change in the last three decades poses a new challenge for churches. Thirty years ago, churches functioned in a fairly stable environment and focused on growth an expansion. The tide has turned now, though, and supplanted increase with decline. Bowen family systems theory—on which How Your Church Family Works is based—has not changed, but its application has to be revised for the twenty-first century. How Your 21st-Century Church Family Works, the second edition of Peter Steinke’s landmark book, addresses the radically altered landscape of church sustainability with new introductory and concluding chapters bookending updates throughout the now-classic text. Core chapters of the book feature fresh examples of emotional process that are more exemplary of the current scene. One key addition is a new trigger of anxiety for churches—the change process. Change threatens the familiar and stable and suffers from negative connotations of endangering tradition. Where gradual change has been the norm for so long, churches now see a blistering pace of disruptions, some of which have forced change too early or too late, or sometimes in unproductive directions. How Your 21st-Century Church family works embraces the anxiety caused by change, transforming it from a source of anguish to a font of opportunity.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781538149140
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 11/27/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 156
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Peter L. Steinke was an internationally recognized leadership consultant who served as a parish pastor, therapist, director of a counseling center, educator, and executive director of Healthy Congregations. He is the author of several books, including Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

Part I Conceptualizing Emotional Processes 5

1 The Concept of a System 7

2 Anxiety and Reactivity 17

3 Separateness and Closeness 29

4 Stability and Change 43

5 Clarity and Compassion 57

Part II The Congregation as an Emotional System 69

6 Do Not Go Gently into That Glob of Glue 71

7 Being a Prophet Is Nice Work-If You Can Find a Job 83

8 What Shall It Profit a Parish If It Gets over the Hump but Falls into the Abyss? 93

9 Remembering the Future 103

10 Believing and Belonging 115

Appendix A Systems and Implementing Change 125

Appendix B Imagining the Future Church 127

Bibliography 131

Index 133

About the Author 141

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