What does a healthy church community look like?
I recently watched the Netflix documentary Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey. The documentary takes an in depth look at a fundamentalist Mormon group with a hyper-controlling, charismatic leader. The group frequently exiles members, arranges child-brides, and breaks up families in an effort to gain control over their members.
As disappointing and heartbreaking as it was to watch…I can’t honestly say it wasn’t shocking in any way. I’ve become all too accustomed to stories and images of faith communities acting in ways that are damaging…I have a feeling, unfortunately, I’m not the only one who feels that way. It’s sickening and upsetting…but again…not shocking.
But, at some point, if you’re like me, you may find yourself wondering:
Okay, well, what does an emotionally healthy church look like?
What’s the picture or vision or image of healthy church life that’s guiding and directing us?
This post will explore just that, from a mental health perspective.
Bowen Family System and Church Health
Part I of this series introduces Bowen’s family system’s theory, and focuses on one facet of his theory - the two competing drives of individuals within a system (or church):
The drive for togetherness
The drive for individuality
That post also included:
8 Questions to Ask About the Emotional Health of Your Church
And
Emotionally Healthy Questions to Ask Yourself As a Member of Leader of Your Church
The main thesis of the series is that members of a healthy community need both a sense of togetherness, but also the ability to express their individuality and still find acceptance within the group. In Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey for example, there was a high emphasis put on togetherness. People literally wore the same clothes and hair styles…but the communities leadership tried to stifle the basic human drive for individuality. The result was a very toxic community.
If you haven’t read Part I that goes in to more depth about Bowen and togetherness/individuality, or want a refresher, you can find it here.
Christian Images for Communal Health
In this post, I mention two Christian images that illuminate a healthy balance of togetherness/individuality. These images could be possible ways forward for sermons/discussions/meetings/conversations within the church about the need to balance the competing drives of togetherness and individuality in a healthy way, or just images for your own contemplation and reflection.
The two images are: a) The Trinity, and, b) Paul’s image of The Body of Christ.
After that, I’ll end with a brief story about why Weirdos are actually GREAT for your churches Mental Health.
The Trinity and Emotional Health
The Holy Trinity is interesting to look at in terms of togetherness/individuality.
The Athanasian Creed is a classic statement of Christian faith from the sixth century that focuses on the equality of the three persons of the Trinity. While it is not used as often today (I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it is VERY long…), it has a long history of being used in both Catholic and Protestant churches. Here’s an interesting excerpt of the creed that focuses on the Trinity:
And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost.
In the words of the creed you can see how careful the author (who probably wasn’t actually Athanasius of Alexandria) is to describe both a sense of oneness, togetherness and unity to the Trinity, as well as describing them in differentiated, individual terms. Notice this just at the beginning:
neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence.
In my reading, there’s this sense that the Trinity is both simultaneously together, and yet each member simultaneously has qualities of individuality.
While I have to admit I don’t know Latin, so there’s definitely the possibility I’m missing something, the term confundentes, which is translated to confounding in ‘Nether confounding the Persons’, speaks to the way the individual Persons of the Trinity can’t be confounded - or, mixed together, or, confused for one another…it seems to be the creeds way of describing the sense of individuality in the Trinity as well. The Father is not the Son, is not the Holy Spirit.
Yet, immediately after the creed speaks of how Christians can’t divide the Essence, speaking to the Trinity's sense of togetherness.
There is togetherness, and, individuality.
The Athanasian Creed is careful to position itself in opposition to Tritheism, an early heresy which denied the unity of the Trinity (and saw the members of the Trinity as separate and distinct beings), because that would deny the essential togetherness of the Trinity (and deny that Christians were monotheistic, but, that’s for a theology nerd blog, not a mental health nerd blog).
But to deny qualities of individuality within the Godhead, even as the three are one, also seems to run against the language of the creed when is states:
one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost.
The franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the Trinity in the introduction of his book Divine Dance as
“a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three”.
The language really captures systems theory well - each member of the Trinity inter-connected and flowing between each other, impacting one another.
Rohr goes on to say “God is not just a dancer, God is the dance itself”. The words that come to mind when I imagine and describe the flow of “radical relatedness” and “perfect communion” in the Trinity would be words like
Calm
Curious
Compassionate
Connected
Loving
I imagine this flow of divine love between and amongst the Godhead simultaneously embraces them (togetherness), and yet is not interested in coercing, controlling, or manipulating them, because it honors and appreciates their individuality, even as they are united.
Make Us One
As someone who leads contemporary worship, I have to admit there are not many good songs about the Trinity out there. Furthermore, there are not very many songs about a sense of unity and togetherness, that still allow for individuality.
To me, the opening verse of the 2020 worship song Make Us One by Catch the Fire Music is a call for the church to live out a healthy balance of togetherness, and individuality:
Make us one
Father Spirit Son
We wanna we wanna be just like You
Your glory is enough
Bind us with your love
We wanna we wanna be just like you
The first line, make us one, speaks to a desire for togetherness.
The second line, Father, Spirit, Son, invites us to consider what it would look like to create togetherness in a way that is modeled after the togetherness/individuality of the Trinity…to exist in a way where the radical relatedness and perfect communion of the Trinity (calm, curious, compassionate, etc) is present in our own church system as well.
This is to say, when we worship, we’re not just singing and hoping and praying for emotional fusion where we are not allowed to discover our true selves and must think and act and be exactly the same as each other…for in the Trinity there is simultaneously unity, and a sense of individuality.
The Godhead is both/and togetherness/individuality.
We wanna be just like You follows the message of the preceding line. The lyric/prayer to be just like You, in as far as is possible for humans, calls us to imagine what it would be like to live in Christian community in a way that honors our togetherness, and honors and celebrates our unique authentic selves at the same time.
