Victims, Threats, Leaders: Uncovering Our Mental Models About Refugees

Victims, Threats, Leaders:

Uncovering Our Mental Models About Refugees

By Olivia Blumenshine

I asked Rev. Torli Krua, a Liberian refugee and Boston ministry leader, what assumptions Americans make about him after learning of his refugee status. He shared, “Sometimes when I speak, they say, ‘Oh! So you speak English! Ah, when did you learn that?’” The Americans’ surprise suggests they hold a “mental model” about refugees. 

A mental model is an assumption we make about how the world works—and a driving force behind how we act. Americans who are taken aback by Rev. Krua’s fluent English may hold a variety of mental models. They may believe that refugees come from non-English speaking countries, that refugees are uneducated, or that refugees don’t have the motivation or opportunity to learn English.

Some Americans might even believe that poor non-Westerners have a lower mental capacity than wealthy Americans or that refugees are lazy moochers who likely can’t be bothered to learn English. Our mental models are generally unconscious, meaning we are not readily aware of them, and they take work to uncover.

Some mental models are roughly accurate if oversimplified. Most current refugees do speak another language besides English as their native language, but Liberia happens to be an exception. When asked this question about his English skills, Rev. Krua responds, “Come on now! My country [Liberia] was started by the United States government!” 

But other mental models are misleading or wholly inaccurate. They’re rooted in misinformation, prejudice, trauma, or historical realities that are no longer true. 

Rev. Torli Krua (left), executive director of Universal Human Rights International, with fellow pastor Sam Boadu (right) at the 2018 fundraiser for the Greater Boston Refugee Ministry.

Mental models, which we form based on our limited information and experience, influence our reactions to the world every day—often without our awareness. Peter Senge, who first coined the term “mental model,” explains, 

Mental models can be simple generalizations, such as “people are untrustworthy,” or they can be complex theories, such as my assumptions about why members of my family interact the way they do.…But what is most important to grasp is that mental models are active—they shape how we act. If we believe people are untrustworthy, we act differently than we would if we believed they were trustworthy. — The Fifth Discipline, p. 164.

Uses & Limits of Mental Models

Everyone has mental models. Our brains are designed to gather and store information for quick retrieval to help us more quickly process the world around us. Our experiences thus shape our perspectives about the world and our place in it. But mental models can backfire—with harmful consequences—if they’re inaccurate or we’re unwilling to challenge them.

To uncover our mental models, we’ll need to engage our minds and spirits intentionally. We’ll need to push against our automatic brain process to identify our assumptions and their roots. 

Checks on our mental models can come from circumstances (where we gain insight into ourselves and the world), reading (which challenges our thinking), and especially through discussion with others. Because others hold diverse mental models due to their different life experiences, input from others is necessary and helpful for surfacing our mental models.

My Shift in Perspective

I have never been a refugee. When I started volunteering with the Greater Boston Refugee Ministry (GBRM) four years ago, I found that my perspective on refugees needed to be tested and refined. I had seen the photographs—emaciated people drifting in rafts or crouching in tents. From those images, I had formed the belief that refugees are people who needed saving—who aren’t able to protect themselves. 

Over the years, I have spent more time with people with a refugee background through my work with GBRM. In that time, I’ve learned that humans can endure intense pain and loss and still retain their generosity, hospitality, goodness, and strength. 

My mental models about refugees continue to evolve. I’m currently learning more about refugee innovation and leadership. I thank God that, by His grace, we are always learning and growing. 

Opening Reflection

As you begin to consider the mental models you may hold about refugees, you may find these questions helpful for your reflection:

1. When I think of the word ‘refugee,’ what images and feelings first come to mind?

2. What words and phrases do I associate with refugees?

3. What do these images, words, and feelings tell me about my perspectives on refugees?

4. How would I explain who a refugee is to someone else?

5. What information or experiences have led me to hold those perspectives?

6. Am I willing to test my mental models about refugees with updated information?

Hold on to these reflections as you consider the specific mental models in this article.

