Routledge Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church

A practical approach to address spiritually crippling disappointment with the church! Feeling disappointment with your church can be spiritually devastating. Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church gives you a theological and family therapy approach to disillusionment in the church that is practical and realistic. The author, an ordained minister and a licensed family therapist, discusses with sensitivity and hope the problems and the ways to resolve issues of spiritual disappointment. Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church uses a theological basis to lay a foundation of understanding, and then provides real strategies from a family therapy perspective to deal with personal disappointments in the church. The book sensitively discusses real problems using real examples of how church dynamics can unwittingly cause spiritual disillusionment within even the most faithful, even in diligent attempts to serve God. Honest, reverent, and written from the perspective that each of us needs the church to cultivate our faith, this book provides non-simplistic yet hopeful answers to the most difficult of problems. Find comfort in these pages. Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church discusses: idealism about the church how churches function according to the dynamics of family systems how a controlling family affects church dynamics people who become codependent to the church adjustment to belief structures within the church addictive processes in organizations the psychological danger zone of failed beliefs how to recognize when to stay and when to move on to another church considerations for someone in a denominational crisis the uses of spirituality and religion in psychologically healthy ways a theoretical model that gives priority to building a relational church Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church is for ministers, chaplains, seminary students, pastoral counselors, Sunday school teachers, or anyone that is facing a spiritual crisis in their church. Each chapter includes questions for reflection and discussion.