Your glory is enough / Bind us with your love is a call that through God, all things are possible, and we can in fact experience healthy communal life in the church.
For me, this line reads as a statement of faith that God’s glory is enough to transform this community from a place of unhealthy extreme togetherness (emotional fusion), or extreme individualism (emotional cut off), and into a place where our communal life mirrors the communal life of the Trinity.
Is that a naive fantasy?
Is that possible this side of heaven?
All we can pray is, Your glory is enough/ Bind us with your love, and all we can do is move towards making space within ourselves and others for togetherness and individuality.
The Body of Christ
Readers may be reminded of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in which he uses the metaphor for the church as a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). In this image (which interestingly enough, Paul did not invent…it was actually a common metaphor in the Grecco-Roman world), Paul seems to know intuitively about the church what Bowen discovered (rearticulated?) hundreds of years later about family systems:
In healthy churches there is both a sense of togetherness, and the recognition and appreciation of individuality within the system.
Paul mentions within these passages what happens in unhealthy church (and family) systems: people express a need to leave (emotional cutoff), because their individuality is not respected, supported, and embraced. Verses 15-20 (NIV) focus on the individual member saying I don’t belong here because I am different from you, and you won’t tolerate my individuality within the group.
15 Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. 16 And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell? 18 God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. 19 If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? 20 As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.
Paul’s response to the foot and the ear is an amazingly sensitive pastoral statement:
it cannot stop being part of the body…If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear?...God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be.
Can you imagine how healing those words would be to the hand or ear?
Can you imagine hearing - no matter what, you are a part of this body. You belong here, and are welcome here, just as you are. You can be part of the group, and a unique individual at the same time.
Your difference is not a deficit, it is an asset.
I wonder how many people have grown up in systems (families, churches, communities) where there was such an emphasis placed on togetherness, that they weren’t safe or free or welcomed to live into their individuality in a way the system could tolerate.
How the Weirdo Makes the Community Safer for All
Some people, probably as a reaction to some of the previous family system dynamics they have been a part of, seem to have a more intense need to have their individuality honored in a group than others.
The church I currently lead worship at is more diverse than it used to be, but probably on the whole tends to lean center right. There is, however, one member of the church who is very vocal about his progressive politics. He talks about them openly and often, frequently saying ‘I’m the only liberal in this place!’ (which is definitely not the case, but he is probably the only person (liberal or conservative) that vocal about his political beliefs. Everyone is aware about this fact about him - and, in that way, it definitely makes him a bit of a weirdo in the community. However -
Because his need to express his individuality and differentiate himself from the group is still accepted by the group, he is still a very valuable part of the church.
He is an extremely active church member, and holds several important roles in the church. He feels both a sense of togetherness with the community, and also a healthy sense of individuality as well. Also, because other members of the group are, for the most part, very emotionally healthy, and there is a low level of anxiety within the group, they can handle his differences without reacting intensely.
Were it the case that the pastoral staff, or the church body, were not as accepting of his differences, he likely would find it untolerable and would probably leave the church…and if the church were extremely unhealthy he would be directly forced out. Maybe some people would quietly be happy to see him go, glad they were rid of someone who thought differently than them. However…
his loss would make the rest of the group aware that his individuality was not welcome or tolerated within the group.
Anyone that resonated with him, or had thoughts similar to his, or thoughts about one day thinking thoughts similar to his, would suddenly become aware that their individuality was not honored or welcomed in the community, and it would create anxiety within them, which causes anxiety in the whole system.
If the person with a high need for individuality is accepted within the group, it lets the entire group know that it is okay to be their authentic selves and still be accepted.
This isn’t saying that the pastoral staff and church body at this church need to cater to him, base their church policy arounded the most vocal extreme member, let him manipulate others, or let him try to control and take over conversations and discussions.
However, by welcoming him and loving him as part of the community, they are showing not only to him, but to any member that feels they may differ from the “norm” in any way, that they are welcomed and valued as well.
The ability of the weirdo to be weird, and still be loved and accepted, means the rest of the community can find freedom to risk being themselves as well.
Individuality vs Authority
Since my last post, I listened to an interesting podcast with Diane Langberg on Religious Trauma.
In it she, I believe, alludes to Bowen’s concept of togetherness/individuality without ever mentioning it directly.
According to her -
the church too often has an obsession with authority, when it should be concerned with love.
Here, the authority she’s alluding to is one in which there is no room for individuality to emerge, which, according to Bowen, is a core need for people. This has profound consequences on the mental and spiritual health of the members of these communities. She also mentioned that churches can tend to focus on gifts (read: charismatic preaching), as opposed to character (which she believes the bible is ultimately much more concerned with).
If you’ve got a church (or community of any kind) led by someone with a high need for authority, who is also highly charismatic…expressing and affirming the core human need of individuality within the community is going to be a problem.
Part III in this series on Togetherness/Individuality, takes an in depth look at what causes the stereotype of The Pastor’s Kid from a Bowen family systems perspective.
If you know someone in a church, in a family, or in any group who could benefit from thinking through what healthy group life looks like…you can share this article with them by clicking the button below:
Thanks for Reading!
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About the Author
Travis Jeffords is a National Certified Counselor and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate in North Carolina. He holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Master of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary. Travis writes on the intersection of faith, spirituality, the church, and mental health.
Wow i really like this article! I have for the longest time struggled with expressing this very concept- how far is the church able to allow for individuality. I have and still am part of a church that i think would benefit highly from reading such an article. It's so freeing, I love it. Well written, elaborate and well researched. Keep it up sir.