5 Mental Models ABOUT Refugees

I want to share just a few of the many ways I’ve observed Americans viewing refugees. As you read them, consider with which views you agree or disagree. For those you agree with, I encourage you to go deeper—ask yourself, What mental models are at the root of my perspective?

MENTAL MODEL #1: Refugees are victims.

When I first started volunteering with the Greater Boston Refugee Ministry, I was operating under the assumption that refugees are victims. My mind was filled with stories of people forced to flee their country under horrible circumstances. From those, I developed an image of people who are powerless to the harm they experience. 

Refugees have, in fact, experienced tremendous suffering at the hands of others. I soon learned, however, that the “victim” label falls short of describing the strength of mind, body, and spirit it takes to leave one’s home, community, possessions, and family to start a new life in a different land. 

If you see refugees as victims, how do you define “victim”? If you, like I, associate victimhood with helplessness and passivity, what might that mean for how you think and act towards refugees? 

Maybe you see refugees as people who need to be helped. Perhaps you see Americans, with their resources and social programs, as people who can provide that help. Here is where it can get ugly: where do we mentally draw the line between “needing help” and “being helpless?” When Americans see ourselves as rescuers and refugees as powerless, we reduce the value of both groups, limiting opportunities for creative collaboration and new initiatives.

To go further, why might Americans see ourselves as people in the position to rescue others? Maybe we have heard so many times that the United States is the greatest nation in the world, and we have grown to believe it without question. Perhaps our perceived authority to save is rooted in how we see our political structure or our material resources. Or, it may be rooted in the majority whiteness of our population and the privilege and assumed responsibility that comes with that.

Furthermore, some Americans also see refugees living in the US as needing rescue. They may think, If they couldn’t handle the pressures in their country, how will they manage life in the US without help?

If you find yourself identifying with any of these assumptions, to what extent does that lead you to believe that US citizens are responsible for ‘saving’ refugees? What, then, does that reveal about your view of US citizens’ role in the world? What does it say about your sense of American superiority or resilience?

Mental Model #2: Refugees are a drain on societies.

When we think of refugees as people who need help, we might assume there is nothing refugees can contribute in return. Many Americans are concerned that welcoming refugees to the US is too costly or that it will jeopardize Americans’ jobs. This assumption is not just untrue—it’s the opposite of true. For example,  welcoming refugees boosts national economies, according to a study by German economists Marcel Fratzscher and Simon Junker. However, in the present article, I am more concerned with the mental model that is the basis of this assumption. 

Seeing refugees as a burden reveals an underlying view that refugees are “other,” and therefore, their entitlement to resources and legal protection is different than that of native-born US citizens.

If you find yourself identifying with this assumption, ask yourself: Who do I believe is entitled to American resources, and why? Who belongs in the US? What gives them the authority to reside there? You may uncover a mental model that informs your perspective.

Mental Model #3: Refugees are terrorists. 

Americans consume media at an unprecedented rate, some of which contain images and information that helps create the generalization that refugee groups are full of terrorists. This assumption remains, even though the Cato Institute reports that of the near three million refugees admitted to the United States since 1980, no refugee has killed an American in a terrorist attack. 

By contrast, Americans don’t label all teenagers as terrorists, despite the many school shootings carried out by teenagers. Why, then, do Americans believe that refugees are more likely to be terrorists?

Data from Terrorists by Immigration Status and Nationality: A Risk Analysis, 1975 – 2017, by the Cato Institute, May 7, 2019.

If you hold the assumption that refugees are more likely to be terrorists, take a moment to identify its origin. When you think of the word ‘terrorist,’ what images first come to mind? What memories and feelings arise in you?

You may feel instinctive anger or fear toward people who match your image of a terrorist, and that could shape your perception of many people. Perhaps the Black or Brown people coming to the US—sometimes with head coverings—remind you of the faces, clothing, or head coverings of terrorists you have seen in the media. 

We often overgeneralize based on appearances, especially in situations of fear or threat. If you agree with the view of refugees as likely terrorists, perhaps the way the government or media presents information confirms what you already believed about who is a threat to US safety. 

Mental Model #4: Refugees are far away and not our problem. 

