I’ve been seeing my doctor quite a bit lately. Turning 74, the old body is starting to show its age! My doctor is trying to help my body work at its “normal state of being” by trying to remove the hindrances that keep it from functioning at its highest potential. So for me, doing physical therapy removes some of the hindrances of having creaky joints.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about how Living System Ministry can be compared with medical science. When we work with groups of people, such as a pastor does with a church, we can think of ourselves as “social system doctors.” We operate in social systems similar to the way our doctors work on our physical bodies, that is, we are attempting to get the social system working at its normal state of being. Just as your doctor tries to remove the hindrances that keep your body from working well, your major task as a “social system doctor” is to get rid of what is keeping the group you are working from operating in healthy, vital way. In other words, this involves removing what hinders or prevents the church or ministry from living up to its God-ordained potential.

I was very pleased when someone contacted me after hearing about Living System Ministry saying, "I want to learn more on how to 'un-learn' all this stuff I have accumulated over the years." I saw this as being very similar to saying, "I want to get rid of the hindrances.” I feel that those who want to “unlearn” unhelpful things and discover how to remove hindrances are intuitively on the right track toward becoming “social system doctors." The assumption should be that any social system – and of course, churches are social systems – has the capacity of working at a healthy normal state of being. My pastor, Neal Armandt, has this feeling about our church. He is always saying, “Trust the church,” implying that it can work as a healthy living system and that it has a healthy normal state of being.

Of course, the problem is that many social systems, including churches, are not always operating at their normal state of being. They may be exhibiting various problems because “diseases” are hindering them. In the next few blogs, we will discuss what is involved in being a “social system doctor” including things like:

• Having a natural immune system
• Listening to the church explain the “symptoms” they feel
• Identifying the deeper “signs” that demonstrate the problems that exist, and
• How to remove the diseases that keep our living social systems from functioning in a vital way

Just as our bodies have healing properties within themselves, social systems can also heal themselves and return to their “normal state of being.”