2003
John Day
Use of Liturgy and Spirituality in working with chronically troubled congregations
This thesis explores a new leadership model for healing troubled congregations. The model employs three perspectives usually ignored in church-management strategies: Bowen Theory, liturgy and spirituality in the form of contemplative practices. Bowen Theory makes available new strategies to manage troubled congregations because it looks at these congregations as anxiety-plagued emotional systems incapable of consistent rational judgment. The thesis examines the use of Centering Prayer as a leadership strategy to reduce congregational anxiety, or reactivity, and contends that this individual contemplative practice can be introduced to a congregation as a whole by making relevant changes in the standard Sunday liturgy. The results suggest that highly reactive congregations can greatly benefit from adopting Centering Prayer, or similar contemplatives practices, and that Sunday liturgy is a powerful tool in healing troubled congregations.