When hearing about refugees fleeing from far-off conflicts, many American Christians may feel a moment of sympathy before returning to their daily concerns. If you think of refugees as belonging to a distant reality from American Christians, why do you think that is? 

The traumatic ordeals that many refugees have undergone are so far outside the experience of most Americans that it makes it hard for us to empathize fully. We might then develop a mental model about the “otherness” of refugees, where the injustice done to them does not affect us.

Country-to-Country Net Migration, snapshot taken October 22, 2019 from “All the World’s Migration in 1 Map”.

The reality is that war and displacement can happen anywhere, and our empathy for refugees is directly related to our capacity to acknowledge this vulnerability. Many refugees lived in places that were once peaceful, and they struggle to understand what has happened to their community. 

Some Americans have difficulty picturing an interrelated world where the problems of one nation also belong to others. In truth, we are more interdependent than we like to think. In acting in its immediate interests, the US has sometimes contributed to instability around the world. 

For example, Rev. Krua mentioned above the founding of Liberia by the US government. He elaborated, “Liberia was founded unlawfully through the American Colonization Society (ACS) by high-ranking American government officials who were slaveholders and white supremacists. Using American taxpayers’ money and the United States Navy, they colonized Liberia with Black Americans and mixed-race Americans to prevent a slave revolt.”

What do such realities say about our responsibility to accept and support refugees displaced by the ensuing chaos? What is the US’ duty, for example, to Liberian refugees who continue to be denied work permits over 16 years after they arrived in the US accompanied by US soldiers?

If refugees feel like far-away “others” to you, you might wish to learn more about refugees in Massachusetts who contribute to our local communities. Pay attention to what surprises you about this information. Consider what mental models you hold and how the current data helps you update those mental models.

Mental Model #5: Refugees are survivors & leaders.

American Christians who consider the resourcefulness of refugees begin to see them as resilient, agile innovators—people who can survive, succeed, and lead. Rev. Krua defines refugee leadership as “a leadership that adapts to the circumstances around itself. It’s a leadership that looks to the future. So it’s a resilient leadership—and I think it’s necessary leadership.” 

Photos from GBRM Refugee Entrepreneurs Gathering, June 10, 2017.

While this positive image of refugees is still a simplification (as all mental models are), in my experience, it better captures the truth about this remarkable population. If we imagine the ingenuity and grit needed to make a new home, we grow in understanding and respect.

Photo from the 2018 GBRM Fundraiser Party.

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About the Author

Olivia Blumenshine worked a dual internship at EGC during the summer of 2019, serving both as a writing intern in Applied Research & Consulting and a ministry intern with Greater Boston Refugee Ministry. Originally from Greater Boston, she is a double major in English and Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. She loves experimenting with the power of story to connect people across cultures and backgrounds.

What is Living System Ministry?

What is Living System Ministry?

Living System Ministry is a discipline of Christian practice that recognizes the differences between the living systems that God makes and the constructs that people make, offering insights and practical tools to help us align with and effectively engage living social systems.

Consider cats and toasters

People make toasters. Only God makes cats. And, clearly, we can’t fix a sick cat with the tools we may use to fix our broken toaster. So why do those of us who are in Christian ministry try to fix our churches with tools designed for accomplishing simple tasks, which don't take into account what is truly living, the rich complexity of our people-based, Spirit-filled churches?

Churches, cities, and cultures are living systems

The Bible describes the church as a body, an organism. Yet, in our Western culture, we have grown accustomed to thinking of churches in terms of organizations or buildings because our culture is very organizationally and technologically centered.

Our thinking about our social context is inadequate, so our actions are unfruitful

God is always at work and, as his children, we want to participate with him in his work. If we use our organizational mental models to work with living systems such as churches, neighborhoods, and cities, unknowingly we cause much long-term harm instead of good. We need to learn to adopt the right mental models about living systems to avoid that.

Through redemption, we can learn a better way of thinking

Through our friendship with Jesus Christ, we find that his ways are higher than ours, and, through a consistent process of redemptive thinking, we internalize his ways of growing and nurturing what is alive. More like farmers than technicians, we learn, through this redemptive process, to be involved in and “in tune with” what causes fruitfulness. We never “cause” fruit to happen! God does!

