Recognizing the Problem-Saturated Story

One of the primary kinds of stories that takes hold in congregations and makes change difficult is what is known in narrative therapy as the "problem-saturated story," or one in which the focus is on who or what is or has been wrong.

A problem-saturated story has a dynamic of its own. Often when we are telling a problem-saturated story about our congregational situation it has a trance-like effect. The story is reinforcing. We "see" only those things that reinforce the story. Whatever is contradictory to this problem-saturated story goes un-storied and is not "seen."

You can recognize the problem-saturated story when you're in a group where someone offers an example of how difficult or awful something is in the congregation and before you know it the rest of us can't help but chime in with more evidence for how truly bad and impossible the situation is. We can almost hear ourselves saying, even if the words aren't verbalized, "You think that's bad, let me tell you how it is even worse than that!"

Problem-saturated stories have the impact of being taken as fact rather than as a narrative created by a particular sifting of facts.

As leaders, we can easily succumb to the power of the problem-saturated story and, in fact, can become the main storyteller—if not the main character—in many of these stories. I have often noticed in clergy groups that a pastor or rabbi will tell a story about his or her congregation and seek support from others. In response to some well-intentioned advice from colleagues, the clergyperson often goes deeper into why these suggestions wouldn't work—or delves into more of the problem story. At this point even the helpers may chime in with sympathetic remarks about how desperate and despairing situations like this can be.

In moments like these, I help to spoil the pity party. I ask questions like, "What would someone else in the congregation say? What would the newest or longest member of the congregation say about this situation?" "What would a child say?" or, better yet, "What would someone who disagrees with your version of events say about this situation?"

In asking these obnoxious questions, I am merely trying to point out the possibility of multiple perspectives and to introduce various versions of the story in order to interrupt the trance of the problem-saturated story, at least momentarily. I also want to give the clergyperson an opportunity to take on the perspective of a different observer.

Sometimes just recognizing the dynamic of the problem-saturated story can release people from its mesmerizing effect and allow them to stand outside of it. Other times, taking on a different perspective allows the leader to recognize that the observer they have been offers only one of many perspectives. Shifting the observer can often reveal different actions that are available and different results that are possible.

In a recent gathering, a pastor realized that she tended to look at all the ways laypeople fell short of their commitments. She became the "micromanager" in a way that created a great deal of stress in her life and reinforced her story that "you can't trust lay leaders to follow up." When encouraged to look at the big picture outside of her own story, she realized that she was a character in the story she was creating (a story in which, by the way, she tended to be the "rescuer" and save the day when others didn't follow through). Her constant nagging and her mistrust produced the congregation's dependency on her constant prodding. When she realized that she could be an "equipper" (as in "equipping the saints"), her observer shifted. She began to see all the ways that she could encourage and pass on skill and then let lay leaders own their own way of doing things. She relaxed and then realized that there were already exceptions to the problem-oriented story she tended to tell.

Any effort of a congregation that is motivated only by the problem-saturated version of its story can propel the congregation in a direction of change that may be misguided or limited. All the more reason for a leader to be consciously aware of the problem-saturated story—and to be intentional about other ways to interact about a congregational situation.