Special Guest: Dan Werthman Pt 1 - Triggered to Transformed

How learning family systems helped a pastor stop reacting and start leading with calm

Pastoral leadership often rises or falls not on doctrine, programs, or even preaching skill, but on how a leader manages anxiety in relationships. That reality sits at the heart of our conversation with intentional interim pastor and Christian conciliator Dan Worthman, whose journey from Air Force JAG and civil litigator to pulpit and peacemaking led him deep into family systems theory. He describes how repeated experiences of being “triggered” by shame—formed in his family of origin—shaped ministry moments that later became points of regret. Family systems gave him language for that pattern and a path toward healthier functioning. The key idea he highlights is process over content: the surface issue looks different from case to case, but the emotional process repeats. Once he saw the process, he could choose responses rather than replay reactions. This is the hinge on which ministry health can turn, because anxious reactivity narrows perspective, while calm, grounded presence widens it.

Dan’s story begins with vocation. He sensed a pastoral calling but pursued law, gaining training in adversarial spaces and conflict analysis. Those skills, combined with exposure to Peacemaker Ministries and certification in Christian conciliation, became a bridge into pastoral reconciliation work. After leading three congregations, he moved into intentional interim ministry in his early 50s, discovering a unique fit: churches in transition need leaders who can read emotional fields, surface unspoken dynamics, and lower anxiety without forcing quick fixes. Interim work also made his own patterns undeniable. When a congregant’s words landed with the tone of old shame, he could be hijacked into fight, flight, or freeze. In calmer seasons he could field anger; but shame cues were different, pulling him back into a story that predated the church. Seeing this pattern didn’t excuse failure—it made responsibility clearer. He could no longer blame “content” issues, because the process was inside him.

Family systems theory offered tools and mentors. Ron Richardson’s writing on healthier churches and pastors helped Dan spot patterns in congregational triangles, cutoffs, and fusion. Peter Steinke made church anxiety visible and practical. Edwin Friedman’s call to be a well-differentiated leader reframed courage as staying connected while staying clear. Roberta Gilbert’s guide to the eight concepts of Bowen theory gave him a framework: differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear family emotional system, family projection, multigenerational transmission, emotional cutoff, sibling position, and societal regression. Dan supplemented reading with Bowen Center learning and digestible frameworks from Jack Shitama, whose Anxious Church, Anxious People makes systems language pastor-friendly. The throughline: change travels indirectly. You work on yourself. You stop applying systems labels to others as weapons. You regulate your own reactivity, and over time, relationships reorganize around a calmer presence.

That personal work included genograms and guided conversations with parents. Rather than weaponizing theory, he practiced curiosity. Mapping several generations exposed how anxiety, trauma, and survival strategies move through families, shaping shame, silence, or conflict styles. He learned to ask parents about their childhoods without accusation, expanding compassion as context replaced blame. This dovetails with a mature view of forgiveness: it becomes imaginable when you can truly say, “If I had lived their life, I might have done the same.” Family systems doesn’t absolve harm, but it relocates agency. Parents’ patterns influenced him, and he still chose responses—some of which entrenched dysfunction. Seeing both sides humanizes everyone involved and opens a path to repent, reset boundaries, and communicate with honesty.

For pastors, the payoff is concrete. Differentiation means you name your position calmly and stay connected to people who disagree. You refuse triangles by redirecting complaints back to the relationship at hand. You slow down decision cycles under pressure, because anxiety pushes urgency, and urgency breeds poor thinking. You note when shame cues are present and name them to yourself: “I’m feeling exposed; this is old.” You regulate with breath, brief pauses, and prepared scripts: “I want to answer thoughtfully; can I respond tomorrow?” You learn your reactivity map: who triggers you, in what contexts, and why. You practice clarity without aggression, empathy without capitulation. Over time, the congregation experiences a nervous system that is safe enough to tell the truth and solid enough to hold differences without splitting.

Dan’s retrospective on a bumpy pastorate shows how this changes interpretation. That church needed an interim after a traumatic pastoral exit; he stepped in without that reset. Some conflicts were structural and predictable. But his shame reactivity magnified them. He still believes leavin

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