With a new perspective, we can participate with God in his work

As our work becomes aligned with what God is already doing, and as his vitality begins to flow through the veins and arteries of the living social systems, there is an explosion of life within us and around us. Multiplication of this life is the natural outcome of living system ministry. It is our joy to discover it, and to give all honor and praise to God.

Bear fruit in every good work

We learn that real change in any living system is not dependent on what we do, but on what God does. Therefore, to get anything done, we are going to have to learn to think more about working with God’s living systems and think less about trying to fix problems with our plans and procedures and programs. When our ministry activities are better aligned with what God is already doing, there is an explosion of life! Then, instead of our actions causing more decline, our actions contribute to fruitful ministry.

To learn more

These are just some of the core principles of Living System Ministry. At the Emmanuel Gospel Center, we have been teaching these concepts to seminarians and ministry practitioners for many years. To learn more, you can start by reading Doug Hall’s 2010 book, The Cat and the Toaster, Living System Ministry in a Technological Age (Amazon: https://amzn.com/1608992705). You can search this site for more on the topic of Living System Ministry. Or get in touch with us. We would be happy to help!

Summary/synopsis:

What is Living System Ministry? Doug Hall sets out the core ideas of this discipline of Christian practice where we learn to discern the living social systems around us and align our actions to what really creates lasting change.

Intro to Hexagoning: Groups Listening to Their Own Social System

Intro to Hexagoning: Groups Listening to Their Own Social System

by Doug and Judy Hall

Sometimes a group of people who are grappling with an issue that is relevant to all of them need to be able to “see” their issue in a clearer way, to hear their own system speak. Judy and I often use a facilitated group brainstorming technique called hexagoning to help achieve that. The process is called hexagoning because one of the primary tools used in the exercise is hexagon-shaped.

Hexagoning: a facilitated open mapping process used to develop the conscious thought process of a group to understand complex systems, to create shared vision, and to identify systemically derived and thus aligned action plans.

Briefly, hexagoning involves evoking all the variables everyone can think of around the topic or issue at hand. There are always many, many variables that people can think of, usually at least 40. One group had 300! The more variables, the better picture they get of the interrelated complexities of the issue.

But the multiplicity of variables soon becomes overwhelming to the group. To address this complexity we have the group put the variables into categories so they can better deal with them. As each category is named in a way that reminds the group of all the variables it contains, and written on a board for all to see, the group soon has a pretty good visual picture of the larger issue it is addressing.

We find that usually this shared vision has been invisible to the group before this exercise, or if not entirely invisible, it has never been well defined. This process brings it out where all can see it.

This group is using large, rectangular Post-It Notes to accomplish the same thing.

At the Emmanuel Gospel Center, we have done hexagoning sessions at least a hundred times with many different kinds of groups in different cultures, in both urban and suburban settings, in large and small churches, with community groups and leadership teams, with gatherings of people interested in a common goal, and on a wide variety of topics. It seems to work effectively with all groups, and serves to surface ideas that are aligned with living systems.

I will take a few pages just to introduce you to the process. If you are interested in using it in your setting, you will be able to learn more at our website or from other sources.

What’s the question?

The first step in the hexagoning exercise is to come up with the one key question that you plan to present to the group.

If, for example, you have been asked to help a church leadership team clarify their goals for neighborhood outreach, you would meet with some of the church leaders to try to understand the problem from their perspective and draft the question. You might suggest a question such as, “What are the greatest felt needs in our neighborhood?”, and allow the leadership team to help refine the question to best elicit the kinds of responses that will help reveal what the group collectively thinks.

Some questions I have seen used in the past are:

• What are the really good things about this ministry that we don’t want to lose?

• What can be done to produce racial reconciliation among Christians? (The group was also asked to respond to this: What are the hindrances to producing racial reconciliation among Christians?)

• How can we work together as a team? (The group could also respond to: What hinders teamwork in our organization?)

