Designed for More by Lucas Ramirez

Author:Lucas Ramirez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2018-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effect on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it’s doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead, we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get solved.9

The Church is indeed also such a system, an organization made up of many smaller sub-organizations. But since we are a part of the system ourselves, we do not typically see it as a whole. In the back of our minds, the idea might exist that we are one greater body, but how often is it lived out practically?

The central challenge is to change the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Learning to see things in wholes will help us think correctly and see the interrelationships between things rather than just isolated units. When applied, this discipline will destroy the illusion that the world is created of separate, unrelated forces or that God’s Church is just a loose network of independent local churches.10 Like any discipline, learning and practicing it is difficult. This discipline will be particularly hard to learn with the frenetic pace we keep because it requires slowing down to see the gradual processes at play. It will take a lot of time—that means it will also require patience.

It even takes time for the experts. Jay Forrester, considered to be one of the fathers of system dynamics, once undertook a project with John Collins, retired Boston mayor. Their aim was to look systematically at urban cities and draw insights about poverty, housing, crime, and more. Even for Forrester and the elite team of experts on cities that he and Collins gathered, this process took time. Despite living in different cities, this team of experts made an incredible commitment and gathered every Wednesday afternoon for one year! Sounds like a possible gathering of Seven Influential Neighbors. The discussions of that group were eventually developed into one of Forrester’s books, Urban Dynamics.11

This is not a “fix it overnight” discipline, but it is the one we need if we want lasting change. It is as if we are stuck in a rip current and without knowing how the system of a rip current works, we don’t understand that the solution is to swim sideways. We want to challenge you to think of the global Christian Church as a system. Just like creation, the Church is an interconnected tapestry made up of many parts, designed to reflect God’s glory. As John Armstrong says, we currently have a limited and narrow view of the Church.12 We agree. It is time to slow down so we can learn this game-changing discipline. It will reveal a new picture showing us the leverage we possess, paving the way to build real momentum for unity.

For the Church, we must recognize our mutual need for one another. Consider that “in human systems, people

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