The Whole Church: Congregational Leadership Guided by Systems TheoryMinistry can be challenging, especially when people are behaving badly or escalating conflicts. The Whole Church offers congregational leaders a way to resolve such difficult situations by first viewing the congregation as a whole, then interacting healthily with the congregation, knowing health in one area heals the whole community. The Whole Church offers a way to diagnose the whole congregation, and ways to bring calm, clarify a congregation’s identity, create an effective congregational structure, resolve conflicts, handle difficult behavior, motivate change, address unconscious dynamics, and use the sermon all to support the congregation’s health and the fulfillment of its spiritual mission. |
Contents
1 Systems Theory | 1 |
2 Diagnosis | 15 |
3 The Healthy Church | 39 |
4 Working on Yourself | 59 |
5 Church Structure | 83 |
6 Calm | 93 |
7 Change | 105 |
8 Conflict | 129 |
11 Preaching | 191 |
12 The Spirit | 207 |
13 Conclusion | 223 |
Appendix A Situations | 225 |
Appendix B SelfDefinition Exercises | 237 |
Appendix C History of Systems Theory | 239 |
| 247 | |
| 255 | |
Other editions - View all
The Whole Church: Congregational Leadership Guided by Systems Theory Kenneth Reeves No preview available - 2019 |
The Whole Church: Congregational Leadership Guided by Systems Theory Kenneth Reeves No preview available - 2019 |
Common terms and phrases
action amygdala anger anxious system assumption become bell curve brain Buster button calm Campbell New York Carl Jung church codependence committee complain conflict congregation congregation’s define difficult behavior emotions empathy escalate experience express fear feel fight fight or flight fight-or-flight response forgive Furthermore give goals healthy congregation hide hierarchy homeostasis human Ibid idea identity interaction involves lay leaders leadership listen mechanistic theory meet minister ministry mission Murray Bowen needs offer one’s oneself oxytocin pain parents parishioner pastoral peace people’s person personality-problem diagnosis pre-contemplation stage preacher preaching prefrontal cortex pressure principles problem push reflex relationship response safe self-definition sermon solve someone speak spiritual journeys stage of change story stress structure survival-of-the-fittest systemic anxiety systems theory systems thinking thought side thought-reflex continuum threat trigger trust unconscious understand vision vulnerable whole worship York