We can examine the patterns of systems, the factors they touch, and the internal momentum every system requires to exist -and this is manageable to do if we isolate a single system and focus in on it. I’d been thinking of commonly encountered systems like transportation or urban growth patterns, and recalled how deeply these affect each other, and about the other systems that each itself affects.
One of my most profound learnings as a youth minister was the realization -the revelation really- that my ministry was with the parents of the youth as well as the youth themselves. I needed relationships with the whole family system -or at least more of it than I had previously understood- in order to function well.
