Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen talks about how healthy congregations and ministries manage anxiety.

This is the last episode of his series outlining the unhealthy ways anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries. It is important to understand how anxiety dominates much of the unhealthy decision making processes and broken relationships within faith-based ministries and congregations. Click the green play button to listen to this episode:

You will recall that in Episode 16 Dr. Thiessen identified these five unhealthy ways anxiety hampers good communication and conflict resolution within Christian ministries:

• Triangulation — people talk about people rather than to people
• Self-differentiation —  relationship is contingent on agreement
• Blaming and Scapegoating — Who's the one who made this mess?
• Multigenerational transmission process — an endless cycle of looking to replace  "the problem...

Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen talks about "over-functioning and under-functioning" — another of the five unhealthy ways anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries.

Who are the "over-functioners" and "under-functioners"? These are people who take on the burdens of responsibility for everything, and those who avoid responsibility for anything. In your ministry context or in your congregation, is there somebody who always picks up the ball? These people oftentimes volunteer for everything. They're the backbone of ministry organizations and churches, because guess what? Everybody knows that John is going to step forward and volunteer. A lot of times, John volunteers for stuff that he's not necessarily gifted at. God hasn't called him to do that, but if I'm sitting on the sidelines, I don't have to worry things, because I just know that John is going to pick it up. It is important to understand how anxiety dominates much of the...

Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen talks about "multi-generational transmission process" — the fourth of the five unhealthy ways anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries.

You're probably thinking to yourself "What does "multi-generational transmission process" mean?" Well, let's describe a scenario. A church has a problem with a pastor. They say "The solution is we need to find ourselves a different pastor." So they begin to put pressure on and send not-so-subtle messages to their current pastor saying "You know, maybe God's calling you to another ministry situation." And the pastor moves on. Usually it's messy for the pastor and family and for the church. They call a new pastor, and guess what? Before long, they're seeing some of the same patterns happening. Why is that? Well, what happens at an organization is once they've blamed and scapegoated "the problem person," then the system exerts pressure on that person to leave...

Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen talks about "scapegoat blaming" — the third of the five unhealthy ways anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries.

It is important to understand how anxiety dominates much of the unhealthy decision making processes and broken relationships within faith-based ministries and congregations.  

Click the green play button to listen to this episode: You will recall that in Episode 16 Dr. Thiessen identified these five unhealthy ways anxiety hampers good communication and conflict resolution within Christian ministries:

• Triangulation — people talk about people rather than to people
• Self-differentiation —  relationship is contingent on agreement
• Blaming and Scapegoating — Who's the one who made this mess?
• Multigenerational transmission process — an endless cycle of looking to replace  "the problem person"
• Over-functioning and Under-functioning —...

Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen talks about "self-differentiation" — the second of the five unhealthy ways anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries.

It is important to understand how anxiety dominates much of the unhealthy decision making processes and broken relationships within faith-based ministries and congregations.  

Click the green play button to listen to this episode: You will recall that in Episode 16 Dr. Thiessen identified these five unhealthy ways anxiety hampers good communication and conflict resolution within Christian ministries:

• Triangulation — people talk about people rather than to people
• Self-differentiation —  relationship is contingent on agreement
• Blaming and Scapegoating — Who's the one who made this mess?
• Multigenerational transmission process — an endless cycle of looking to replace  "the problem person"
• Over-functioning and Under-functioning...

Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen talks about "triangulation" — one of the five unhealthy ways anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries.

It is important to understand how anxiety dominates much of the unhealthy decision making processes and broken relationships within faith-based ministries and congregations.  

Click the green play button to listen to this episode: You will recall that in Episode 16 Dr. Thiessen identified these five unhealthy ways anxiety hampers good communication and conflict resolution within Christian ministries:

• Triangulation — people talk about people rather than to people
• Self-differentiation —  relationship is contingent on agreement
• Blaming and Scapegoating — Who's the one who made this mess?
• Multigenerational transmission process — an endless cycle of looking to replace  "the problem person"
• Over-functioning and Under-functioning — People who...

Organizational Coach Dr. Ken Thiessen outlines five common ways that anxiety manifests itself in congregations and Christian ministries.

It is important to understand how anxiety dominates much of the unhealthy decision making processes and broken relationships within faith-based ministries and congregations. Dr. Thiessen identifies these five unhealthy ways anxiety hampers good communication and conflict resolution within Christian ministries:

• Triangulation — people talk about people rather than to people
• Self-differentiation —  relationship is contingent on agreement
• Blaming and Scapegoating — Who's the one who made this mess?
• Multigenerational transmission process — an endless cycle of looking to replace  "the problem person"
• Over-functioning and Under-functioning — People who take on the burdens of responsibility for everything, and those who avoid responsibility for anything.

  Click the green play...