• What would an ideal youth ministry look like here at First Congregational Church? (This question was first asked of the church leadership, and, at a later session, of the youth themselves.)

Initial large group hexagoning process

Next, meet with the entire group in a comfortable setting, perhaps around tables, and where everyone can see a white board. Write the question down where all can see it.

Give time for everyone to respond, first by insisting that each person, working on his or her own, write down three responses to the question on paper. Once everyone has had time to write, then start to go around the group, letting each person verbally give just one answer.

The secretary or scribe for the exercise will write each response in a summary or headline form on a single hexagon. Hexagons are available in a magnetic form suitable for dry erase markers and adhering to a magnetic white board, or in a Post-it® note format which you can write on with a marker and adhere to the wall or chalkboard. The designated secretary will put a consecutive identifying number at the top of one of the points of the hexagon, and place it on the board or wall.

If the group is processing both negative and positive answers, keep those separate from each other, putting all the positive responses in one place and the negative in another.

Depending on the size of your group—and we find this works with groups from ten to sixty people—go around more than once, possibly three times, so that everyone speaks several times. This method helps to encourage those who might not offer answers in an unstructured discussion due to shyness.

After everyone has shared, ask if anything is missing. Give suggestions. When everyone is satisfied, the next step is to organize the responses.

Group the hexagons into categories

The facilitator leads the group in putting all the answers into categories. Ask participants to call out which numbered hexagons are related. Someone will say, “Number 3, mutual respect, is like number 35, respecting differences.”

The secretary or facilitator will move those two hexagons together so that one side from each is touching. Continue the process of combining similar thoughts and ideas until there are four to eight clear groups or clusters of hexagons.

Next, ask the participants to name the clusters. The name should be a short action phrase with a verb that describes the dynamic of all the items in that cluster, not just a topic heading.

For example, a cluster might be called “Holding boundaries,” or “Being flexible,” or “Celebrate interracial reconciliation,” or “Unwillingness to move out of our comfort zone.” Circle the clusters and write the label directly on the whiteboard.

When everyone is satisfied with the results, then make new hexagons with the names of the clusters, and move those to a clean space.

Interrelate the clusters; infer causation

Ask the group, “From these new hexagons, what comes first? What causes or leads to what?” Move the hexagon categories around as people explore the causal connections.

When the group is fairly sure of the connections, draw arrows on the board showing what causes what, how the categories interconnect in their causal interactions. Look for causes, not logical connections. You may have more than one arrow coming out of or pointing to a category, as relationships are complex.

What you now have is the beginning of a causal loop diagram. The causal loop diagram will provide an entry point for where to begin to take action. If you start at the right place, one event causes the development of the next.

Meet with your learning team

Take the results of this exercise back to the learning team. Verbalize the “story” as represented by the arrows in your initial interrelated diagram. Adjust the relationships until every point in the loop contributes to a coherent story.

The whole interrelated diagram should make sense overall. If there is anything that seems to be left out, feel free to add additional cluster names to make sense of the story.

The next step we take is to identify and number the loops and determine which ones are “balancing loops” and which are “reinforcing loops.” Explaining these is beyond the scope of this post. But this is a process to determine how the causal momentum moves around the diagram.

Then we isolate the key topics, generally the ones with the most arrows coming in or out of them or which appear to be leverage points. We limit the variables in the final loop to seven or fewer.

FINAL OBSERVATIONS

• The learning team may then explore biblical parallels to our narrative of the interrelationships, and write this up.

• We then describe the practical implications of what we have learned thus far.

• We report back to the initial group for feedback.

If done well, this total process produces social revelation showing how the social system itself operates to get a task done.

Indeed there is much more to this process, but hopefully you get the idea. Over time, the learning team can reduce all this learning into its simplest form so that it can be remembered and applied by everyone in the system.

LEARN MORE

Hexagons: From Ideas to Variables

To order hexagon pads, visit ThinkingTools.net.

