Why we step back and look at the big picture

I was working with a church. They had gone through a number of pastors, wearing them out like cheap socks. The ones who seemed to last the longest had awkward tendencies—inappropriate relationship boundaries, the inability to get to meetings on time, irregular work schedules, and the hint of mouthwash masking something with a much higher alcohol content. The person in that position always seemed to have a martini lunch, as if he were on the set of Mad Men.   

We were dealing with the latest issues, as the pastor kept appearing uninvited at the homes of employees with some sort of personal crisis. We kept trying to get our heads around the problem, by looking at the individual psychological makeup of the pastor.

Then someone explained to us how churches could take up the same characteristics of families who deal with alcoholism. And so, we began to think of the issue as a system of enabling, hiding, and coping, instead of just one person with a problem. The employee, after all, was just the latest person to fill a role in the unhealthy organization. When we began to understand that the role was that of the drunk daddy, it all made sense.