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Welcome to Episode 126 of the Non Anxious Leader podcast, I'm Jack Shitama before we get started today, I want to let you know that coming up at the end of this month, the end of June 2021, starting June 30th and running through July 27th, I will be offering my online course the Non Anxious Leader Family Systems Basics.

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So it runs over four weeks. There will be three live sessions, one hour live sessions that will be recorded. There are also a series of recordings on Family Systems Theory and I get very deep into it using concepts developed by Murray Bowen and further developed by Edwin Freedman. If you can't make the live sessions, they'll be recorded so everything can be done asynchronously, the price is $198. And if you are a person who needs continuing education credits, you get three CEUs use for that course.

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You can also pay in two segments of $99 each. For more information, go to thenonanxiousleader.com and click on the retreat's and online courses. Link in the upper right-hand corner, then click the link to the course. And if you have any questions, use the contact form and get in touch with me. Or if you already have my email address, you can email me directly. And now, without further ado, here is Episode 126. What To Do When The Congregation Is A Hot Mess.

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Today's case study comes from a podcast listener who emailed me this past week, and I'm just going to read to you the description of the situation in this mainline denomination congregation and then read to you some of the questions that were asked and my responses. The listener writes, My questions are around Allai Ship receiving criticism and conflict. One of my colleagues was deeply hurt when they received negative feedback for not wearing vestments and worship.

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They felt that it was an attack on their identity as a queer, non-binary person. The senior pastor stepped in on their behalf to tell the lay people they were homophobic for this criticism. He did not ask them for their thoughts in a conversation, but went with being an ally in the way that my queer colleague was asking for to send an accusatory email condemning the homophobia that set off a hot mess of conflict, which is beginning to boil over with the lay people feeling they were unjustly accused.

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And my colleague feeling that the senior pastor didn't convey their thoughts properly, the senior pastor attempted to slow down and reconsider his position, but that was seen as not being an ally when, quote unquote, the going gets tough. The first question that this listener asked is, is there a difference between regular criticism and homophobic criticism? My answer from a family system standpoint is criticism is criticism. This is the emotional process that is going on. It is almost always true that when somebody is criticizing another one, they are not defining self, but defining the other.

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There is something else going on. When someone is offering constructive criticism, they will do it in a self differentiated manner. They will define themselves and they will say what they believe while giving others the freedom to disagree. Criticism, on the other hand, is the defining of other. It is the blaming of other. It is the telling the other that there is something wrong with them. I remember a colleague texted me once and said that he got a string of critical texts from somebody who was on a committee that he was serving on as well.

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And he texted me to say I realized she was defining me and not herself, period. The aha moment for my colleague was that he did not need to take this personally. He understood the emotional process that was going on. Now, he might want to look at the content of her criticisms to see if there's any validity in there. But he does not need to react. And that is the important part of what's going on here, which leads to an important concept, which is its process, not content.

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As I mentioned, criticism is criticism, homophobic or otherwise, it is the blaming nature of defining others that makes a challenge, a problem. When you start to view things from the standpoint of emotional process, you see things differently. I wrote my book, Anxious Church, Anxious People, that it's like having a different set of lenses through which to see things. In this case, the content is the vestments or the not wearing of vestments of the clergy person, but I find the emotional process going on here is similar to many other situations I've encountered, especially in churches.

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I'm aware of a situation that looks and feels exactly like this. The only difference was the content. In this case, people were up in arms over the work habits of the youth minister. That's where the concept of triangles comes. The podcast listener wrote, Our denominational executive has told the senior pastor that it's his job to protect our queer identified colleague. I may be off base, but I think this will prevent my colleague from defining themselves with the congregation and will further entrench the conflict.

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But I'm second-guessing and wondering whether I too ought to help protect my colleague. The toughest part for a leader, and in this case, the senior pastor, is to be able to take a stand without engaging in a triangle. Yes, he has to deal with the criticism of the associate pastor. But by stepping in and defending or protecting them, the senior pastor has inserted himself into a triangle. Even if the protesters had not come to him to ask him to fix it by getting defensive and protecting and defending the associate pastor, he got involved in the content of the situation and he helped further entrench the triangle or created a triangle that didn't exist there.

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In this situation, taking a non anxious emotional stand would be to say, I support the associates decision to not wear vestments, but you're going to have to talk to them about their reasons by defending and protecting the associate. The senior pastor is engaging in the content of the situation and not dealing with the emotional process. I also want to make clear that I'm not criticizing the senior pastor's response here. I understand that when you are in the middle of it, it is hard to figure out exactly what to do.

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Remember, the higher the emotional stakes, the harder it is to be a non anxious presence. It's easy for me to second guess here from the bleacher seats, but the more we can learn from situations like this, the better able we will be to deal with them when we are in a hot mess. My advice to the senior pastor here would be and this is if especially if he would have come to me and asked me before responding to the criticism would be avoid a conflict of wills.

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The listener who shared this situation asked this question, is it possible to be an ally without becoming a no self? What would it look like if I have a different, more moderate approach in talking things through? But my colleague wants me to be an ally that stands up, stands in for them. They are unwilling to speak with the person, people who criticize their vestments. Yes, it is possible to be an ally in emotional process terms. This means taking a non anxious emotional stand without engaging in a conflict of wills.

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A conflict of wills is when one or both parties feel the need to convince the other of their own rightness, which by definition makes the other party wrong. This will not only intensify the anxiety, but it will further entrench the parties involved in their own positions. Nobody likes to be told what to do. My guideline when dealing with situations like this is don't argue, don't agree, arguing intensifies the conflict of wills and agreeing is adaptive. It's giving in to the situation.