Spiritual, Social and Systemic Conversion

Christians need to change. Sometimes that change is so radical, we could call it conversion. But how can those who have been converted be converted all over again? Here, Dr. Hall talks about three types of conversion, a spiritual, social, and systemic conversion. Using examples from his own life, he explains how each type of transformation was needed for him to do ministry effectively, and all three types of change were empowered by the redemption won by Jesus Christ on the cross.

by Dr. Doug Hall
September, 2009

Do the converted need conversion?

In the message to the Laodiceans in Revelation 3, it seems as though Christ is encouraging people who were already Christians to be converted! He is preaching redemption to the redeemed. Why would Jesus ask Christians to repent in such strong language? Why would he ask those he declares to be poor to “buy” something from him? And why would he tell Christians he is outside some door knocking to come in? This text is full of mystery!

I have just recently realized that I have had a wrong premise in writing this book. I kept asking myself, “How can the reader apply the material in this book?” And I have been expecting that the readers would first gain an intellectual grasp of the concepts and then apply that understanding to their life experiences.

But just the other day, a good friend, Dr. Bobby Bose, reminded me that it didn’t work that way for me. I didn’t begin my journey into living system ministry with intellectual understanding, so why should I expect you to find that as your entry point to a new level of ministry?

Then Bobby asked me, “How did you get converted to the way you do things?” What an interesting way to put it. As we talked, I realized that for me it really took a conversion experience, and I think this may be what is needed for you as well.

In the first few verses of his letter to Laodicea, Jesus calls the Laodicean Christians “poor, blind and miserable,” as though they had a need of redemption and needed to be saved. Next, he counsels them to buy gold, white clothes, and eye salve, symbolizing confession, forgiveness, and new life, also redemptive concepts. It sounds like he is saying that these saved people need redemption! Then he asks them to repent. Soon he is knocking outside the door of the Christian. Why is Christ outside the door of the believer’s heart? You would think this text would be about the unbeliever.

The fact that this seems to be a contradiction shows us that we are not conditioned to understand this text with the way we usually think about things as Western Christians. If we did understand it properly, not only would the seeming contradictions disappear, but also we would discover a different, higher level of understanding of God’s truth.

I think Christ is saying that although the Laodicean believers were converted and already redeemed, they needed to experience a fuller understanding of conversion and redemption. We are like that too. We have experienced one level of redemption, but there are other aspects that we have not experienced. I think Jesus is calling us to convert to full redemption.

As I talked with Bobby about how I had been converted to the way I do ministry, I thought about “three types” of conversion, and it seemed to me that I had undergone each one in some strategic experiences in my own life. Perhaps Jesus is calling us all to three conversions—a spiritual, social, and systemic conversion. Our initial spiritual conversion can give us some insight into how the other areas work.

I first experienced a vertical, spiritual conversion when I became a believer, a follower of Christ. Christians are familiar with spiritual conversion: a bending of our will to God, a calling out to him in repentance for forgiveness and cleansing from sin through a substitutionary atonement, and an acknowledgment that we want to begin walking through life with him.

Later, following my spiritual conversion, I needed and experienced a cultural (or perhaps I could call this a “social”) conversion from the limitations of my own culture to a love for other cultures. In this conversion, I found myself hungry to know about how the Gospel is expressed in other cultures.

A cultural or social conversion

We tend to get spiritual things and cultural things confused. This was true for me. Before I was a Christian, I was a Michigan Norwegian Lutheran. I believe that one of the reasons I was initially hindered from experiencing a real spiritual conversion as a young person was that I had confused what my actual faith was about with what my culture was telling me my faith should be. I finally realized that my culture reflected some things about my faith, but not enough for me to truly have a spiritual conversion. In time, I learned to parse the difference between what was my faith and what was my cultural expression of my faith. This gave me a hunger to discover how other cultures express the same biblical faith.

