The Healthy Congregations workshop uses the insights of family systems theory to help church leaders and all members become more effective stewards of their congregation's health.  The workshop was developed by Dr. Peter Steinke and is based on the work of Dr. Edwin Friedman, author of Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue.

 

Since the publication of Generation to Generation, many pastors have come to recognize the importance of understanding family systems theory as it relates to congregations.  The Healthy Congregations workshop helps both leaders and all church members expand their insight into how churches function as emotional systems.

Richard Blackburnis Executive Director of Lombard Mennonite Peace Center (LMPC) in Lombard, IL.  Richard is a trainer and mediator, with broad experience in serving as a consultant to conflicted churches.  He has participated in Dr. Edwin Friedman's Postgraduate Clergy Seminar in Family Emotional Process and the Postgraduate Program in Family Systems Theory and It's Applications at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family in Washington, D.C.

In the middle of June, I traveled to a province called Nueva Ecija in order to attend a court hearing against Mary Jane Veloso's alleged human traffickers.  Going to court also meant noticing the half-basketball court in the courthouse's parking lot.  I joined a group of Methodist women from the Board of Women's Work and other related ministries, along with representatives from Catholic ministries and Migrante International.  Together they constitute the "Church Task Force to Save Mary Jane."

Last May when I interviewed for this position and met my potential co-workers, I first learned about Mary Jane Veloso.  Since 2010, Mary Jane remains imprisoned in Indonesia for drug trafficking charges, but she was spared execution and granted temporary reprieve in April 2015.  Her parents and two sons have visited her in Indonesia.  She has received additional legal support, but I can only imagine the anguish of this imprisonment and almost execution for her and her family.  Mary Jane's life and story came to full picture for us in the PCUSA, thanks to the efforts of a former mission co-worker Becca Lawson who also served in the Philippines.

Little more than a year after learning about Mary Jane Veloso, I had no idea of the ways that I might become involved with her and her story:  traveling with an ecumenical group of supporters for her and her family, in a bus for more than 6 hours; laughing and learning about social justice from the perspectives of these women; eating and praying and singing in this same courthouse parking lot; sitting in a crowded courtroom for a 40-minute hearing; and meeting Mary Jane's mother and father for the first time.