1. Systems Thinking (Senge’s Five Disciplines)
Living System Ministry
Systems Thinking (Senge’s Five Disciplines)
Understanding the Fifth of Senge’s Five Disciplines
© 2012 Emmanuel Gospel Center

2. Systems Thinking
Integrating all of the other disciplines into a holistic approach to understanding and acting
What is Systems Thinking?
We have already defined a living system as an orderly, highly complex, and highly interrelated arrangement of living components that work together to accomplish a common goal when in proper relationship with one another. We also know that Living Systems Ministry is about caring for God’s people and communities, including meeting their needs and addressing their problems. To review, the Works Method doesn’t work with living systems and is best suited for fixing simple or big systems issues. In contrast, systems thinking is foundational to Living Systems Ministry, and enables us to nurture life and be effective in ways not possible with the Works Method.
According to Peter M. Senge and The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, “systems thinking is the fifth discipline. It is the discipline that integrates the disciplines, fusing them into a coherent body of theory and practice… By enhancing each of the other disciplines, it continually reminds us that the whole can exceed the sum of its parts.”
© 2012 Emmanuel Gospel Center 2

3. Systems Thinking Allows us to minister in and
to living systems appropriate
to their complexity
What is Systems Thinking?
Unlike a toaster, a cat cannot be broken down into its individual parts to be fixed. Instead, the best way to meet a cat’s needs or heal it from sickness is to consider it as a whole and understand how its parts are highly interrelated and interdependent. In a similar way, systems thinking requires that we see and act holistically, challenging us to skillfully practice and combine the other four disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. We are compelled to question and break out of the Works Method approach to ministry. Systems thinking is the discipline and means by which we can effectively meet living systems’ needs and address their complex problems.
© 2012 Emmanuel Gospel Center

4. Systems Thinking The whole is greater than the sum
What is Systems Thinking?
With personal mastery, we are individuals who are highly committed to learning, growing, and truth. This includes regularly confronting, confessing and addressing our mental models, especially those that are harmful or damaging. Through shared vision and team learning, we are challenged to deeply engage and work well with others at every level of doing ministry, from decision making to taking action. This includes helping others to regularly confront, confess and address their mental models that are harmful or damaging. It also means we are continually learning from one another and growing together. Systems thinking is the means by which we understand, value and practice the truth that the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts: in numerous living systems and ministry contexts, we as individuals are parts of a whole. We are able to see the consequences of our actions and those of others, so that we do more good than harm.
© 2012 Emmanuel Gospel Center

5. What is Systems Thinking?
So…
What is Systems Thinking?
KEY TEACHING POINTS:
Systems thinking requires that we see and act holistically, challenging us to skillfully practice and combine the other four disciplines: personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the relationships between the parts are very important to see and understand.
Systems Thinking enables us to see the consequences of our actions and gives us the opportunity to correct those that are harmful or damaging.
Systems thinking is foundational to Living Systems Ministry.
Unlike the Works Method, systems thinking allows us to minister in and to living systems appropriate to their complexity.
As ministers, we can be individually and corporately more in tune with God’s design, teaching and example by taking a Living Systems Ministry approach
© 2012 Emmanuel Gospel Center 5