The Family Chapter 2

Families are systems. This is something that when you realize, will begin to help you understand the make up of families as well as how they work. What I want to point out from Chapter 2, is the three types of interaction of members of one subsystem with members of other subsystems within the larger family system. As I was reading through the descriptions of the three, I immediately thought of families whom I know, that would fit as examples for each of them. The three types of interaction are 1) disengagement, 2) differentiation, and 3) enmeshment. Now I believe that these types of interactions can also be seen within churches. If I may, I would venture to say that two of the three descriptions fit a church who is dying or stagnant.

A)     Disengagement
In a family, this not only looks like the subsystems are distanced, but each individual within the subsystem is also distanced from the other. The marital dyad of husband and wife are distanced, the parental relationships between mother-daughter, mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son are also distanced. This leads to a severely handicapped family. Members are not in the type of relationship that I feel God calls us to have. Now within the church, I believe this is one of the indications that the congregation is struggling. It might look like a pastor who isn't cooperating with the elders, or elders who do not like the youth minister so they try to make his job as difficult as possible in hopes that he will leave. It also might look like ministries within the church not wanting to have anything to do with the others. Each ministry wants to do its own thing. This type of relationship and environment does not promote what God wants out of the church.

B)     Enmeshment
In a family, this looks like each member of the family being overly dependent upon another. In this type of family, the son/daughter never truly establishes him/herself from his/her parents and when it becomes time for him/her to grow up and move out on his/her own, he/she runs into problems. Within a church, I believe this is also an interaction type that is an indicator of an unhealthy church. This church isn't like the other church in the respect that the ministries don't want anything to do with the others. In fact, this one takes to the opposite extreme. Ministries become so involved with each other that they do not make the necessary differentiations that are needed for particular age groups. This hinders the spiritual development of some children as well as some adults as they progress through the church's education system.

C)     Differentiation
In a family, this looks like each member of the family being close with each other, yet at the same time not too overly dependent upon each other. This would be considered the healthy normal and balance between enmeshment and disengagement. Within the church, I believe that this is the indication of a healthy congregation. The ministries within the church work together to develop a big picture of how they want to teach and equip members of the congregation as they progress through childhood all the way into adulthood. Each ministry has its own unique properties that allow for there to be a time of growth and adaption as each student/adult enters into a new educational level.


In closing, Balswick and Balswick mentioned that there may be times where families (and I might add church congregations) will adapt and become any one of these three interaction types. The important thing to remember however, is that it is imperative that the primary and predominant type should be differentiation. I believe that this allows for maximum growth with individuals both within the church and within the family.