Books by Jack Shitama

Who makes you anxious? A family member, boss or co-worker? A member of your church?You can't change them. But you can change yourself.Understanding your family of origin is the first step. Read this book and you will: Understand the principles that govern how families function. Learn how to take responsibility for yourself and no one else. Learn how you can be a non-anxious presence in your family, workplace and congregation.If You Met My Family, You'd Understand takes a complicated subject, Family Systems Theory, and makes it easy to understand. It will teach you how your family of origin influences your thoughts and actions, and how awareness and intentionality can help you to find new, more healthy ways of being.

The key to effective church leadership is the ability to be a non-anxious presence.This is not a technique. It is a way of being. It is deceptively simple, but tremendously difficult. Yet, if you are willing to take the journey, you can lead change in even the most challenging contexts.Read this book and you will understand: The process that keeps churches anxious and stuck. How leadership through self-differentiation gets churches unstuck. How to develop as a non-anxious presence so you can lead change anywhere, but especially in an anxious church. Anxious Church, Anxious People is based on a family systems approach to congregational leadership. If you are willing to learn more about yourself and your family of origin, you can learn to be a non-anxious presence. If you have tried everything else and realize that you cannot change others, but can only change yourself, this book can help you. It makes family systems concepts accessible and practical through the use of examples from personal experience. The author has used this approach to leadership in his 26 years of ministry as a pastor, board chair and ministry executive. It has enabled him to lead significant change in the local church, a regional ministry and a denominational professional association. He has been teaching, mentoring and coaching congregational leaders for the last 15 years to help them to do the same.