We had a liberating discussion this week. Friends were sharing a common feeling that we often can’t work out what to do in a situation. Despite bringing all our intellectual ability to try to determine causes and then seek for ways to overturn bad situations or promote good ones, we often feel incapable in charting a way forward, resulting in us feeling like failures for our inability to get it right.

Then helpfully we discussed the Cynefin framework. This framework recognizes that everyone has a complex past history, made up of many influences from many different sources. This means that sometimes finding the best way forward is impossible.

Without going into details, the Cynefin framework breaks systems that exist into domains. The categories of domains are determined by how easy it is to understand what makes them work. If they are easy to understand then you can work out how to best function in them. If it is impossible to determine how they work, then all you can do is guess what might be the best way forward, notice the impact of your actions and then re-assess if that action is appropriate to continue. 

The Cynefin framework has five domains, but the first four are most applicable to our situations.

Firstly, there is the simple domain where you can easily determine the link between cause and effect. A trivial example is that if I drop a book in a library it makes a noise, so if libraries must be quite, I must not drop the book. In this domain, we observe, categorise what is happening and then respond with best practice. There are many situations in our churches where this is helpful: see a problem, determine it’s cause and eliminate the cause.

The second domain is complicated. Here the cause and effect relationship is not easy to discern, and we need special help to work out what is happening. This domain requires analysis of many variables, as cause and effect is intertwined with other causes and effects. An example is doing a church plant. There are effects on congregation members who remain, on members who go, on the wider community, on finances and many other things. This is where we call in the experts, or seek advice from wise friends inside and outside our congregational setting. Because uncertainty is increased, the best you can hope for is good (not best) practice. This is liberating in a world that only speaks of best practice.

The third domain is complex. This is where you can only see any connection between cause and effect after the event. An example is the debate over mandatory poker machine pre-commitment. Arguments have been mounted on both sides, but the outcome is uncertain. I suspect this is the domain in which much of our innovative ministry lives, and so, as we seek to minister we will probe what might be the right way forward, and then examine the outcomes to see what we have learnt and then respond appropriately. The way to act in this domain is to come up with several ways forward, pick what seems to be the most likely to succeed, do it, examine and question it when evidence is available and decide whether it is appropriate to go to the second option. This way of operating is often scarey, and challenges what we do.

The fourth domain is chaotic. An example is what to do about the civil war in Syria. In this domain someone has to make a call to act, and then you observe what happens and modify as you think appropriate. In a chaotic environment there is much room for doing new things, and one should not feel guilty if they do not succeed.

So what does this mean for our ministry?

1. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up for not always being able to foretell what will happen, nor knowing exactly what to do.
2. We should take responsibility to see if there is a discernable cause and effect, and if there is one to seek good or best practice in our ministry
3. We should be willing to give new things a go, if the domain is complex or chaotic. In these circumstances the easiest thing to do is just to revert to what we once did.
4. We should look for evidence that justifies or speaks against decisions we have made, in order to modify as necessary. After ensuring we think theologically, evidence based practice is something we need to work harder at.