Anxous Church, Anxious People: How to Lead Change in an Age of Anxiety

by Shitama Jack

The key to effective church leadership is the ability to be a non-anxious presence. This is not a technique. It is a way of being. It is deceptively simple, but tremendously difficult. Yet, if you are willing to take the journey, you can lead change in even the most challenging contexts. Read this book and you will Anxious Church, Anxious People is based on a family systems approach to congregational leadership. If you are willing to learn more about yourself and your family of origin, you can learn to be a non-anxious presence. If you have tried everything else and realize that you cannot change others, but can only change yourself, this book can help you. It makes family systems concepts accessible and practical through the use of examples from personal experience. The author has used this approach to leadership in his 26 years of ministry as a pastor, board chair and ministry executive. It has enabled him to lead significant change in the local church, a regional ministry and a denominational professional association. He has been teaching, mentoring and coaching congregational leaders for the last 15 years to help them to do the same.

150 pages, Hardcover

Published May 15, 2018

Reviews

[Brad McKeehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread:

A helpful, but sometimes limited perspective on family systems and leading as a non-anxious presence through self-differentiation.

It’s process, NOT content. The only problem is that most of the books assumes that you are always making the right decisions. Since it is all about process it is limited in helping a leader to acknowledge their rightness or wrongness in leading. Nevertheless, it’s helpful in giving the leader the understanding that you are only responsible for your own responses, and your own feelings.

[Dylan Stinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful. Based on A Failure of Nerve. Highly recommended.