Did you know that anxiety is contagious?

At least once a year a member of the staff team will drag themselves into the office with their nose running, full of cold and with a hacking cough; then everyone else will roll their eyes in the knowing frustration that unless their immune system is like an athlete, it’s only a matter of time before the whole team gets sick.

But what if there is a far more dangerous contagion that stalks among our congregations? That contagion is anxiety.

Negative emotions can spread

Research on how humans can involuntarily experience the emotions of others surfaced in the early 90s, led by the work of social psychologist Elaine Hatfield.

This research was quickly followed by a host of academics who published in the same field. They noted that cues such as micro-movements in the face, or barely detectable inflections in the voice, can act as "signals" to those nearby, causing them to feel the same general emotion.

Fascinatingly, some of the earliest observations of this phenomenon are recorded by the famous economist Adam Smith in the 1790s; the studies consistently observe that negative emotions spread with considerably more strength than positive ones.

The implications are worth paying attention to in a church context which is constructed of many teams and groups, stitched together to make a single body.

Do you recognise these 'symptoms'?

I wonder if you can relate to this common experience... A meeting is called to discuss a difficult issue, the group is assembled and everyone is in good spirits and then something happens: a particular person enters the room, and it’s as if the atmosphere changes. The group becomes quieter, more uncomfortable, the previous courage seems to have drained away, and the discussions become as free-flowing as walking on cracked ice.

We need to remember that, within our churches, decisions are not made with cool rational arguments in one hand and the Scriptures in the other, but rather our actions are forged in a cocktail of Scripture, experience, personalities, preferences, and fears.

I have experience working with multiple churches and coaching a number of church leaders, teams or congregations that have a low emotional immune system; this means that anxiety is quickly passed from one person to another. From my experience, this is typically evidenced by the following symptoms: reactive decision-making (painfully slow or unwisely fast); risk aversion that borders on stagnation; and the dominance of one or two influential voices.

One of the most tragic symptoms I’ve observed in churches is that teams or congregations with a low emotional immunity are often chronically anxious and therefore struggle to make healthy decisions in the midst of complex issues because they lose perspective.

How stress affects a team

This is echoed by research in the effects of stress on teams. Hans Selye pioneered research in the field during the 1930s, and since then – during the last 80 years – observations have been thrown up, which can prove useful for those who lead groups of people.

Out of these observations, perhaps most notable is that teams under high anxiety withdraw from communicating with each other and have a tendency to narrow their focus to the exclusion of key ideas or data; many of us will recognise this critical default both in ourselves and in the groups we have served in.

I am also sure that many of us have been left bemused in the aftermath of a church meeting, when a group of mature and experienced Christians has made an extraordinarily unwise or short-sighted decision with no comprehension of how they arrived there.

Scripture speaks

Scripture has numerous examples of what contemporary researchers call "stress contagion" [or "emotional contagion" or "stress transmission"]. One of the most notable examples is Judges 7 where the 135,000-strong Midianite force destroys itself in the panic that spreads through the camp when Gideon’s 300 men unexpectedly appear on the hilltop.

We also see an up-close study of contagious anxiety in 1 Samuel 13, when Saul’s resolve to wait for Samuel’s arrival weakens as the Israelite army becomes anxious and begins to desert. Saul ends up playing the role of priest and offering the sacrifice to God himself – his great sin.

Leaders - you can make a difference

What then can be done to boost one’s emotional immunity in these anxious times we live in?

Research in the 1950s and 60s through theorists such as Bowen and Kerr offers common grace wisdom for us in observing that anxiety fuelled by a real or imagined threat will always be present in teams or congregations of any size, but the role of a leader is unique in mitigating its effects.

Leaders have the ability to either increase the level of anxiety in a group or to shrink it, but it requires the leaders to note the symptoms first in themselves and others, and secondly to have the capacity – and indeed, courage – to appropriately intervene.

There are a number of useful counter-moves a leader can reach for when a team is chronically anxious – from challenging black-and-white reductionist thinking to introducing playfulness to group conversation. But by far the most effective move is to create sufficient space to adequately prepare for church gatherings.

We all recognise the tendency to rush from one meeting to the next, grabbing a coffee or a meal on the go, ducking into the next discussion in the nick of time.

Such diary acrobatics give the impression of productivity but they actually lower one’s emotional immunity; this makes you more likely to be triggered by your own anxieties and default to reactive behaviours of passivity, over-assertiveness, or disproportionate defensiveness.

In leadership, frenetic busyness rarely equates to wise effectiveness.

Instead, the modern equivalent to bed rest and paracetamol is what’s called "white space"; it's shorthand for avoiding back-to-back meetings in the diary, or intentional space to recover and process from one encounter and to orientate and prepare oneself for the next.

For the Christian leader, our immunity-boosting "white space" can help us reorientate ourselves spiritually, depending upon the Lord for both wisdom and strength.

Four questions to reflect on

I often encourage leaders, and myself, to use the daily gaps between meetings to reflect on the following questions: 

• Firstly, what do I expect to see in this meeting? (That is, who will be present in this meeting, are there relational issues likely to be at play that I should be aware of?)
• Secondly, what am I feeling as I head into this meeting? (This is the opportunity to notice any fear, anxiety or even frustration that might shape my responses.)
• Thirdly, what is it I feel that I need from this meeting? (Here we identify, for the sake of clarity, the key desired outcome.)
• Finally, where does the gospel meet these needs in full? (It is worth reminding ourselves of the bigger perspective in which our labour sits, suddenly our meetings remain important but not critical, and failures are disappointing rather than crushing.)
  
  For me personally, I am a card-carrying people pleaser, therefore a simple – brief but intentional – pause helps to remind me there is nothing that can be offered or taken from me in the imminent meeting that can alter my status as a beloved son of the living God.
  
  That might seem too simplistic to be value added – but the times I’ve walked out of a conversation with others and felt a deep sense of personal regret, in almost all cases, I’ve let my anxiety take the wheel and I’ve relegated the promises of the gospel to the back seat.

So what would it look like for you to boost your emotional immune system for the sake of your church?