When I finally found the reality of my faith apart from my culture, and began to see new facets of Christianity expressed in other cultures, I wanted to learn more. I wanted to see the faith reflected in as many cultures as possible, with the belief that each culture could give me another important focus that I had not seen in my original culture. So, as an extension or continuation of my spiritual conversion experience, I also had a social conversion which caused me to see how different cultures were helpful in understanding my faith. No single culture was adequate to tell me all I needed to know about Christ. My own early experience was not in a first-generation immigrant, storefront church, but such churches taught me much about the spontaneous expansion of the faith that was possible in an urban environment. I am not Pentecostal, but Pentecostal Christian friends have taught me how to do my Christianity in a vital and fruitful way. I am not part of a holy order of some liturgical church, but many people who are in such orders have taught me how to see the poor as Jesus himself, how, as he explained it, when I do something for the least of these, I have done it to him. They teach me to see in new ways, to see that people are not to be seen as categorically poor, or addicts, or street people, but as Jesus himself.

This social conversion empties me of paternalism in ministry. I learned to maintain my own cultural identity but develop the ability to have a Process of the Gospel experience where I relevantly communicate and participate with people of other cultures in the meeting of their perceived and basic needs.

The list of other cultural groups who ministered to me and showed me a new way of looking at my faith can go on and on. Today, EGC interrelates with over 100 denominations and over 100 ethnic groups, and people who worship Jesus in 600 churches around Boston in 30 different languages. The Quiet Revival was an invisible movement of God, until we became socially converted to see it with the eyes of faith, and eventually identified it so we could talk about it and show it to others.

Yet, when I talk about cultural or social conversion, I think it will resonate with you because you have already experienced a conversion in the spiritual realm. Those of us in modern society need more than a spiritual conversion, the one that takes us to heaven. Because God’s redemptive design includes people who are not like us, people from every nation, language and tribe, we may need to be converted to the social aspect of God’s redemption.

A systemic conversion

In the course of my early ministry in the city, Judy and I began to experience a third type of conversion, a systemic conversion. A systemic conversion takes me beyond my personal spiritual redemption experience to learning how God’s redemption also extends to other aspects of life as well. On a micro scale, this means that Jesus is able through his redemptive power to supply healing of people’s bodies. On a macro scale, this means Jesus is able through his redemptive power to heal neighborhoods, communities, cities, and other large social systems. As Christ overcame sin through his victorious and sufficient death and resurrection, God is working out his redemptive plan right now to the ultimate end of bringing everything under the feet of Christ. And all this was made possible by the cross.

To confine redemptive activity to the spiritual realm is to miss the truth of Romans 8:22. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Systemic conversion relates to our ability to embrace the whole created system—the spiritual, social, and physical dimensions of life. I believe it is in God’s heart to redeem our physical world and our social world, as he also provides spiritual redemption. We have to be careful not to elevate the spiritual above the physical. God created the physical world, and he is still a part of it. Christ was God and man, and he lived on earth in a social environment. God was not contaminated by sin from a physical body or by living in a social environment. The contamination came from sin, not earth. Our sin was placed upon him who was perfect, so he could pay the penalty of our sin.

My systemic conversion has really changed me and the way I think and the way I do ministry. I have moved from an organizational/technological thinking process to an organic thinking process that I find is more in tune with what God creates, rather than with what humans create. I begin to understand how social/spiritual realities—families, churches, ethnic systems, even the church universal—operate organically as complex, interrelated living systems, far above our normal understanding of organizational order. After we have experienced a systemic conversion, we can begin to see what scripture means when it speaks of the church as an organism. It is in organic ministry that we learn how to not only know truth, but to do it! Organizational Christianity cannot do truth, but organic Christianity can do truth. Seeing the organic nature of social systems shows us a higher level of very complex order that far exceeds organizational levels of order.

So back to the Laodiceans. The church in Laodicean was a mature church. While spiritual conversion had already taken place for the Laodiceans, making them believers, Christ wrote to them to say they needed more. I believe that Christians need total redemption that extends beyond our spiritual conversion and salvation experience if we are to be involved in the full redemptive activity that God is doing in our world today. His total redemption will ultimately produce not only individual believers destined for heaven, but a whole new heaven and a new earth in which we will eternally reside! The old things will pass away, and the new things, including the physical and social things, will be made new.

For more, check out Dr. Hall's 2010 book, The Cat & The Toaster, Living System Ministry in a Technological Age. Copies are available at the EGC office in Boston at a reduced price (walk-in only, no shipping available).