Echoes Of Andrew Corsie

Why is saying no so difficult? How often has someone asked you to chair a committee leaving you with a sense of dread, yet out of your mouth came “I’d be glad to serve,” followed by irritation every time that committee met.

Most clergy serve small parishes where by necessity they function as generalists. They often believe that they have to do everything and cannot say no. Setting limits is complicated for clergy by the survival anxiety driving many mainline congregations. Fearing for their long term survival these congregations put significant pressure on clergy. Congregational pressure increases the probability of burnout and potential misconduct, and decreases the energy available for the pursuit of pastoral excellence.

Our book, Saying No to Say Yes, explores a powerful interaction between the internal needs of many clergy to be liked and validated, and the chronic anxiety of many congregations.

Previous material on clergy boundaries focused mostly on clergy sexual misconduct, the initial cause of mandated boundary awareness training. While helpful, these trainings often do not go far enough to understand the complex interaction between anxious congregations and the internal needs of clergy.

To say yes to the pursuit of excellence in ministry, several issues must be addressed. First, clergy must wrestle with powerful, but often unconscious needs for validation and the need to be liked. The need for validation and the inability to say no often lead to over functioning which can block the pursuit of excellence.

Usually, the need for validation is rooted in old roles from our family of origin where clergy became the over-responsible child, the hero child or the peacemaker. What we may not be aware of is how these roles were validated and praised by family members. Statements like “we can always count on her to come through for us,” or “he is the one who gets us through difficult times” are dangerous because the validation from family reinforces the over functioning behaviour. Congregations become our home away from home as we play out the same dynamics of our families of origin.

Once we begin to see how our roles in our families are played out in our congregations, we may recognize that our “congregational home away from home” is often driven by anxiety. When confronted with chronic anxiety it is easy for clergy to default to old, more primitive patterns of over functioning. Our difficulty saying no is underscored by a powerful interactional effect between our old roles and needs for validation, and the profound pressure from our anxious congregations.

To pursue excellence in ministry, the most important boundary for clergy is to gain awareness of our need for validation, our family of origin roles, and how both are getting activated in anxious congregational settings. Saying no and setting appropriate limits are enhanced as we work through difficult yet practical suggestions for how to increase our differentiation of self. Self-differentiation enables us to thrive as we stay connected to key congregational members, say no, and achieve room to pursue the excellence we dreamed of when we answered God’s call to ministry.

David C. Olsen is executive director of the Samaritan counselling centre of the Capital Region and an adjunct faculty member of the Sage Graduate School. Nancy G. Devor is senior staff psychologist at the Danielsen Institute at Boston University.