In the real world, pastors (and other leaders) interact on the dance floor. It takes skill, desire, and discipline to be both on the dance floor while observing and interpreting what is happening on the dance floor from a balcony perspective. The Three-Point Practice presents the practitioner with a method that uses self-knowledge grounded in guiding principles / core values. Such self-knowledge recognizes how certain stimuli prompts a level of anxiety that finds a response that is healthy, average, or unhealthy. The method teaches a post action narrative reflection discipline using the Anxiety Response Chart (ARC) as the guide.

The ARC example below, entitled The Dunkin’ Donuts Dilemma, is fully demonstrated in the an expanded Three-Point Practice that includes the Tripartite Brain and the Enneagram. Simply put, the practitioner writes a post incident narrative. Learning to recognize and manage one’s own anxiety through self-reflective practice makes it possible for the practitioner to overcome a congregation’s homeostasis. The goal is for the practitioner to maintain a balanced emotional response while stimulating the congregation with needed anxiety that results in a healthy outcome. Over time, the practitioner visualizes the narrative while living the narrative. Thus the insights gained from the balcony find dance floor as action happens and decisions congruent with guiding principles / core values are made. The word “intellect” in the ARC represents that aspiration.

My doctoral thesis, as noted in the Reflection-in-Action Synthesis page, used a 360 study of my conflict management style based on the work of Speed Leas as the interpretive balance to what part of my brain I acted from. 

The Three-Point Practice is a learnable discipline that links the stimulus found on the dance floor with a response best guided by a balcony perspective. You begin with an awareness of how one of your three brain functions reacts to that stimulus (Automatic Pilot – brain stem, reptilian; House of Emotion – limbic system, mammalian; and Thinking Cap – neocortex). This is the essence of engaging your narrative as How Well Can You See Your Story.

Conflict Management Styles from the work of Speed Leas (Trust Adverse / Trust Accepting); or The Enneagram (Bandwidth / Center of Gravity); or Ron Kraybill’s Conflict Styles Inventory (Storm / Calm) provide deeper and significant self-reflective insight that supports the Three-Point Practice. The links below take an in-depth look at how the Enneagram or Kraybill CSI work within the Three-Point Practice.

You are invited to join me in exploring how a Three-Point Practice can help you listen better and offer leadership that gives space.

Three-Point Practice: Trust Adverse / Trust Accepting

Three-Point Practice: Enneagram

Three-Point Practice: Kraybill CSI