The Problem Trap: Escaping Our Limiting Stories (Article)
Larry Peers, Author. 

Have you ever found your congregation or yourself stuck in problems that seem intractable? Such problems drain your energy and your congregation's vitality.

In this article, Alban Senior Consultant Larry Peers notes that resolving these problems often requires leaders to "stand outside the dominant story of whatever it is we are trying to change." Leaders need to take what Ronald Heifetz and others have termed a "balcony" perspective, recognizing when the story has become so "problem-saturated" that the true situation is no longer clearly recognizable.

"Problem-saturated" stories, says Peers, usually feature only those details, actions, and characters that reinforce a sense of "how awful, how terrible" a situation is and "how bad, how rotten" the players in a situation are. Consequently, they produce a trance-like effect. The way to break this trance is to ask alternative questions—such as "What would someone else in the congregation say?" or "What would someone who disagrees with your version of events say?"

The trance can also be broken by externalizing (rather than personalizing) the problem, and by recognizing the exceptions to the problem—the times when the problem does not occur. Peers explains how the tools of narrative therapy and narrative leadership can be helpful here, and explains how to point congregations toward recognizing constructive possibilities.

With reflection questions and a set of relevant resources, this article will be useful for any leader seeking to break the trance-like effect of "problem-saturated" congregational stories.
 

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See also these resources:

Finding Our Story: Narrative Leadership and Congregational Change (Book)
Larry A. Golemon, Editor.  Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2010.
In this book, congregational consultants explore the power of narrative and illustrate the ways that story can be used to help congregations heal their troubled pasts, recognize their strengths, and reshape their identities and futures.