When warm, moist air rises up into cool dry air, condensation occurs and clouds form. Through convection, and the collision of ice particles, electric charge collects and is released as lightning which causes thunder. What had been blue sunny sky, is transformed into lighting, thunder, rain and hail.

According to Family Systems Theory, the greatest influencer of any system’s function is anxiety. Anxiety is one’s physiological and emotional response to a real or an imaginary threat. It can be acute or chronic. Acute anxiety generally deals with an immediate and real threat and can be adaptive. The increased heart rate, adrenaline and instinctive behaviour are helpful for pulling the alarm and grabbing for a fire extinguisher. Acute anxiety tends to quickly resolve with heart rate dropping back down when everyone is to safety. Chronic anxiety is generalized, subjective and anticipated. It creates the same physiological response but without resolve. Chronic anxiety is the measure of the ‘humidity’ of a system. It negatively affects the functioning of a system as the sense of threat creates ‘clouds’ in the system and releases the lightning charge of unhelpful behaviours. Family Systems Theory labels this as ‘reactivity’ and it can be seen as defensiveness, blaming others, an increased need for certainty in ambiguous situations, a decreased ability to hear and learn from others, and the exaggeration of differences. A chronically anxious system exists on the verge of a storm, and any provocative incident can unleash severe weather.

Any system, whether it be a family, a ministry or an entire society, when living in chronic anxiety and its resultant reactivity will regress in its ability to function. Over time the system will lose its capacity for principled approaches, non-reactive responses, and will deteriorate into behaviours and strategies that seek relief from the anxiety itself rather than addressing the presented issues. It becomes a spiral into unhealthy, unhelpful reactivity.

Leaders who perceive themselves to be under threat will increase the anxiety of the system. Leaders can infect the system with anxiety and reactivity. However Friedman notes that the well-differentiated leader is also able to positively regulate the systemic anxiety in the relationship system they are leading. With the management of one’s self, a leader can orient a system away from anxiousness and reactivity back to primary presenting issues. The goal of a ministry leader is to be the least anxious person in the room and to bring calm so that principles and objectivity rather than emotion can be used to lead decision-making. Paying attention and having self-awareness of one’s own reactivity and anxiousness, taking the time to reflect and consider the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of the system before responding, making the effort to understand the emotional forces at work in a system, these are all strategies that will assist ministry leaders reduce the humidity and lower the temperature in order to decrease the likelihood of storms.