Cameron Lee

Specifying intrusive demands and their outcomes in congregational ministry : A report on the Ministry demands inventory

Studies of clergy career stress often operationalize stress in terms that are insufficiently grounded in the actual experiences of ministers, making it difficult to identify specific problematic interactions and assess their impact. The empirical and anecdotal literature on clergy suggest that intrusive demands on ministers and their families are a significant source of distress. Thus, a new instrument, the Ministry Demands Inventory, was created to assess congregational demands using ratings of the frequency and impact of 17 concrete events experienced in pastoral ministry. Data collected from a random national sample of pastors from five Protestant denominations are analyzed to determine the prevalence of each type of demand, and their relationship to measures of career attitude and subjective well-being. Results indicate that four types of congregational intrusiveness can be distinguished, and that in general, intrusive demands are negatively associated with attitude and well-being.

AGENCY AND PURPOSE IN NARRATIVE THERAPY: QUESTIONING THE POSTMODERN REJECTION OF METANARRATIVE

Postmodern ideas have led to increased interest in narrative in the domains of both theology and psychotherapy. Narrative theology allows the concept of an intrinsic human telos, a divinely created purpose which constitutes the perfection of a human life. Socially constructed understandings of the institution of therapy, however, and postmodern ideological commitments regarding the nature of metanarratives, make it difficult for narrative therapists to consider this theological possibility. This paper will examine the concept of agency in narrative psychology and therapy, and the moral questions that exist at the boundaries of these disciplines, exploring the possible clinical significance of including a teleological assumption in their theoretical core.

Toward a social ecology of the minister's family

The family life of the clergy has received scant attention in the published literature. Existing studies which may be relevant generally do not address the family directly from within an organized conceptual framework. This article proposes to set forth the broad outlines of an ecological systems model, in which the ministers family is to be understood as a social system embedded within a more complex web of interlocking socioemotional systems. The discussion will be organized according to Urie Bronfenbrenners four levels of the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. In addition, the phenomenon of boundary ambiguity between the clergy family and the congregational family will be cited as an example of the utility of an ecosystem approach.

Culture and Divorce

Abstract The term “divorce culture” has been popularized in recent years by scholars studying American family demographics. It suggests that the high rates of divorce relative to earlier decades are in part due to changes of values in American society at large, though little direct empirical evidence exists for this claim. Does the concept of the divorce culture apply to a religious population, which might be expected to hold more traditional values? The present study examines the relationship between measures of values and attitudes toward divorce and marriage in a Protestant sample. Demographic and religious variables are included in the analysis as controls. The results indicate that values make a moderate but statistically significant contribution to divorce attitude.

Parenting as discipleship: A contextual motif for Christian parent education.

Many parents attend seminars and workshops to learn how to deal with problems of behavioral discipline. One goal of Christian parent education, however, should be to help parents understand a broader biblical view of the parent-child relationship that transcends the immediate discipline situation. The purpose of this article is to present “parenting as discipleship” as a grounding motif for parent education. The article considers five areas: (a) the biblical teaching on discipline and discipleship; (b) the relational context of discipline; (c) the interactional and multi-determined nature of parenting; (d) the importance of parents’ personal self-reflection; and (e) the role of empathy. Insights from the child psychology literature are used to reinforce the contextual motif.

The Good-Enough Family

Donald W. Winnicott coined the phrase “good-enough” to describe the infants relation to its environment The term is here extended to a discussion of the “good-enough” family in which the existential considerations implicit in Winnicotts work are critically joined to the anthropological views of Soren Kierkegaard, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Buber and Hans Walter Wolff. The purpose of this article is to develop a psychologically and theologically integrated foundation for understanding the role of the family, which is summarized by the developmental importance of what I have called the “family covenant of grace.”

The ecological context of family ministry: the cambridge model revisited

Family ministry in the local church occurs in an ecological context characterized by a diversity of family types. A viable ministry to families must be able to address this diversity at different levels within the social system: the types of nuclear and extended families within the congregation; the type of congregation itself considered as a family; and the ministers own family type. A comprehensive family typology is needed to conceptualize this notion. The Cambridge model of closed, open, and random families, created by David Kantor and William Lehr, is summarized and then applied to an understanding of the ecology of family ministry.