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If you do need to take a stand, it's important to do it in a way that leaves room for emotional space for the others to disagree. If you've listen to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that one of my favorite sayings is not anxious leaders say what they believe while giving others the freedom to disagree. I find it's helpful to do this by starting with a statement like, you don't have to agree with me, but or I may be wrong about this, but in doing this, you are stating to the other person that this is what you believe, but you are not requiring them to agree with you.

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I think the listener can say, I support my colleague, but you're going to have to talk to them about their reasons, very similar to the advice given to the senior pastor. The other thing that is important here is that staying connected, emotional connection to those who are most anxious is the critical issue here. This is the critical issue when looking at the emotional process of a hot mess. And that leads to the final question from this listener. What do you think I might do to lower the temperature so people can hear each other, and what if they don't actually want to hear each other?

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The most important thing you can do as a non anxious leader in situations like this is to remain a non anxious presence. It means regulating your own anxiety while staying emotionally connected. This means being emotionally present for people in the system, especially the most anxious. There was a congregation where about two dozen families started going to another church during covid because they disagreed with the church policy on reopening. I'm not going to tell you whether the church reopened too slowly or too quickly, according to these defectors, because that's not what's important.

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Remember, it's process, not content. I advised the pastor to connect with each of these families. So he started making phone calls and he found out that most of the families planned to return when they thought things were getting back to whatever normal would look like. But for now, they were being supportive of the ringleader. It was important for the pastor to not engage in a conflict of wills just to listen and hear what they had to say and just say, well, we will welcome you back when you believe it's time, give them the freedom to agree or disagree.

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Give them the emotional space to choose to come back. But connecting with these families, he found out that they really didn't have strong convictions. If he had stayed disconnected from them, they may have never come back. But by staying connected, he gave them the opportunity to come back or the blessing to leave if they ended up leaving for good. The important thing for this pastor was that when he talked to the ring leader, he found out that he was deeply affected by the pandemic.

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It had affected the health of family members and the ring leader had lost his job due to the pandemic. Bingo. This is an emotional triangle. This is pain and blame displacement. I can't say for sure, but I would say that the ringleader was not dealing with his pain and suffering because it's hard to blame an unseen virus. Instead, it was easier to blame the church and in particular the pastor thinking about process and not content. Think about how this worked out for many others during the pandemic.

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Instead of taking responsibility for yourself, they focused on leaders who weren't doing what they thought they should be doing either. That was not dealing with the science of the situation or it was taking people's liberties away. Remember, this is process, not content. I don't know if the ringleader in this situation ever came back, but I do know that if the pastor stayed connected, avoided a conflict of wills and showed care and concern about the ringleaders personal well-being, he would give him the chance to come around.

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He would give him the emotional space to change his mind and come back regardless. He was giving the other person the choice, giving them the freedom to make their own decision. And that's the only way we can deal with situations like this. So going back to the podcast listeners situation, the leader has to give people the freedom to leave, but at the same time needs to be able to connect with them and listen to what they have to say.

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I do think that the leader can say to the associate pastor, you are obligated to hear what the critical people have to say. I know it's going to feel like criticism, but that's important for you to face up to them and connect with them. And in situations like this, the senior pastor can coach the associate on how to do that and respond in non anxious ways. This is one of the best ways to reduce the anxiety level in the system, especially if the associate is able to listen to the others and not take it personally.

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And if I were coaching the associate, I'd be asking what is going on inside of you that is making this so difficult? I am guessing it goes back to the challenges they face and dealing with their identity. And that's fair. That's OK. But the important thing is that as a leader, the associate is going to make things worse if they disconnect emotionally from the critical people. Instead, if the associate is able to stay connected while remaining a non anxious presence, they give each other a chance to work things through.

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And that is what I would say to any leader, is connect with the critical people, listen to what they have to say. And at some point, especially if you identify the ring leader, say to them, enough about this, what else is going on in your life? Because that is when you are able to get to the real anxiety. Maybe something's going on in the family of origin or maybe they have a problem with somebody else in the church.

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Regardless, you are able to get them out of the triangle for that moment and get to the real issue. And then as a leader, if you stay connected with them, show care and concern and help them through that, you give them the best chance. And if they don't want to listen, then the. Best response is I respect your right to disagree, and if you feel you need to leave our congregation, you go with my blessing because I do care about you.

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The problem we have in situations like that is we try to keep people in the fold. We try to appease them. We try to deal with the content instead of understanding that the emotional process means we have to give people the responsibility to take care of their own pain. We can walk with them, but we can't deal with their pain for them. And if we are able to do that, we give the system the best chance to deal with what is going on to deal with the hot mess.

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What is interesting about situations like this is that if you, as the leader, can connect with the ring leader with the most critical, if you can listen to them and be a non anxious presence and if you can get past the presenting problem, as it were, and get to what is really going on with them, whether that's something in their family of origin or a struggle they're having with somebody else or a job or grief, whatever it is, if you can get to that point and walk alongside them in caring concern without trying to change their mind on the content of the issue, you will help them to grow and take responsibility for yourself.

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And in doing that, and this has been my experience, they will become one of your biggest supporters. I have seen this happen over and over, both personally and with other colleagues. That is the power of a non-anxious presence. That's it for Episode 126, thank you to the listener who asked me about this situation. If you are in a hot mess, whether it's in your family of origin, your congregation or organization, I would love to hear about it.

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If you want me to deal with it on a podcast, I can. But even if not, I'll answer you directly in an email with my thoughts on the situation. And remember, you can take my course. The Non-Anxious Leader Family Systems Basics, which starts June 30th. Go to thenonanxiousleader.com and click the retreat's and online courses button in the upper right-hand corner until next time. Thanks and goodbye.