I received a cryptic e-mail from a friend recently. She’s less than a year into a new church staff position. In her e-mail she asked the question, “Can you stop sabotage?” She didn’t go into details, but obviously, something’s going on (for one thing, it looks like the honeymoon period’s over!). I think it’s just as well that she didn’t get into specifics. Overfocusing on particulars of personalities, culture, and context runs the risk of moving too quickly into “strategy” (or, a my son likes to put it, “strategery”) and overlooking emotional process dynamics.

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I just learned that my friend Susannah Smith will soon have her website blog up and running. I’m looking forward to her blog. Currently she sends out a monthly reflection via email titled “Inspirited Leadership: A monthly reflection for religious/spiritual leaders.” I find her reflections consistently insightful. Here is her August reflection titled “The Skunk at the Garden Party.”

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In yesterday’s blog entry we shared the first three common misundertandings of Bowen Family Systems Theory (BSFST). Here is Part 2 of yesterday’s “Systems Misunderstanding.”

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Few things escape the consequences of their own success. This axiom seems true even of Bowen Family Systems Theory. It seems that systems theory is now the “in” thing—never have there been as many courses offered, or more “experts” expounding on the matter. And a sure sign of its popularity is the rate of books being turned out that claim to have a “systems approach to” something or other. This is, overall, a good thing. The more the theory is propagated, the better, I say. But one consequence of the theory’s lightning fast dissemination is the risk of misunderstandings—like in a global game of that old parlor game, “telegraph.” What goes in one ear at one end may come out as something completely different at the other—the message lost in translation as it is passed from one person to another.

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Every once in a while I get a request for a basic reading list for studying Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST). The good news is that I find I need to update that basic list as more good resources become available. Here is the current book list I pass along to persons who ask for it.

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Full disclosure: I’ve not read Warren’s fabulously successful Purpose Driven Live. There is a copy of it in our home as my wife was required to read it as part of a staff development team-building activity at the church where she works. So, perhaps I’ll get to it at some point.

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Most of us carry a little tape in our heads of things our mothers said repeatedly. And sometimes we repeat those things, often unintentionally mimicking mom’s voice. One of those things your mother probably said, especially if you had siblings, or, when little friends came over to play was, “Play fair!” But you likely remember what your mother also said on those occasions you protested “It’s not fair!” She likely quipped, as countless mothers have through the ages, “Life’s not fair.” (And, if your mother was like mine, she may have added, “Get over it.”).

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I had an interesting conversation with a local church minister who expressed frustration about his congregation’s failure to live fully into its possibility. That’s not an uncommon frustration for pastors and local church leaders. But I’ve found it helpful to make a distinction between possibility and potential, between what is theoretically possible and what is potentially viable.

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