24.8 Family Systems View On Care: Reciprocity and Responsibility (Lauren Errington) | Workshop | 2023 Reach Australia National Conference

Ministry involves navigating a range of relationships and responsibilities, many of these are pastorally complex and the intensity of these relationships can often leave pastors drained of energy and confused about what help they can offer – How do you get clear on what your responsibility is, and isn’t? What help is actually helpful?

This workshop offers a family systems view on pastoral care and considers how anxiety in relationships can often overwhelm the intentionality we would like to have in pastoral care. In this workshop we will:

• Think about the idea of congregations as emotional relational systems
• Take a step back and observe how patterns of care on offer might be unsustainable or even unhelpful
• Explore ideas of overfunctioning and underfunctioning and the application of these in ministry where ministers / pastoral carers are primed to overfunction for others
• Consider how to shift the focus of responsibility and care for someone from an anxious quick fix to having long term emotional and spiritual growth in mind.

Executive Director – The Family Systems Institute

Lauren is the Executive Director of The Family Systems Institute, an organisation that offers family systems training for clinicians, supervisors, coaches and ministry leaders. She is a mental health social worker, couple and family therapist and supervisor, with experience in tertiary level mental health services and private practice in Australia and Scotland, currently counselling with Family Systems Practice. Lauren has published articles with the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy and co-edited a book entitled Bowen Family Systems Theory in Christian Ministry. She attends Newtown Erskineville Anglican Church where her husband, Andrew, is the Senior Minister. 

SHOW NOTES:

Growing Yourself Up by Jenny Brown

Bowen Family Systems Theory in Christian Ministry: Grappling With Theory and Its Application Through a Biblical Lens (eds Jenny Brown and Lauren Errington)