Compassionate Communication for the Twenty-First Century Church: A Review of Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action – Jessicah K. Duckworth

From Family Systems to Compassionate Communication

In the 1950s an army medical officer turned psychiatrist, Murray Bowen, had a hunch that the experiences of individuals described in therapy sessions likely were connected to the emotional functioning of the family.  Bowen’s subsequent research found that change in the emotional functioning of one member of the family would lead other members of the family to compensate for that change.  Years later, Edwin Friedman, a family therapist and Jewish rabbi, used Bowen’s family systems theory to help leaders in congregations and synagogues interpret the changes their presence and actions can bring upon the emotional dynamics of the organization.  Friedman’s book, Generation to Generation, published in 1985, is arguably the most significant leadership book written for leaders of religious organizations in the twentieth century.

In 1943, a budding American psychologist, Marshall Rosenberg, witnessed race riots in his new home city of Detroit and from that moment committed his life to developing a communication method to achieve major conflict resolution.  Rosenberg’s educational model of Nonviolent Communication (also known as compassionate communication) provides leaders with the personal resources and much needed skill set for negotiating the complexities of the organizations they serve.

In Transforming Church Conflict, Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger and Theresa Latini cast a rich theological framework for Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication that guides leaders of Christian congregations to address situations of conflict wisely by providing “a reliable process of discernment.”  Hunsinger and Latini have done for Rosenberg’s model of Nonviolent Communication what Friedman did for family systems theory.   More, what family systems theory has been for the twentieth century, I am convinced that compassionate communication must be for the twenty-first.

Being Church

In Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action, the authors describe the increasingly complex world that the church engages in the third millennium.  The people who make up Christian congregations today are not monolithic or homogenous (and truthfully, they probably never were).  Congregations, like the communities in which they are situated, are made up of persons with widely different life experiences, belief systems, and faith practices.  When leaders gloss over or ignore these differences in order to avoid conflicts of opinion or deep ideological divides, communities learn to be shallow and superficial.  Congregational participants end up deciding to leave their full self at the door and only present what they think is acceptable.  This is no way to be church.

In their book, Hunsinger and Latini provide a specific skill set for compassionate communication that enables Christian pastors, leaders, and lay people to engage one another with empathy and honesty, to allow each other to bring their fullest and most integrated sense of self to the community, and to participate authentically and freely within the body of Christ.  To be church is to be members of the body of Christ that turn toward one another out of the richness of human diversity that God has created with mutual respect and basic trust.  As the authors write, “Koinonia means that we exist in the greatest possible intimacy with God and each other.  It is an intimacy that has its origin in the very being of God and thus permeates God’s work of creation, reconciliation, and redemption” (170).

Cherishing Leaders

More, “leaders deserve to be cherished.”  Although this principle resonated deeply with seminary students when I presented it, they were skeptical.  Many had internalized their shortcomings and magnified their own faults so as to believe they were undeserving of such grace.  Simply put, my students did not believe that they were worthy of being cherished; as if Jesus actually meant, “love your neighbor even though you do not believe you should be loved as yourself.”  On August 1, 2013, the New York Times ran yet another article describing the unhealthy practices of clergy in the United States, “Taking a Break From the Lord’s Work.”  Dr. Gwen Wagstrom Halaas, author of a book about clergy health, is quoted, “[Clergy] think that taking care of themselves is selfish, and that serving God means never saying no.”

Hunsinger and Latini describe in rich detail how the practice of self-empathy can strengthen pastors and lead them towards wellness and wholeness in their life and in their leadership of congregations.  Compassionate communication and the practice of self-empathy in particular provide an empowering, encouraging process for those who do not think themselves worthy of love.  Integrating the basic skills and skill sets of compassionate communication into their daily patterns of communication with family, friends, and congregational members, the students in my classes began to see Jesus’ injunction to love the neighbor as self as a deep gift of grace.  Pastors deserve to be cherished.  Christian pastors in the twenty-first century desperately need the tools to practice and rehearse this principle regularly.  Hunsinger and Latini have provided such a resource.

Self-Empathy

To conclude, I would like to share a brief story about the way compassionate communication has strengthened a different part of my life—with my family—to provide further evidence that this model of communication can permeate and support every aspect of our lives.  Every morning before my four-year-old son left for day care he cried, for an entire year.  His cry was bitter and pained.  He desperately wanted to stay home.  Since my husband and I both worked full time, staying home was not an option.

My two older children had loved day care and left the house with smiles, ready for a day of coloring and running around with friends.  The older ones had not prepared me for their little brother’s agony.  Truth is, my son did love every moment after we dropped him off.  He returned from day care filled with tales about rolling down the grassy hill with his friends, singing silly songs, and trying new foods at snack time.  Every minute before drop off, though, he was miserable.

I was at a loss.  My heart ached to see him sad.  I yearned for him to depart happily.  At the same time, I felt annoyed because depending on my own mood our mornings consisted of insistent cajoling or irritated demands to get us all out the door.

It was around this time that I encountered the work of Hunsinger and Latini and compassionate communication.  I worked through my own case.  I observed that my son cried every day and that I felt sad and frustrated.  My sadness arose from my need for connection with my son and his needs.  My frustration arose rather surprisingly from my need for space and freedom.  My son wanted to stay home at the same time I wanted to go to work.

I walked through the basic skills of compassionate communication.  First, I made a request of myself through the practice of self-empathy and I wondered when in my life I first started to equate work with space and freedom.  To many that may seem like an odd relationship and yet it was true for me.  Reflecting on my need for space and freedom, I invited myself to explore the ways I experienced this need at work and with my family and God opened my heart in ways I never expected.  My capacity to understand myself gave way to a renewed relationship with my son.  I no longer resented his cries to be at home and I worked to connect with his needs which I had not been evident to me.  Remarkably in the span of a week he stopped crying before he left for school.

Call me an evangelist.  I have learned to practice self-empathy in a variety of circumstances and I have shared the tools for compassionate communication with my family, with my friends, and with my students.  As I said before, I am convinced that what family systems theory has been for the twentieth century, compassionate communication is for the twenty-first.  I invite you to discover this as well through the beautiful resource Hunsinger and Latini have offered in Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action.

Jessicah Krey Duckworth (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary; M.Div., Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia) is a program director in the religion division at Lilly Endowment, Inc. She taught courses at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, MN in Congregational and Community Care and at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D.C. in Christian Formation and Teaching. She is the author of Wide Welcome: How the Unsettling Presence of Newcomers Can Save the Church (Augsburg Fortress).