When is a cutoff not a cutoff?

At a recent workshop with clergy on Bowen Family Systems Theory and congregational leadership one lingering question came up. When dealing with the concept of cutoffs among clergy, it has become inevitable that someone will bring up the matter of denominations that require their clergy to move every three to four years.

The matter typically comes up related to discussion about the continuing pattern of short tenures among clergy and staff. The backdrop is the observation that it takes at least five years for a clergyperson to know the congregation well enough to become its “leader.” Most clergy tend to leave their congregations well before then. Many spend the majority of their career pasturing a string of short-tenured congregations, meaning that they leave long before they would be able to begin to exert leadership. Often, this results in perpetuating a pattern of cutoffs.

That being the case, clergy from denominations whose polity and/or practice of moving their clergy every four to five years to a new appointment raise the question about (1) their ability to ever make real differences in their congregations, and (2) the consequences of setting up a system that perpetuates a pattern of cutoffs between clergy and their former congregations.

Emotional cutoff describes the way people manage the emotional intensity associated with undifferentiation between the generations or among relationships. According to Kerr and Bowen, emotional cutoff is

The process of separation, isolation, withdrawal, running away, or denying the importance of the parental family. (Bowen, 1978).

The greater the undifferentiation or fusion between the generations, the greater the likelihood the generations will cut off from one another. (Kerr and Bowen, Family Evaluation (1988)).

Three factors need to be kept in mind related to the concept of cutoff:
1. There are gradations of emotional cutoff
2. The principal manifestation is denial of the intensity of the unresolved emotional attachment between the parties involved in the cutoff
3. Cutoff is primarily an emotional process—physical or geographic distance is secondary if not inconsequential.

The instance of denominational-imposed rotation of clergy as it relates to cutoff and the emotional processes in congregations remains an intriguing matter for study. Right now, I have only questions:

• Is it a cutoff when everyone agrees to the arrangement?
• Is the fact that it feels like a cutoff what makes it a cutoff?
• If the cutoff is imposed by an authoritative body is it a cutoff? Is that a different kind of cutoff and if so, what kind of cutoff is it?
• What are the consequences to a religious body in creating a pattern of short pastoral tenures? How does that redefine or reshape the function of leadership in the congregation? How does it frame the office of the local clergy? What are the benefits and the deficits of the practice? How does it frame the relationship that congregations have with their clergy?