Anxious Church, Anxious People Companion Workbook

By Jack Shitama and Teryl Cartwright

The key to effective church leadership is the ability to be a non-anxious presence. This is deceptively simple, but tremendously difficult. If you take this journey, you can lead change in even the most challenging contexts. Anxious Church, Anxious People teaches you:

•The process that keeps churches anxious and stuck
•How leadership through self-differentiation gets churches unstuck.
•How to develop as a non-anxious presence so you can lead change anywhere, but especially in an anxious church.

This COMPANION WORKBOOK guides you to dig deep into the principles that will help you become a non-anxious presence.You can work through the eight-lesson program individually or in a small group. Each lesson includes bible study, chapter summaries, discussion questions and questions for personal reflection between lessons. Don't leave healthy change to chance. Work through it with others using this valuable tool.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charis Works Inc
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781732009349

Book preview

Lesson 1

Self-Differentiation

Leadership is about managing yourself, not managing others.

Welcome to the Anxious Church, Anxious People Workbook. You are encouraged to use this resource as a tool to develop your leadership skills, mindset, and heart. Some of the work is to be done individually during your daily devotion time, and some will be done in your group. If you ever have questions about the why of any specific activities or content, please let us know.

Let’s start with a prayer: Lord, give me the eyes to truly see myself, the ears to truly hear others, and the heart to truly love like you. In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.

To begin our journey, please read chapters 1 and 2. When you are finished, set a timer for three minutes and write without stopping or editing any thoughts that come to mind, even if it is, I don’t know what to write, until the timer goes off.[1]

"‘Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. You’ll receive the same judgment you give. Whatever you deal out will be dealt out to you.Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when there’s a log in your eye? You deceive yourself! First take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye.’" (Matthew 7:1-5)

Read Matthew 7:1-5 aloud and discuss the following questions.

Why do we want to be helpful to point out or fix others’ flaws? (What’s in it for us?)

How do we know when we have a log in our own eye?

What questions or practices can we use to assess our judgments as leaders?

What are some of the differences in using these verses versus Luke 6:31 in our leadership?

I know of one pastor who leads worship by saying at one point in the service, "Let’s affirm our faith together through a statement of our faith . . . Church, what do you believe?[2] And then the congregation recites the Apostles’ Creed. Another pastor leads confirmation by having the teens take apart the Apostle’s Creed to decide what they believe. They have spent weeks just on the phrase Creator of heaven and earth."[3]

What do you believe? Is it true that, We practice what we believe, or is it true, as one of the pastors in the paragraph above states, We believe what we practice?

Chapters 1 and 2 Summary of Anxious Church, Anxious People:

Anxiety comes from the inability to deal with uncertainty, whether it is a lack of control or trust. Some anxiety manifests itself in the outward response to blame others or in the defensive response to choose safety over adventure. Self-differentiation can help us better respond to hostile conditions. Self-defined leaders are willing to engage without condemnation, expressing themselves in healthy ways. They stay in touch with who they are and what they believe while caring for others and respecting their beliefs. They work to show that the church is meant to offer hope to the world, not to react and be driven by fear of it. Being a non-anxious presence doesn’t deny anxiety exists; it seeks to control it through God’s help. Each of us as leaders of the church are