Reactive mood

Congregations in crisis present a huge challenge to leaders, notes Peter Steinke, a veteran congregational consultant (see his article "Buckle up"). He emphasizes that change and the prospect of more change—even when it is planned—makes congregations anxious. Members can be expected to react out of emotion and fear. They will look for leaders to blame, and they will attach themselves to landmarks of what they imagine was a more glorious past.

Voters' mood in this recent election season had much in common with that of the anxious congregations Steinke describes. The reasons for that anxiety are real: high unemployment, a sluggish economy, home foreclosures and sagging home values, a sense of a diminished economic future. But as in Steinke's scenario, much of the political response to the crisis has been reactive, fearful and off the mark.

Many voters, we were told, were recoiling against a dramatic expansion in federal government. They looked at the government bailouts of banks, Wall Street and the auto industry, at the $800 billion economic stimulus package and at new regulations for health care, and they decided that government spending was out of control and had done nothing for them. The extremists of the Tea Party held up the Constitution and contended that if we only returned to the small-government vision of the 18th century, we would find a path back to prosperity.